Robin Colbourne

Rich, I'm not sure whether you are referring to the P-47 Thunderbolt or the A-10 Thunderbolt II, however the latter was designed to be able to lose an outer wing panel and half a tailplane and fin and keep flying. There is also the Israeli F-15 Eagle which lost most of one wing, yet landed successfully (albeit a little faster than usual):

The centre of gravity changes as the fuel tank empties. Particularly when you drain the fuel and forget that there is a tank in the fin:

There is the designer's intended centre of gravity position, or range, and the actual centre of gravity position. If you want the aircraft to fly efficiently and controllably, you ensure the actual centre of gravity position is within the designer's recommended centre of gravity range; usually by adding or removing weight from the extremities.

2.5TD or V8?

Paul, I'm going to frame that and put it in my modelling room with a caption, "Normal modeller behaviour - Live with it!" I've just shown my girlfriend your picture, and her comment was, "At least he keeps them all in one room". To avoid a fight, can you please assure me that you have other rooms that look similar? 😄

I've not seen that before. In some cases his suggested offers sound more than generous, e.g. old 35MHz gear. From talking to someone who was involved in buying up job losts in the recent past, there are people who buy up the smaller items as job lots and then split them up, but it is a lot of hard work for not much reward. When you see the pittance that even quite nice models, engines and radios go for at club auctions it shows what a parsimonous bunch we all are. Added to that a lot of modellers are cautious by nature and with the possibilities for hidden faults with the hardware, if they haven't thoroughly tested something, they err towards no rather than yes.

Scalemates is a very handy site for finding out the age of plastic kits. A lot of kits were produced by different manufacturers who passed the same moulds around between them and Scalemates lets you check this.

The thing I thought was odd was not the re-listing, but the repricing at £500 when it had clearly started at £17 or less, previously.

The odd thing is that pink_lion sold the same Irvine 40 on 30 October for £17. Something odd going on! Irvine 40 sold on 30 October

Given that Tracy Emin sold her Tent as art for £12000, the seller should come up with a back story about what his Irvine 40 and rustic test stand represents and see if the Tate Gallery are interested. I though the dust encrusted Phoenix Classic Trainer that I bought, with a bramble growing through the wing (retrieved from a derelict shed that was being demolished) had some artistic value. I was going to offer it entitled, 'Abandoned Hobby'. In addition to its general decreptitude, I thought the colour scheme covered in rivets, access panels and such like was so truly awful it needed preserving.

Andy, the loss of thrust and the drag from an engine which is now acting solely as an airbrake. It is one of the reasons that aircraft need such large fins and rudders, as the rudder must create enough yaw into towards the good engine to maintain straight and level flight. In turn, holding on that rudder creates drag, which requires more thrust and more rudder. At least the Junkers Ju-52 could go to max power on the centreline engine and just enough to maintain height on the remaining one. The Gloster Meteor, and to a lesser extent the English Electric Canberra, were notorious for requiring so much rudder when flying on one engine that many pilots simply didn't have sufficient strength to hold the aircraft straight.

The outward thrustlines are just about perceptible in this picture too:

That is correct. It helps with the engine out condition on the full size. The Short Sunderland is another multi engine aircraft upon which this is very noticeable.

Cliff, can you give us some clues please? The wingspan, construction, power (IC/Electric/Brushed/Brushless) plus some shots of the internals and undercarriage will all help the sleuths on here. This VMAR one looks a possibility. If you go to the link and click on the arrow to the right of the righthand picture, you can see more shots of the model in the military colour scheme. I suspect the EADS colour scheme was chosen as it is German and military but without the fin swastika that wartime colour schemes would have had. VMAR Junkers Ju-52 "Iron Annie"

Getting the maximum tension on the band at the front dowel to prevent leading edge lift makes sense. This will be contentious, but in my view is all bands should be fore/aft and not diagonal. The reason we band wings on is to allow the wing to move or come off in the event of a cartwheel (wingtip/nose/other wingtip/tail - type of arrival). If the bands are diagonal then the bands are very unlikely to come off when the wing twists in an 'arrival' and the bands are more likely to cut into the leading and trailing edges. If the dowels are short and there is a risk of the bands slipping off (particularly on an engine powered model on which the bands can get oily) then having the last bands diagonally works, as the diagonal bands will pop off when the wing twists. The ARC (later Thunder Tiger) Ready, seen below, had a single wing bolt holding the wing on, with the bolt just behind the thickest part of the wing. It allowed the wing to twist either way, snapping the nylon bolt in a really heavy arrival. This, perhaps with the addition of some magnets for consistent wing alignment, particularly with flat bottom aerofoils, seems a far better way of doing things than large numbers of bands that take ages to fit and remove.

kc mentioned the Robbe Progo earlier. Well blow me if there isn't one on Facebook Marketplace: Robbe Progo in Ballymena It was the D-EMIL registration that gave it away to me.

Well spotted Gary! I really hope Masher gets this one. We really should have a thread, "Hidden classics spotted in ads".

Masher, I think its perfectly normal to look back at the time you were learning to fly and want to revisit the models from the time of which you have the fondest memories. I can also see that if you didn't find success with the Super Fly then, to have another one and fly it successfully would be 'closure', for want of a better word.

The Waterhouse and Ely Superfly had a distinctive wire main undercarriage with a spreader/stiffener bar part way down the main legs joining one to the other. The New Yamamoto had an alloy undercarriage. The New Yamamoto was 56" span (1422mm). There was a later version of called the Yamamoto 1600, which presumably had a wing stretch to address the "too fast & too heavy" complaints. MFA also made a semi-scale Cessna Skylane which was 48" span, also with a fibreglass fuselage and foam wing. Despite its small size, four channels wiht standard size servos and relatively heavy construction, it was a good flyer. Mine had either an OS Max 20 or 25, (the old plain bearing loop scavenged version) and it seemed about right. Masher, I do agree from looking at the pictures, that what you had was a Waterhouse & Ely Super Fly. They do appear on Facebook Marketplace and Ebay from time to time, even if they aren't identified as more than 'R/C Plane'. If I see any advertise I will post them here in case you decide that itch does need scratching. 😄

Some close ups and other shots of the same 1945 Farnborough display here: Captured and late wartime British aircraft at Farnborough 1945

Geoff S, yes, you're right its amazing what the servos will tolerate, and transport and hangar rash probably account for most mechanical failures. Crashes and heavy landings aside, I expect flutter-induced vibration is probably the next biggest servo life reducer. Strain relief is an area which gets very little attention. I do wonder whether tiny receivers are better off sitting in a bundle of servo wires than being more rigidly mounted these days.

It does seem common these days not to receive grommets with small servos. The crazy thing is that from my experience with environmental testing on industrial shakers, it is the higher frequencies of vibration that kills electronic components, whereas the lower frequencies are what destroy mechanical (gears, cases, bearings) and electrical parts (motors, wiring, connectors). Electric models still produce the higher frequencies from out of balance props at higher rpms whereas the torque reversal as an engine at low revs comes up against compression, then fires produce the lower frequencies. I use the little bits of hardish foam that come between glazing panels to make pads to put either side of the servo mounting flange on servos supplied without grommets.

Finding this thread has confirmed for me that the aeroplane bottom right in this picture of the Royal Aircraft Establishment in late 1945, is a Spiteful:

See below to get it from the horse's, or rather, Futaba's, mouth (Page 33). I guess this is aimed at cars or helicopters, hence the machine screws and nuts. In the days when most servos were the same size and they lived near the centre of gravity, I liked the supplied plastic servo trays for rudder, elevator and throttle servos (sometimes the switch too).