Roy Thompson

Looks good sitting in the sunshine.

Inspection and assessment; Having collected both models, the first order of the day was to go through them and inspect them to see what I had and what was going to need fixing. Starting with the finished model, the wing's obvious defect was that veneer, but also there were serval other items that needed addressing. Both windscreens discoloured and damaged, wing mounting and lose fixed nuts and a radio switch plate, add to this there were areas where the paper covering was cracked or damaged. Luckily there was not too much oil damage to the wood, the worse bit being the top deck above the tank bay. The builder had treated most of the likely areas around motor and fuel take to a coat of epoxy, which has saved this model from being full of oil soaked wood. The cowling at first glance looked like it beyond help, but over the time I had it I’ve managed to clean it up and have been experimenting with repairs, but for now that on a back burner. The other little thing I noticed is the cockpit instrument panel, it’s nice enough but it’s from a moth not a Maggie. As for the second kit, the fuselage needs a lot of work to complete. The balsa planking and top deck has suffered from its years of storage, and will need replacing, and to be honest would benefit from be done in rolled ply like the other model. There are no tail parts, they have been lost over time, but I do have a section of the plan of the tail. As to what’s happened to the rest of the instruction and plan is anybody’s guess. None of the kit wood is left either but most of the hardware is still there surprisingly, including wheels, tank, fitting and of course untouched cowl and spats. The wings which first attracted me may still be of used one day. The two outer panels are still in their foam outers and are and good condition, but as I said before the centre section veneer has come unstuck after being out of its outer cores for many years. However, this is still salvageable if I want to put in the time. The thing about the wings is their size, and today a one piece wing 2.16M in length is a bit of a pain to store and transport. Far better would be a two or three part wing, for now I will live with the wing as is, but I’m tempted to build a new 3 part wing using the second kit's parts later.

Hi Martin, rather than high jacking your thread, I've started another build thread.

Continuing on with the theme of research; the magister is not one of those aeroplanes that I knew a lot about before starting on this project. To try and put that right, I have scoured the internet for information, photos and have put my hand in pocket to purchase the detail photo CD from traplet. Before starting on any project I do like to get as much info as I can, and internet searches are fine, but no substitute for getting up close with your own eyes. This meant only one thing, a trip to shuttleworth collection was in order, as they have two examples. They also have engineers who can answer question on the finer points. There were two questions I had from looking at photos. One, there is an instrument on the instrument panel that looks a bit like a U-Tube manometer, a glass tube with pink fluid in it. As a retired avionics eng, I should know these sorts of things, but as they say every day is a school day, and you don’t come across them in airliner world. If I had looked and thought about the other instrument on the panel a bit longer, I could have worked it out. Looking at the panel, front and centre is the turn and slip gauge, well that gives you roll and yaw status, leaving only pitch to find. It’s easy when someone tells you it’s a pitch indicator! Apparently some moths have them as well. Second up, why are Venturi tubes all in different places? Answer because they are, and you won’t be wrong wherever you put them. That’s my kind of answer, and I have to admit from my days as an instructor you never try to answer why question. Anyhow, with all this wealth of information, we were good to get cracking.

Now let not be silly, we don't want talk like that 🤣 Very nice looking model BTW. Did George mention his De Havilland DH.86 Express?

Following on from the first post, doing my research about this model I came up is this Website, Ivy and Martin's Web Page with a review of the kit back in the day. It's a good read with some interesting notes and reassuring about the flying quality of the model. Miles Magister Bowman Models kit review.pdf

Instead of hogging Martin's Magister resurrection thread. I thought it's time to start my own thread. This is my build log of my current restoration and electric conversion I started a couple of months ago. The model is the largest of the few scale models that Bowman produced, at 85 inches and 10 1/4lbs, designed by Dave Banham in 1997. These scale kits were intended to be easy to build with a budget price tag, that allowed the modeller to add as little or as much to the model in the way of detail, as they liked. A few months back, not one but two Bowman Kits Miles Magister appeared on eBay. First was a complete airframe, nicely built, but old and needing a lot of TLC. The main issue, as you will see from the pictures, was the condition of the veneer on the foam wings, which had badly split and delaminated. Then out of the blue came the second one, an incomplete kit part built. Two things attracted me, the fibreglass cowl and spats and the wings were there and untouched. Well, it occurred to me that hopefully there would be enough parts between the two, to turn out one very nice electric powered example. I did chuckle when the seller messaged me saying, the kit was her late fathers (ex proprietor of the model shop in Hemel Hempstead), and that they had thought they had cleared his stash. That was until their mum passed, and they started clearing her house, only to find a large second stash, that she was sure her mother had no idea about! It was at this point I thought maybe I should mention my next purchase to my own dear lady The up shot of all this was I had two trips up and down the M3 and M25 around London to go collect my new toys. One thing I hadn't fully taken into account was just how long a one piece wing 85 inches is, until I was trying to fit it in the back of my estate car! Anyhow, with a bit of trial and error, we got there. The plan I had in my head for this model was, first work out a plan of attack for the wing veneers & or replace it with the one from the other kit. Unfortunately, the CTR section of that wing has also suffered bad delamination after being removed from its outer cores for many years. Then there was the electric conversion, and to that end I was thinking along the lines of a 6S power system to replace the 91/120 four stroke. The intent initially was to use the new cowl to save on patching up the old one. I'll expand on this later. I was hoping to retain as much of the patina of the original model, as it was obvious that who ever built it originally was an accomplished modeller. Unfortunately, the more I inspected the model, the more little issues I found. Rather than ending up with a patch work of repairs, I came to the conclusion that a total refurb was going to be the way. I'll catch up with the progress I've made over the intervening moths in the next few posts, but this will do for now.

Quick note as to how my one is coming on. The fuselage and bottom of the wing have been covered in glass cloth and EZE-Kote, just the top to do. Before covering the wing, I've taken the time to fit drawstrings to the wing and tidy up the servo lead opening with new foam and thin ply. At least when the wing is off, it's going to look a lot nicer than it did. Other jobs, 3D printed two booster cushions for the pilots. Added ply doubler and refitted the wing mounting T-nuts, this was only 1/8 ply and didn't hold the nuts well (picture 3 as they were originally). Wile I was at it also cleaned up the wing fairings. My club has its Electric Fly-In on September 10th, I've hoping to probably not finish it, but to at least get it flying by then. Well, that's the plan if I don't cripple myself any more doing the gardening, and can walk that is!

As we're on the topic of landing gear. Mine doesn't have the spats, and who ever made it did a very reasonable job on the struts. Although they have lost thr drag links. Just wondering if the forks were home made or brought.

Thank you Brian, I was wondering what these were!

Small area, not structural, don't flood with pva, should be OK. If glueing undercarriage blocks in, then epoxy every time.

Congrats on the first flight, and shame about the landing. We’ve all done it, flew my other MB5 of the 3rd time yesterday did two practice approaches/ touch & goes; spot on, then banged it in hard on the landing and broke the retract mounting plate. 🙄 looking at the pictures, I would replace the foam with a block cut from any old polystyrene packaging, glued in with PVA. Cut back the veneer a little larger and replace with 1/32 ply. You could buy new veneer from balsa hut but for the amount and plus I think ply would stand up better from the loads the spats may put on it. Option two fill the void with light weight filler and cover in 1/32 ply. Looking at the finish, I would say that just like mine was, it’s covered with dope and tissue. A tried and tested method of the day. This goes to show that Ivy & Martin had a point about the spats in their review, how many years ago it was.

That looks impressive Martin. Excluding gliders, the largest powered model I’ve flown in terms of wingspan is the TN Dak at 72”, in terms of wight then it had to be my old Dan Parson’s MB5 when it she had twin brushed motors and 20 nicads at 13.5 lbs on a 55” wing, the gravity was strong in this model back in the day before Lipo’s and brushless motors. If anything the larger the models the nicer they tend to fly and less prone to being bounced around if the wind is a bit choppy.

The hangar one kit look very good, wonder how much shipping is from New Zealand. Not that need another one!

Good luck with the test flight, just in time for the summer, I hear it’s Thursday next week!

As a matter of interest, how much dose your Kalt 22 weigh! I ask this as mine came with a small amount of lead up front; 620g, and I’m assuming that in it day it may have had a OS 120 with muffler at say 1000g. So I guess about 1.6Kg hanging off the firewall. Currently we have an out-runner 375g plus 6S battery, say 6 to 700g which puts the set up on par with the glow motor providing I reinstate the small amount of lead.

Have you seen this photo from the LMA event at Sleap taken by Peter Coxon. Can’t help wondering is that a Bowmn Magister?

For that price, I’m in! I’ll send you a text in a bit.

That sounds like a good Idea. I may have a go at drawing it up in CAD and see how I get on. If you break it down 5 parts (front, top, bottom and sides) they would fit the 3D printer.

Nearly but not nearly enough, that a shame. I had a nice email back from Richard about the DB Auster J1 cowl, it was worth a try. This is part of what he had to say. “These are pictures from a scrap cowl I was using to scan but it's good enough for photos. Although close, it's not really the same shape, the sides are flat so it's all a bit more 'square' than yours, it looks more like a Tiger Moth cowl without the side indentations. Polish it up and make a mould out of it maybe although that's a bunch of work. (Richard is referring to my unused cowl and I think it may be the way to go if I had the know how) Kind Regards, Richard Bristow www.dbsportandscale.com” The last picture is my un-started cow, I’d be happy to give it ago and use it as a plug to make a mould, but would need someone with a bit of knowhow to give some guidance first.

Thanks Stu, the panels are drawn in Fusion 360 and 3D printed in PLA. The instruments are printed on photo paper. In Feb’s RCM&E there’s a feature by Brian Hoddy, I sort of followed this. The hardest part was sanding the panels to remove the lines from the printing and finding the instruments images.

I had an idea I what if there is a current kit out there of an aircraft thats about the same size/scale and used the Gipsey Major engine. After some head scratching and several searches, I hit on the DB Auster J1 it looks about right. So this morning I’ve emailed Richard Bristow at DB Sports and Scale with the dimensions. Now fingers crossed.

Hi Martin, Looking forward to seeing how you get on with yours,I think I’d be lucky to get mine going by August. Just finished a couple of bits ready to be fitted when she starts going back together. Venturi’s and cockpit panels. Roy

That looks just like the one that lived in my loft for many years until a couple of weeks ago:o)

Sorry to hear about your accident, hope it heals quickly.