Robin Colbourne

Maybe it was a error at the printer and nobody at Pegasus noticed? Its easy to have the scale at something other than 100%. One place I worked had a huge open plan office with all the printers in the centre. Someone decided to print out an ebay listing, but sent it to the A0 plotter by mistake. What should have been about five pages of A4 was about twenty feet of paper on the floor. No one was in a hurry to claim it. 🙂

Clearly its not only Mars bars and Toblerones that have suffered from 'Shrinkflation' then.

sfbm, You could be on to a winner here! Looks like most of the bits you need.

I can only assume that they approached from the side, as I can't see how the bonnet and headlight were damaged but not the car windscreen. Flour bombing competitions were a popular flying club activity in those days; probably not with moving targets though.

Thank you Pete Christy and Engine Doctor for your info and recommendations. The ASP 30FS in question is very clean and probably unflown, so I rather doubt it has a stuck ring, although anything is possible.

One thing that I find helps with a neckstrap is to have a magnetic coupling between the strap and the transmitter. This allows me to hold the transmitter close to the neckstrap and it connects itself. Messing around with spring clips can take both hands and much waving of the transmitter around, thus increasing the risk of inadvertant throttle movement. At the other end of the flight, a sharp pull separates transmitter and neckstrap.

Pete, Before you wrote this last message, I was thinking of asking you about the ASP 30FS. I have been trying to get one running, to go in a Junior 60 I bought at Old Warden, but finding it a real struggle. Like you I have an OS20FS, which, with its choke lever I found pretty easy to start. I've read differing reviews about the ASP. Some say flick start only, others say an electric starter can be used. I have had a few bursts out of it but it seems to have very little compression, and doesn't want to start unless primed in the exhaust (which I consider is risking hydraulic lock). Also what fuel do you use in your ASP? Specifically what % nitromethane and what % synthetic and %castor, if any?

Bryan, I wasn't aware of Davies Charlton putting serial numbers on their engines, so I suspect the engine is a fairly early one. According to this Model Aircraft test report on Sceptreflight, the Merlin appeared around January 1955 (another article states that the Merlin first appeared in October 1954). As it has always been one of the cheapest diesels available and produced for thirty years or so, the quantities produced would have been huge by UK model engine standards. There is more on the DC History here by Adrian's Model Engines

My first set, (Fleet 2+1) didn't have a facility for a neckstrap and nor did the Futaba FPT-5L (L Series) that came after it. I did make my own neckstrap bracket for it and started using it, but still flew thumbs (some times the sharp knurled end of the stick would actually draw blood in more stressful moments 😄 ). A trip to the R/C Hotel in Corfu in 2001 and some helicopter lessons with the Norwegian instructor there, led to me changing to the pinch grip which I have used ever since. The neckstrap reduces the load and stress in one's hands, which in turn reduces the tenseness in one's fingers, thus allowing a lighter grip on the sticks. The position of ones fingers in the pinch hold to some extent allows the pilot to feel where the sticks are in the gimbals and feel when the sticks are centred. One of the major problems for beginners and to some extent more experienced flyers flying 'thumbs', is that they make inadvertent inputs with the axial pressure from their thumbs on the sticks, which causes the sticks not to be centred when the flyer thinks they are.

Pete Christy, that is a very attractive Frog Jackdaw you have there. Considering how early the Frog Jackdaw was released (1960), it was really quite an advanced model for the day; well, at least having the four channel option was. Given that it preceded both Keil Kraft's Super 60 (1961) and David Boddington's Tyro (1966) and Tyro Major (1973), it appears to have set the trend for the shape of all of them. As I understand it, the Frog model aircraft and engine production was shut down more or less overnight to make way for Cindy Doll production, as Cindy was seen as a far more lucrative product, to compete with Mattel's Barbie. Bear that in mind if you're ever considering giving either Cindy or Barbie cockpit room in your model!

The Olympian 40 was made in Greece as its name alludes. The manufacturer exhibited them at one of the Sandown model shows in the mid 1990s, and certainly sold a few, as a father and son I instructed at the time had one each. The Olympian 40 used proper balsa wood and western Solarfilm-type covering as opposed to the brittle wood and split-prone covering of the Far Eastern competitors. When the father & son moved on to more advanced models, they gave me one of the Olympian 40s, which is still up in my attic somewhere. As others have suggested, go to a club and talk to people with some experience. Many clubs have a club trainer model which will allow you to start learning to fly without the pressure to get your model flying first. It doesn't look like there is much wrong with your model, however you do need a modeller experienced with wooden structures and engines (as opposed to plastic foam models and electric motors) to give it a thorough check over and guide you through the tasks to make it airworthy. There is a Youtube video of an Olympian 40 having its maiden flight here. Note that the main undercarriage on that model needs bending down. You don't want a tricycle undercarriage model sitting with the nose up in the air like that. It will make a smooth landing much more difficult. Can you give a rough geographical idea of where you are, so we can point you to suitable clubs? There may even be someone on this forum in a club near you.

This video covers torque reaction, spiralling slipstream, precession and assymetric thust. It was the thought of spiralling slipstream hitting one side of the fin, that lead me here, but any of these could play a part.

Could it be the torque from the motor/propeller which assists the anticlockwise roll, hinders the clockwise roll? Maybe try starting with a dive, throttle back to say half throttle (to reduce the torque effect from the motor) and then try the clockwise roll? Let us know your findings.

I bought the Prolux iron with the LCD display for work, and was so impressed with it I bought myself one. I can't say how long they will last, but the one I bought for work was in use most days and didn't give any trouble.

Its worth typing in 'Wot 4' on Facebook Marketplace, there is usually a good selection to be had.

The Ruskin Air Services Dakota made the cover of the 1982 Radio Control Scale Aircraft:

Great to see the DB Dakota back in the air. I have a real soft spot for them; partly as my mother used to fly in the Fairey Air Surveys one as an aerial photographer, and also I hada flight in the one my department at RAE Farnborough used to use for testing infrared linescan equipment before we flew it on our XRAE2 UAV. Parts of the Airline TV series are on Youtube, including some good Dakota shots Airline Episode 1

Maybe they price the fuel when they make a batch? The low oil is a new batch and the high oil the last of the old batch? You could always buy some of the high oil content fuel, do the calcs and add straight methanol. If you use nitromethane, start with the higher percentage so the numbers end up at what you want.

More here from Adrian Duncan on the ETA 29. This cutaway view shows how the crankshaft pictured was lurking inside the bobbin prop driver and split collet.

I can't edit the above, however some searching has revealed the ETA 29 glow engine which shares all the main features of the first engine pictured. The notable difference is tha the ETA 29 has its name on the front of the crankcase casting, so maybe the one pictured is a prototype?

The transverse fins on the glow suggest it was used in a tethered car (or just fitted incorrectly at some stage. It has a lot of McCoy Redhead 60 and Nordec 60 styling cues, however I can't find either that have all the features of the engine shown (the parallel front bearing housing, for example). The diesel is very Oliver Jaguar-like. There is a Raylite Jaguar which is similar, but I cannot find pictured, and the Rustler Jaguar and Lynx replicas of the Oliver, but neither have the parallel then tapered front bearing housing. This article on the Rustler Cheetah & Lynx has more info.

nastm, If you scarf in a number of narrower pieces across the break, you can get a much shallower angle that trying to do it all in one go and the overall length of the repair doens't need to be any longer. For extra strength, given this is a funfly, you could add BBQ skewer struts between the fin and tailplane leading edges, and the same for the trailing edges. I'm 100% with you on the idea of making models modular. Its a lot easier to replace one bolt-on component than to try and repair part of a bulky structure that is difficult to jig. Models that break down small are also less likely to pick up 'hangar rash' at home and in the car.

Martin, I've tried that in the past, however the inside of the black glass-filled mounts (SLEC & Radio-Active) tends to be fairly crumbly and the machine screws eventually pulled out. The red mounts appear to be pure nylon so may fair better. If they are pure nylon, boiling the mount may improve the grip in the holes if the stsrt to go slack. If one boils used nyloc nuts it tends to swell the nylon insert back to near its original unused form.

You're welcome Dave. I'm struggling too re-reading what I wrote. Clearly when I type late at night I seem to forget about punctuation. 😄 All I can say is that I knew what I meant when I was writing it!