Robin Colbourne

The two most common reasons for 'ballooning' are: The excess airspeed to maintain a banked turn is converted into height as the wings are levelled. A stab of down as the wings are levelled will counteract this. When turning into wind, the model's climb rate appears greater to the pilot on the ground as its position relative to him changes more noticeably in the vertical sense than the horizontal sense. Imagine being in a department store walking alongside the escalator. If someone steps onto the escalator at the moment you pass them, then if you keep walking, they go up relative to you, but horizontally maintain position. One thing that doesn't get mention as much as it should in model flying is wind gradient. Full-size glider pilots have this drummed into them all the time as it is a killer. Friction with the ground reduces wind speed as one descends; so one loses energy when descending into slower moving air if flying into wind. If you do an approach dead on stall speed in a strong wind, the aircraft will lose airspeed and stall unless you have a margin in hand. Likewise, if you have to do a dead stick turn close to the ground, You will lose less height completing the turn quickly by flying faster and banking more, than to stretch it round with minimal banking angle and airspeed.

Looking at the engine recommendations on older designs, it seems incredible how small some of the recommended engines are. Even more so when you think that pre-schneurle ported engines were considerably less powerful than more recent offerings plus the servos and receivers were that much heavier. Some examples: MFA Yamamoto - the box says for .19 to .35. Would a Yamamoto get off grass on a .19, or was it expected to be hand-launched? Similar sized models these days would have at least a .40 on them. Flair Puppeteer - Engine recommendations are .25 to 40 two stroke. Has anyone flown one on a .25? Mick Reeves Hurricane (80") The box says a .60 Was it that they were being flown with higher nitromethane content, open exhausts or just a more sedate/marginal flight profile?

If only I lived in Lincolnshire. A Chilli Breeze with engine for a tenner.

Would a small header tank near the engine do the job?

Taking a lateral thinking approach, the objective is to provide a constant pressure fuel supply. Control line pilots achieve this using a pressure filled silicone baby pacifier (teat) filled with fuel. Maybe a balloon pressurising the tank, or a battery driven pump would do the job. Otherwise by a Perry Pump from Ebay when one comes up in the UK.

I just looked there Dave. The website shows out of stock on all the Perry glow pumps.

Hi Richard, would a Perry Pump do the job? These rely on vibration from the engine to pump the fuel. You probably want the VP-20.

The Bixler 2 is a very forgiving model big enough to see, yet flies on a 11.1V 3S 2200mAH battery. Cheap too! If you can find one, the Hobbyking Bushmaster is about the same size as the Arising Star and if you mix a bit of rudder in with the ailerons, flies really nicely.

OS 25FX In near new condition, Very smooth bearings, throttle moves freely This engine came from the estate of an ex-RAF & airline flight engineer. Ideal for a Fun Fighter, this OS 25FX engine turns freely, and is in excellent condition. Although there are signs of it having been run, it is generally very clean. The holes in the mounting bearers and throttle arm all look the original size. There is some paint on the underside of the berarers although this does pick off. Recommended propeller sizes are 9x5, 9x6 or 10x4, 10x5. The new price of the OS 25 FX from Just Engines is £189.60, so this one represents a considerable saving over the new price. The original OS instruction manual for this engine is also included. Collect from Emsworth, Hampshire, or I can post to UK destinations for £4. As someone who collects model aircraft engines himself, I appreciate how important it for the engine to be well protected when in transit, so I will wrap the engine in plenty of bubble wrap and paper before putting it in a taped and glued corrugated cardboard box allowing clearance to protect the projecting parts. This is to ensure it reaches you as it left me. I will be selling a variety of model aircraft, engines and accessories so please check out my other items.

Fascinating stuff Jonathan. Thank you for sharing it with us. I remember seeing David Parkers' article in the Aeromodeller, and some years later going to a lecture by a chap, Dennis Allen, who had been in charge of the unmanned aircraft department at RAE Farnborough, who had also built one after retiring. There is a thread from some years ago which has copies of the original 1967 David Parker articles.

Great find David! Looking through Outerzone looking for the word 'paraso'l in the description yet the Casper didn't come up. I then trawled through the parasols on Wikipedia with no joy.

Welcome Justin! Its good to hear from you. I bought quite a few gallons of fuel from Dave Watts and his family at shows over the years. I was even using some of it this evening. I look forward to buying more fuel from you. Will you be going to the Popham show on 7th/8th September? It is one of the few shows in Central Southern England these days. If you do, I'll pop by and say hello.

Did any of the American distributors actually sell their re-branded engines over here new, or were the ones we see brought over by American servicemen and returning ex-pats and tourists? Royal also did some own-branded engines in the same category.

You're very welcome Stuart. Do please post some photos on here for us all when you get your Irvine Tutor finished and into the air.

There's something very satisfying about getting an old model back in the air. I picked up an old MFA Yamamoto on Ebay the other day for £15. It had been well built but was a bit tired. Two of the S3003 servos didn't work, so I swapped them for a couple of S148s. I think the included Irvine 40 has either a stuck ring of is just clapped out, however the Yamamoto flew at the weekend on an OS35FP. I'll have a look at the servos and engine in due course, just to see if I can get them to work too, although I won't attempt to fly the servos.I Airborne photo courtesy of David Hayward.

Stuart, I had a look in my Irvine Tutor wreck, It has traces of the the triangular gussets and one of the 3" x 1" transverse pieces. Strangely there is no sign of the piece for bonding the throttle snake to though. The red arrows indicate the remains of the gussets. As I said earlier, I think they are for mounting the receiver and/or the battery.

Hi Stuart, Would they be for supporting the tank, battery or receiver? In the MkII Tutor, the small block is for attaching the servo end of the throttle snake, but I can't see the other bits being used in it. See Section 27, right hand photo. If your Tutor is the one with the lilac chequerboard on the underside of the wings and tail, I have one, or rather the wreckage of one up in the roof. When its cool enough I can go and see if I can see those bits. I didn't build mine so they are not bits I would remember.

I use a FlySky FS-i6. They are the same as the Turnigy TGY-i6. They can be buddied with others in the FlySky and Turnigy range. However for simplicity I would stick to the FS-i6, FS-i6X or FS-10X or Turnigy equivalents. The left hand switch on the transmitter is a two position switch. For safety's sake when using it as a master transmitter when buddying, change it to one that has to be held on when letting the pupil have control and springs off when released. Like this (fifth from the left, long lever on/mom)

PatMc, I should have just said bulkhead. I mean the pice of transverse piece of wood at the bottom of the windscreen with the throttle pushrod wire passing through it.

Seeing how the engine bearers don't reach the main bulkhead and the rest of the front is held on to it by presumably, four wood screws, I guess the concern is that after a bit of vibration and oil in the joints, the engine could go off on its own leaving the rest of the airframe behind.

Why not have a browse through Outerzone? Here is an advanced search for all non-scale pushers At the bottom of each model page there is a button for downloading the plan to print off. Although it is not building from scratch, a lot of converted Lidl Expanded Polypropylene (EPP) gliders have been made into pushers. EPP is forgiving and easily repaired, which are both big pluses for a first model. If you have weeks of repairs between flights, progress will be very slow. Really the best advice is to learn on a tough foamie such as a Bixler 2 and build your preferred model to be your second one. I picked up a well battered but very flyable Bixler 2 at the end of one of the Old Warden events. It was complete with six servos, speed controller, motor and prop. All for twenty quid! This is what an unbattered Bixler 2 looks like:

Possible; however Domsalvator is a very eloquent bot if he is one. For now, my money is that he simply lives in a different time zone to the majority of us on here. Time will tell.

Translating the Cyrillic characters on the crankcase, it is AMD, not AME as stated in the ebay listing on Worthpoint. I have seen this error repeated elsewhere. My guess is the A is Alyoshin, as Valentin Alyoshin was the engine designer, the M is Model and D is Dvigatel (engine in Russian). There is an informative thread on the AMD/Norvel engines here I first saw these engines in May 1993 when visiting St Petersburg in an effort to get half-size Mills type diesel engines made. They did send us a prototype, however they then stopped communicating and the next thing I knew was the engine we had specified was being imported and sold by someone else.

If you really don't have the option of joining a club, when they are back in stock, the Bixler 2 is a good beginner's model. It is hand launched and landed on its belly (which has a plastic protector for this). The pusher propeller keeps the motor and prop out of harm's way. If you start off with unpowered glides and work your way from there gradually increasing the power on each flight you might just teach yourself.

I used to fly a 40" span Galaxy Wizard on an Enya 15 from a hand launch with four standard size servos and a 4 cell AA nicad pack. The biggest hazard is trying to grip the oily fuselage sides (covered in exhaust residue) without the thing swinging down as you open the throttle to launch and the prop trying to slash your wrist. Without a long 35MHz transmitter aerial to contend with, a discus launch holding the wingtip may be a safer bet. Otherwise stick some coarse emery paper to the fuselage sides where you plan to hold it.