Robin Colbourne

When I was at college, our lecturers used to impress on us RTFQ - Read the _ Question. Reading the question here, it is requesting a design for a simple model which will reliably fly like a whip controlled model. I.e. no motor or elevator control, just dragged around by the arm on the rotating pylon. To achieve this reliably the model needs to be: Stable Robust Stability comes from having a small amount of longitudinal stability, AKA a wing positive incidence and a bit of negative incidence on the tailplane. The model also needs to not dive into the circle. To achieve this, have a small weight on the outboard wing tip to offset the drag of the line, and a line attachment on the inboard wing far enough back that the nose of the model points slightly out of the circle. Robustness comes from having depth in the middle, tapering off towards the extremities. Something like a profile Grumman Panther would fit the bill (have the wheels up). For extra strength at the front, the fuselage could be given both depth and width as seen on indoor radio controlled shock flyer models. The tiptanks will give a bit of strength to the wingtips and also act as skids :

The Sukhoi 26 was flown at the Farnborough Airshow by a female pilot, probably late 1980s or early 1990s. She took it up into a prop hang over the runway, then, still in a prop hang, took it down the length of the runway slowly revolving on its longitudinal axis. The commentator simply said, "Aeroplanes aren't meant to be able to do that". I wish I could find a video of it.

Andrew, Its all about what it means to you. Some models get sold at club bring and buys for pennies. Others get sold to themed pubs and bars for silly money. Frog kits have been out of production for fifty years so you have a piece of history. You could refurbish your SE5a and fly it or keep it 'as is' for a piece of aeromodelling history. The choice is yours.

It looks to me to be control line, not electric round the pole (RTP). RTP models are generally (but not always) controlled with the throttle alone, whilst control line use a bellcrank in the fuselage connecting the lines from the operator's handle to the elevator. By the looks of it, it is the 1960 SE5a Frog Kit. Frog SE5a

If you don't need the full-size plan, there's one here. If you send the seller a message via one of their current listings they would probably re-list it for you. Radio Modeller - January 1984

Piston engined aircraft typically used 50/50 water methanol. On the Vought Corsair, it gave a 20mph increase in true air speed, which is pretty impressive considering that drag goes up as a square of the speed. Horsepower rose from 2,100hp to 2,450hp. The extra power came from the increased supercharger boost permitted by the cooling effect of the water/methanol. The benefit of water turning to steam, (increased cylinder pressure) is largely negated by the latent heat energy taken to turn water from liquid to gas (2 260 000 Joules/kilogram). On a gas turbine, cooling the air passing through it increases the mass airflow and thrust. Water injection in gas turbines

John, you've remindind me of an incident a fellow flier witnessed at Butser Hill once. An aerobatic glider, damaged on a previous flight, had undergone some field repairs with cyano. Once fixed, the pilot picked it up and sprinted down the wet, grassy hill, model in one hand, transmitter in the other, and gave the model a hefty lob. Only the glider did not leave his cyano covered hand... The net result being the chap, with model stuck to one hand and transmitter in the other, went somersaulting down the hill leaving a trail of wreckage behind him.

If you have access to a pillar drill, find a drill the size of the existing hole in the backplate and a drill of the size to which you want to enlarge it. Use the smaller drill to align the backplate, then clamp the backplate down. Remove the drill and then drill through with the larger drill. Better still, enlarge the hole with incrementally with all the intermediate drill sizes you have between the initial and final drills. With regard to the shaping the spinner itself, either a coarse sanding drum in the Dremel, a rotary burr or a round and half round file will work. My preferred method is to remove metal from where the prop leading edge goes, so the prop is winding into the spinner as you remove material. As you are probably aware, you must have clearance (about 0.5mm) between the spinner and prop, otherwise you will get fretting on the prop and the risk of a blade coming off. If your spinner backplate is lightened with cutouts and has spokes, be careful when applying an electric starter to the spinner, as it is possible to push to hard and distort the backplate.

Good idea JD8. I'm sure they would discover a larger IC trainer a lot easier to fly than foamies that cover their own length far too rapidly.

Reading David Davis's thread 'Aeromodelling at Seventy Four', about scaling back on his aeromodelling, got me thinking. Primary reasons for R/C fliers giving up flying are failing eyesight and slower reactions. Initially larger models help them with the former, and slower models with the latter. There comes a time though, when, at some point in the circuit, one realises that it was largely luck that oneself and one's model through a moment of disorientation. Like model flying, full-size gliding has a rapidly increasing average age amongst its participants. The solution has been for the more elderly experienced pilots to fly with younger ones, so as a team there is the combined benefits of years of experience from the older pilot when flying cross-country and the eyesight and reactions of the younger pilot for situational awareness. Even Derek Piggott, the renowned instructor, stunt pilot and author flew with a safety pilot in his later years. We already have buddy boxes for training, so maybe its time we should consider it normal to use them as a means to keep older fliers flying safely, so they can remain active and valued members of our clubs?

CorradoMatt, the articles you need will be in the June & July 1994 issues of Radio Control Scale Aircraft magazine. I can't see any issues advertised at the moment. You may be better off searching for bundles of the magazines that happen to include those issues visible in the pictures, than looking for the the particular issues by themselves. Vortex Vacforms list an Ultimate Canopy (CN 94). Vortex Vacforms - Canopies If this is the DB Ultimate it should yield the parts and article you need: Part-built Ultimate on Ebay

On the Airbus A380 a material called GLARE (Glass Laminate Aluminum Reinforced Epoxy) was first used. This is an aluminium/fibreglass/aluminium laminate. You could do something similar for your fairing by using an aluminium that is thin enough (takeaway food container thickness) to form over your existing component, then doing the same again over the top of it and bonding the two together with 24 hour epoxy. The end result will be stiff, without the difficulty of forming material the thickness of lithoplate. With regard to a filler for your existing plastic component, epoxy mixed with sawdust works well. You will be surprised just how much you can add, and as it starts to appear too 'dry' (too much sawdust), warm it with a hairdrier to make it wet out. Adding a balsa or ply dam at the rear of the fairing to stop the mix running out. Then with the fairing mounted inverted on a support, so the lower edge is horizontal, add the filler and gently warm the fairing so the epoxy sawdust mix runs in and reduces in viscosity on contact with the plastic. It is well worth keying the plastic with Scotchbrite or sandpaper first if you can.

Maybe small magnets would be a better answer? Possibly combined with a short peg into a blind hole to give positive location?

kc, surely the whole point of the Panic struts on poppers is to allow them to safely separate in the kind of rough and tumble landings that Panics experience when the owner doesn't get it quite right? The inboard struts do of course look better, but they will rip the wing open in a heavy landing.

This is the issue: QFI March 2013 - on Ebay

One company at which I worked made the fuel gauging tubes for airliner fuel tanks. These had circular plastic brackets to attach the tubes to the wing ribs and the brackets had to be stretched over the tubes. A lot broke when being put on, so I went to see the supplier. It turned out that an annealing stage which would stress relieve the bracket and stop it snapping was being missed. Putting the Panic kit's plastic hardware in boiling water for 20 minutes should stress relieve the parts, increasing their moisture content and robustness. If in doubt though, replace with parts from a reputable supplier.

I'm really appreciating and enjoying all your responses. Cuban8 has raised a good point, particularly as one of our club sites is quite sensistive, with a couple of outside bodies taking an interest in what we get up to. I'm thinking that the best approach to this is to put a written plan of the proposed events before the committee and our own site representatives in particular, to make sure we can run these events both safely and without upsetting the outside bodies. The last thing we would want is to organise the event and get it vetoed on the competition day. With planning, imagination and a bit of lateral thinking, I'm sure most objections could be worked around.

Jon, the 'Ode to the Tail Dragger' could have been written for the Precedent Flyboy! Do you remember it? It should have been called the Oozlum Bird. 😀

Thank you for all the responses and the really great ideas so far. Jon, your taxiing competition sounds a great one for the the pre-A test members; well, in fact all the members! Some might actually leave knowing what that stick on the left is for by the end of the day! Paul, the one design 'cheap and cheerful' event(s) are a really great idea. I had been thinking of a pylon race for 40 size trainers (restricting engines to for instance ASP, SC & Magnum 40s), but something that uses a cheap brushless setup and the most common size of battery as you have would be a bit more up to date and probably get more members involved. An idea that came to me over breakfast is a high level limbo competition for less experienced fliers. If you had two streamers betweeen poles and flew between them, it would be a bit more survivable than using the ground as the lower limit. Brian and ED, The single channel spot landing event sounds good. I saw the one for single channel designs at Old Warden in September and it inspired me. Definitely one for the list. Ron, I look forward to hearing how your comps go, and will share any ideas that come along. Keep the ideas and experiences coming please!

Having probably rather foolishly volunteered as our competition organiser at this evening's AGM, I'm looking for inspiration for as many different competitions as possible. We have a mix of IC, electric and glider fliers plus abilities that range from 'under instruction' to B Certificate. There are some builders, but the majority fly ARTFs. Competitions that have already been tried include thermal and electric soaring duration, fun fly (Limbo Dancer type models) and scale. I'm looking for competitions that as many members of the club as possible can compete in. Not necessarily with their own model, maybe small teams or even building and flying something a bit like scrapheap challenge. If beginners can compete on the buddy box, even better. What have you tried? What works? Do you have any ideas for novel events? Please fire away!

Why not email the Royal Canadian Air Force Museum? If they don't know the answer regarding the colour scheme, they might bew in contact with an expert who does. This page has the names of the people to contact Royal Canadian Air Force Memorial Museum Ms Georgiana Stanciu, the curator, would be the person to contact. Email: [email protected]

What mode do they fly? If everyone is mode 2 (throttle on the left) and you buy a mode 1 transmitter, you may have trouble finding an instructor to help you. What are the main flying days? Is there a waiting list to join? If you were able to commit to only flying on the quieter days, they may make an exception for you. I joined a club to fly at when working away in the week, and as I wouldn't be flying there at weekends, their busy time, they let me in. Expect a good grilling yourself. A club that has gone to great lengths to secure a place to fly will be looking for responsible people who care about the club and the site as much as they do. Not all modellers are the epitomy of tact and diplomacy, so if some of the questions appear rude or unnecessarily intrusive, then cut them a bit of slack and just be polite. Find out what they expect from you. Clubs don't run themselves, and working parties fixing the access track, gates, fences etc. or a spell on the committee may be expected in due course.

Simon, I look forward to reading about the build and flying of yours.

You're welcome Simon. Maybe electric is the way to go, as you could launch the model then open the throttle once its away. An Eagle style undercarriage would allow takeoffs, or perhaps having a rod which you hold which fits in the keel tube would allow it to fly off the rod when held from behind, so the prop is already ahead of you?

Aeromodeller July 1980 is the one you want. Ebay - July 1980 Aeromodeller I'm pretty sure I met the chap flying a smaller free flight version with a Mills 0.75 at Chobham Common a few months previously.