Simon Chaddock

Toto With such a large and heavy plane I would not worry too much about the flight time. I think you will find 5 minutes will be plenty long enough to start with. If you haven't crashed within the first 2 minutes of a flight you probably won't but the longer the flight the chances of making an error rise. The critical part is always the circuit & landing. Compared to a flight duration it doesn't take that long but it is critical and needs to be mastered. Shorter flights will mean you keep within battery limitations and you get more landing practise.

Tim "Four of the same make Iron failed over four years" That tells me something about optimism. I hope the replacement last longer.

Not exactly new but a Swiss Venom severely rebuilt. From this 9 days ago. To this as of today. Amazingly none of the electrics or even the battery in the nose needed replacing.

The weather this week end certainly looks better in the Doncaster area than here on the west side of the country! ☹️ Saturday looks favourite for me.

toto An important part of building is working out the best way to get round any mistakes you have made. After all when the plane is all finished no one will see an extra joint or two that was not shown on the plan. 😉

Toto A properly located E clip in a sharp edged groove should be better than a collet as it provides 3 physical points to prevent the wheel sliding off the axle. A collet on the other hand basically relies on the grub screw generating friction between the axle and the collet. A collet would only match the restraining power of an E clip if its grub screw located into a matching conical indent on the axle.

Nice. Of course like all model Pups the nose is too long. Even electric struggle when the batteries are squeezed into the cowling. It does rather show just how relatively heavy the period rotaries were and how lightly built the tail end was.

Wow! A Sunday flyer with a turbine, even if its a small one. Welcome. Any pictures?

I will be there with a selection of my foam light weights both prop and EDF on which ever day is the calmest. 😉

In my experience the cheap "plug and play" ESCs do have an LVC but it is not programmable so you have no way of knowing what it is actually set at. Whilst a single LVC event may not damage the LiPo repeated LVC activation probably will. it is thus best to avoid relying on the LVC and actually measure the end of flight at rest battery voltage. If above 3.7V/cell then the next full charge flight can be extended a bit but also take into account the power settings used in the flight.

It can be an issue running a model IC. I ran my Dad's home built 5cc 4 stroke petrol in my garden just to prove it still worked. A couple of days later my neighbour knocked on the door and offered me two boxed unused ASP 46 for free that he no longer had any use for. Amazing!

Welcome You should be able to get plenty of advice here. You are certainly learning to fly on the right aircraft Is your Seagull Arising Star IC or electric? I strongly suggest you just keep admiring the Macchi Veltro for quite some time before you will have acquired both the knowledge and ability to fly it and not wrecking it.

In principle unless you dramatically increase the wing and power loadings the incidences should remain the same. After all going from 54" to 6ft span is not a particularly big size increase. I would be more concerned about any structural changes that might required to handle the extra weight and to ensure the appropriate airframe stiffness was maintained.

Richard That looks like it is going to be a spectacualr model. With that form of float construction a full glass cloth/Epoxy covering is the only practical option. Just be careful about the finished weight. Those are big floats.

It does depend on the nature of the way the polystyrene is moulded but it should be fully water proof. One of the worst things you can do with polystyrene with a water immersion situation is to paint it. Unless the paint oil based and several layer thick the paint will not be fully water proof so over time water will get in and lodge in the poly styrene cells with no way of ever drying out. In other words any covering of foam has to be fully water proof in its own right. The total weight of the end result could be significantly heavier than the original foam. In some respects a hollow float is better than a solid foam one in that if it does leak then it is at least possible to get the water out again.

Times do change. I am not sure this front cover would be "PC" for the Aero Modeller today. Nice models!

I recently resurrected a Depron plane that had sat in my loft for at least 2 years and having been built from parts of a Cessna Skymaster O2 (Vietnam special ops) it was already "old" even then. It has been given the name "Cessna Bits". Nothing clever just simple and light. 38.5" (980mm) span it weighs 13 oz (370g) with a 1500mAh 3s on board. An Emax 2822 1200kV motor drives a 9x6 prop. This provides both true unlimited vertical as well as being remarkably efficient at low power. In fact it is so much fun to fly I have never tried to find out just how long its "cruise" duration might be. Probably close to 30 minutes.

Not happy with Spektrum Smart batteries and plugs. It smacks of specifically designing unique for commercial reasons. The XT range of 3 connectors and JST-HX balance plugs have become pretty universal on ordinary LiPo batteries.

If everything else seems OK It is possible that cooking the windings has caused a short circuit one or more of the winding to the metal armature. In this case the motor will behave as if the ESC brake is on. The faster you turn it the more the resistance. Still unrepairable unless you completely rewind the motor so it is a bin job. Moral of story all ways shut the throttle in a crash and preferably do so before you hit the ground! Not so easy to do as it needs a conscious effort as you are usually busy doing the utmost to stop it hitting the ground.

Yesterday was very warm but rather gusty so I waited until 7pm for the thermic activity to die down. It was till gusty so I flew my trusty own design Big Dragon. A simple pylon wing, pod and boom, pusher design built from a combination of a printed pod, pylon and wing ribs and skinned in 3mm Depron. Its layout specifically intended for rough grass landings and to keep the fingers clear of the prop for hand launching.. A 2800mAh 3s just fits in the nose. The ESC is in the pylon with built in cooling ducts. It has simple AET controls with tiny 3.7g servos. On 35 Meg the long aerial goes inside the glass fibre boom and trails out the back. With an emphasis on light weight & aerodynamic cleanliness although never intended as a "glider" it does glide pretty well. It has considerable power available (180W/lb) yet it can fly on surprisingly little so yesterday's flight from 7:55pm to 8:31pm gave a satisfactory 36 minutes with power on all the time except for the circuit and landing. The LVC did not kick in and at the end the cells were still showing 3.7V at rest.

Remember for NiMH it is not balance charging as with a LiPo so it does not need to know the number of cells. The maximum it can handle is the voltage from 15 cells You set the appropriate charge rate (1c?) for the battery cell capacity concerned. The charger than charges until it detects the "delta peak" effect and stops. Select NiMH Press START and set the charging current using the middle buttons Press start and briefly hold start. The charging screen looks like this. It works for me and I have never actually charged a single NIMH before on my B6. hope this helps.

I still favour planking, ship building style, for complex curved fuselage skins. As long as the formers are the correct shape and size the final curvature is a smooth transition nose to tail. Some sanding to completely smooth the plank joins and that's it. This AN2 fuselage has substantial flat areas. It almost like building in balsa old style except 3mm sheet foam and printed formers in this case. First formers. All the formers. The skin complete. Maybe not everybody's cup of tea but it works for me.

The evening here have been particularly still even if it has been pretty gusty during the day so over 5 evenings all after after 8:30pm with these planes I have flown for a total of over 2 hours. As reported this flew for 26 minutes. The following evening even longer for 32 minutes. For this flight I painted the fuselage red to make it easier to see side on in failing light. Next evening the Endurance for 33 minutes. Nothing clever really as it can fly for hours but it does fly very slowly so easy to see. Next the sub 250g Light Tractor for 22 minutes. Another slow flyer with its 850mAh 2s. Last night the sub 250g Super Cub 13 minutes. More bulky and even slower with a tiny 1000mAh 2s. I did also fly the 50mm EDF DH Venom but I broke it so I don't want to talk about that.☹️ However it will mend.

After a bit of searching I have found another photo that seems very similar to the one I have. The same Avro 504 G-EBCB and different people but the source confirms it is Hendon in 1927 or 8 . It also confirms that the EAJ monogram on the other side of the fuselage is that of the co owner and pilot E A Jones. It was registered under the name of Kingwill & Jones Flying Co. They both flew for Northern Airlines. You can just see the base of those steps in my photo as well. It appears a photo was included as part of the joy ride. G-EBCB was destroyed in a gale in 1929.

A very long time ago about 1959 (I was 13) after my Dad built a round 10ft diameter pond in the garden I built this electric RTP "jet" boat. Small and very light 1/16 balsa it used a 6V can motor with the prop in a duct. The wires to the centre pole carried the current In 1962 I built my first RC boat using the motor. speed controller, servos and the 7.2 V NiCd battery from a Tamiya Dune Buggy. All 1/16 balsa skin over 1/8 by 1/4 frames. Worked well but being so light and relatively bulky is was seriously effected by any wind. The next was was based on a Cigarette racing hull. Again of all balsa construction It went some what faster than the Cabin Cruiser. Used a few times on the local boating pond I was always concerned that with the weight of the all the electrics in it if I hit anything it would shatter & sink in quick order.