Robin Colbourne

Not quite the same, but one of the policies beloved of manufacturing companies is 5S's, a Japanese organizational method, which roughly translates to Sort, Set in order, Shine, Standardize and Sustain. Whilst the basic principle is good, it is often badly managed by over-enthusiastic and inexperienced factory managers or their minions with chaotic results. HOWEVER, if you have a garage or home workshop to equip, '5S's events' as they like to call them, are manna from heaven 🤗. As the place gets reorganised, all sort of stuff ends up in the 'red tag' area; from where, if not claimed for reuse by another department, the next stop is the skip. At this point either for a 'free issue pass' or a nominal sum, the unwanted articles can be heading home to their new life. Industrial shelves, A floor-standing pillar drill and several vacuum pumps have ended up in my garage this way 😁.

Sitting in the scrap aluminium wheelie bin between the skips at the tip, I once found a 5cc Sparey petrol engine. Fortunately our county is one of the enlightened ones that allow the people running the place to sell stuff. Thinking about it, when I was about 12, I found a Veron Bomb Bat control line model in small pieces at a different tip. Having stuck carefully reassembled the bits and recovered the wing, it was the first control line model that I looped and flew inverted.

Thanks Colin for the clarification of Sundays early finish. I think it was explained over the tannoy, but I only caught part of it. Completely understandable, and I certainly wasn't aggrieved. One of your Spitty squadron kindly sent me links to the plans. A great bunch of guys!

I went on Sunday and had a thoroughly good time. Still lots of choice on the secondhand stalls and some superb flying. The show seemed to stop rather abruptly before the last Spitty dogfight. I heard that it was because of the wind increasing, however I expect everyone was sunburnt and tired, so ready for home. The organisers and stall holders were all very friendly, plus the golf buggy drivers went out of their way to be helpful to my 91 year old friend with poor mobility and eyesight.

I rather think I should have checked the date on the OP's post first. RTFQ, as I was saying! 😂

The Jeemo gas turbine powered glider is worth a look. Very clean aerodynamically (for speed) and a high aspect ratio wing, less prone to dynamic stalling in turns, than short-winged jets.

HI Michael, Welcome to the forum! Having been involved in aeronautical engineering projects at college myself, be realistic about what can be achieved in the 90 days you have available. 1. Make contact with experienced jet and aerobatic modellers (groups on Facebook, talk to pilots at shows (not when they are busy) or go to your model club meetings in your local area). 2. Get a small and cheap accelerometer/datalogger from Aliexpress and see if any pilots would be willing to fit it in their aircraft. You may find some who have done that already. This will give you real world data for a benchmark. Keep this quiet as its is likely the other teams won't have done this. 3. Once you know what is currently being achieved, you will have a better idea of how much of an advance if any, you need to make. 4. Keep it simple. Better to have a simple project that you see to completion than a complex design whcih gets bogged down in the minutae. E.g. A simple, single fixed faired wheel as on the MDM Fox glider will save you a lot of weight and structure, or even have a skid and fire it off a UAV launcher. 5. Recommended reading: Model Aircraft Aerodynamics - Martin Simons Design of the Aeroplane - Darroll Stinton Flight without Formulae - A.C. Kermode Aircraft Performance & Design - John Anderson Mike's Jet Book -Mike Cherry Designing and building Composite R/C Model Aircraft - Jack Lambie 6. Ask the jet modellers who have tried it, if thrust vectoring is worth the hassle. It may help to reach the desired turn rate. I don't know. 7. Set yourself realistic goals, listen to your project manager. The first generation jets you have been encouraged to study (leaving out the twins with engines on wings as they are extra hassle), are the Gloster 'Whittle' E28/39, Bell XP-59 Airacomet, Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star, Heinkel He-178, He-162 'Salamander', De Havilland Vampire/Venom, Supermarine Attacker, Hawker Seahawk. All have conventional wing/fuselage/tail layouts and unswept wings. The wings are tapered both in plan and chord for strength, so in these respects they are not unlike a modern day aerobatic aircraft except for engine placement. WIth regard to the engine, fuel system and engine management system, I wouldn't waste too much time on this. Ask someone with a model using a system of the size you need why they chose each part and why they work well together (e.g. reliability, performance, ease of use, availability, price), and just use that info. A few of thoughts to keep in mind: 'Perfection is the enemy of good' - Going after perfect may cost you time you don't have, so you can't complete the project. As they say in motor racing, "To finish first, you first have to finish.' 'KISS' - Keep it Simple, Stupid!' ...and the one one our lecturer always impressed on us, RTFQ - Read The Flipping Question!'

RAF Hendon went to great lengths to get their Fokker DVII accurate when it was restored, so if you copy what they have on theirs you wouldn't go far wrong. There is no shortage of pictures of it on the net.

I can't help thinking of this:

Any briushes that don't shed bristles. I seemed to spend ages picking bristles off nearly cured dope on top of tissue.

THe one thing that appears to be missing is some sort of porous breather film layer. The idea of this is that any surplus resin goes through it and is absorbed in a to a suitably absorbant material on the other side of it. If this isn't done, then the glass cloth (and veneere are floating randomly in a pool of incompressible resin under the polythene film. The breather film can be a purpose made film similar to the stuff that comes around baguettes and has micro perforations in it, or it can be a piece of plain polythene on which you make the perforations yourself. The latter was what we used when repairing a full-size glider fuselage. The other improvisation we did was to use the cheapest and nastiest absorbent toilet paper (not Izal!) to soak up the resin on the outboard side of the breather film. Maybe some micro perforations in the veneer would help?

On the P-38 Lightning the propeller rotation was changed after the prototype crashed, so there is something to be said for 'suck it and see.' Castoring nose or tailwheels are for masochists only. If your twin has a central rudder, then a linkage to that with a spring inbetween would be the first choice, otherwise a servo for the tailwheel steering again with something inbetween to take out landing and 'hangar rash' knocks. Having the pivot for the tailwheel leg canted forward like a bicycle handlebar stem reduces the likelihood of shimmy, with the ridge on each side of the tyre as per the DH Mosquito & Avro Lancaster is the ultimate solution.

There is of course a way of running a two stroke 40 that will turn a big prop... 😃

Phil, I wasn't suggesting that one was done intentionally to clear the heather, however it does help when done properly. When I used to fly free flight at Chobham Common next to the M3 in Surrey, the Ranger encouraged the users of the common to join in clearing the pines and silver birches. If left to get too tall, the saplings were a hazard to models; so of all the common users, the modellers were by far the most enthusiastic puller-uppers of the young trees. They would all be gathered into a big heap in the centre of the common for the Ranger to do a controlled burn mid-week. Needless to say, one year the controlled burn wasn't quite as controlled as the Ranger intended, and he was the one that set the common alight... 😂

Several reasons, as Paul says, it will sound right for a start, a screaming two stroke on an Edwardian-style aeroplane is a bit incongruous. Other reasons are that a four stroke is better for swinging a big prop. For maximum efficiency at low speeds you want to move a large diameter of air backwards just a bit faster than the aeroplane is going forwards. As the Elder 40 isn't going to be screaming around the sky like a pylon racer, that means big diameter/low pitch. A bit like auxilary outboards on yachts, the low geared British Seagull turning a large diameter prop is a better bet for moving a largish boat than a having small prop spinning at high revs. Another reason is that a lot of these models of First World War and earlier aircraft turn out to be tail heavy, and rather than adding lumps of church roof (lead), you might as well have that extra weight in the form of a more appropriate engine. One last thing is that four stroke silencers are a lot smaller, so you won't have a big metal lump ruining your model's appearance.

Whilst it is sad for the wildlife directly affected, the burning of heather heathland is beneficial for limiting the spread of gorse and invasive species such as silver birch and scot's pine. Clearly it is better that it is done in a controlled manner than wind-driven wildfires.

Cuban8, I fully agree with you that a fourstroke would be a better bet, however that was not the question Adsjking was initially asking. Its a little like the anecdote of someone in rural Ireland asking the way to the capital, only to be told. "If I were going to go to Dublin, I wouldn't start from here." The Thunder Tiger 46Pro is a very nice engine, so if Adsjking already has one in nice condition, he may well be able to do a good part exchange for a .40 to .52-size four stroke.

Thunder TIger's own recommendations are a 10x6 or 10x7 for the TT 46pro, However as yours is a slower flying model, maybe an 12x5 or a 13x4 would be better. Sceptreflight haven't got an engine test for the Thunder Tiger 46Pro, however they do for the Tower Hobbies 46BB, which is going to be pretty similar. I would be aiming for around 10,000rpm. A finer pitch prop will get the model off the ground more quickly and give a better climb rate, whereas a coarser pitch prop will allow lower revs in straight and level flight, so the model will be quieter.

There is a lot of fuss made about the USA being the largest market for R/C models and equipment, however it would be interesting to see a bar chart showing by just how much this is. Other countries have larger populations, and with the increase of the standard of living in South East Asian countries, they must be fast catching up on the US. This article suggests the worldwide market in 2022 was worth US$6.2 billion in 2023, and at the time of its writing it was projected to reach US$10.8 billion in 2032. The war in Ukraine must have increased the sales of hobby items that find their way into the huge number of drones being used there, whilst at the same time the negative effect on the global economy of the war will have hit hobby sales to some extent. Edit: If this article is to be believed, the US hobby R/C market is only US$ 228 million, which sounds a bit low as a percentage of the US$6.2 billion above.

Has anyone any idea what the effect wil be on us, of tariffs on imports to the UK by American companies e.g Horizon Hobby, if the products themselves come straight from China to their UK distributor (in Horizon's case, Logik RC)? I suppose the other question is whether the European/British end of US companies be treated, either now or in the future, as separate entities?

There are UK supplied calibation tools for around £355 from the Castle Group and from Aliexpress for around the £100 mark. Companies such as Calibrate.co.uk would calibrate yours for you. Do you have a local amateur radio club, or a member with contacts in one? I find amateur radio people to be pretty well equipped with all sorts of test gear.

The use of Loctite type products on models runs the risk of it getting onto plastic parts. This can cause them to get stress cracks and break up. I realise the servo in question was 'all metal', however it is quite possible that nylon hinges and control horns could be used and get contaminated. This is what Loctite themselves say on their 648 Retaining Compound technical data sheet: This control horn on the right is from one of my own models, showing what the effect is. This fell apart when refurbishing the model for use after a number of years out of service As I recall, Loctite had been used on the metal clevis thread: Loctite do make plastic-safe threadlocking compound (Loctite 425), however, it is cyanoacrylate.

It sounds like it missed out on a degreasing process, there was some sort of contamination in the area or simply a bad batch of paint. As Christopher says, contact the retailer, its there job to sort this out. There was a case some years ago when composite helicopter rotors were delaminating in flight. It turned out that there had been a mosquito problem in the factory and a pest controller had sprayed liberally insecticide around the plant one night between production shifts. This had settled on the part-made rotor blades and acted as a release agent, preventing the layers from bonding properly.

All two part epoxies will benefit from post-curing for 12 hours at 60°C+ to raise the glass transition temperature (the temperature at which it will go soft again), If its not practical to put it in an oven or hot box, then in the attic under the South facing roof is a good alternative. Often the stickiness felt is uncured epoxy, from not getting the adhesive/hardener ratio spot on. As epoxies rely on the two parts having a chemical reaction, if there is more than one part than the other, the surplus will have nothing to react with and remain uncured. Precision weighing scales available cheaply on ebay that will measure to 0.1g make getting the right proportions a lot easier than in the past. Regarding post-curing, I was responsible for qualifying an epoxy glass heatshield for the fuel metering unit on a Rolls-Royce Trent engine. Not only was it glass fibre, it also had a silver-loaded epoxy coating on the inside. One test was 250°C for 5 hours to simulate a burst bleed air duct. We were expecting the heatshield to be quite badly damaged on the outside by this. In the event, it came out better in all respects than it went in. It was stronger and had better conductivity through the silver-loaded epoxy.

I'm a few years late to the game on the avoidance manouvre, but having just attended a lecture by the local area's BMFA reps, and been told about this, it raised a few questions for me. The scenario described by the BMFA reps was of an unexpected hazard on the runway. This could be child on a bicycle, a horse rider, or a fellow modeller who set out to retrieve his model without checking that no one was landing (accidents are always a case of the holes in the Swiss cheese lining up, so we've got to assume that all the precautions we usually take to avoid any of these scenarios from occurring, have already failed). What really concerned me, was the idea that the pilot, with a hazard out of sight to him, might slam the throttle open, thus making a bad situation potentially much worse. A horse or a small child on bicycle could be alarmed by the sudden noise, and with the motor or engine will have gone from very low rpm to potentially full thottle, the propeller is suddenly a whole lot more hazardous if it were to contact anything. Another issue is, in a real world scenario, at the end of a flight, an engine low on fuel could lean cut if suddenly pushed to full throttle, or an electric model with a largely depleted battery may not give the thrust expected, so the manoeuvre also needs to put the model where it will do minimal damage if it did dead stick, or just not climb. Reading the actual wording of the 'B' test document, it turns out that the story is rather different. It does describe 'turning to an angle of 30 to 45 degrees away from the flight line' and taking the model back up to circuit height 'with appropriate use of the throttle to avoid stalling'. So it is not a case of 'throttle to the wall, yank and bank', as some may have inferred. If the avoidance manoeuvre is really to demonstrate a safe recovery from a potential collision with someone, or something, on the ground, it is imperative that the throttle is only opened when the pilot can clearly see that the area in front of their model is unobstructed. Assuming the pilot keeps their eyes on the model throughout the manoeuvre, this must be after the turn is completed as the model is now heading away from them and the pilt can see ahead of the model. John Farley, the Harrier test pilot, said that practicing for emergencies works only if your actions in the practice are identical to your actions when it happens for real. If the avoidance manoeuvre is going to be of real benefit, instructors need to ensure their pupils fly the manoeuvre correctly and understand the risk their model and their actions pose, and how the sequence of their actions mitigates this - Turn, Look, Power.