Michael Crawford

Hobbystores in Trumpington High Street just outside Cambridge. Quite a small outlet. Were you looking for anything in particular ? I'll try and remember if they are likely to carry it.

No, it's my turn. Mine all mine.

It's mine, all mine.

Yes please

Yes please

Reg, A reply from some posts ago about glue stick. For some unknown reason I was trying to avoid writing Pritt stick, whoops, I've done it. I've read that the purple variety is better. One reason given is that you can see the coverage but don't worry the glue dries clear. I did buy one stick from the US which is marked as acid free, I think they all are but it's worth checking. I have now water shrunk a test piece and two wings which had the tissue applied using pritt stick and they have held perfectly. As I said, I have seen one model first hand covered in this fashion. The next test will be to make sure the adhesive is un-affected by dope. I'll let you know but I am not sure when that will be. MIchael

You could also try this web site. I found it an excellent start. Look in 'building your first scale model', the covering chapter. I have included a link straight to it. www.ffscale.co.uk  www.ffscale.co.uk/comp7.htm I completed one model using this method and am now using a glue stick instead for attaching the tissue to the frame. This method is a lot less messy and smelly. I have seen a finished model which was covered using glue stick to attach the tissue and it looked very tidy. Some additional advice is to make sure tissue joins are along stringers or on top of other balsa this means you can get a little pressure behind the join and it will create a better, more concealed join.

Oh, yes please

This one's mine. Gimme gimme.

David, your questions to newcomers were; "what they find is the hardest part of the hobby? What aspect/s they find the most challenging?" Similar to Ian's opening comments above I have a slightly different slant on the challenges of model flying. Right now the hardest part of the hobby is creating the time to do it. For a beginner, and I'm sure many proficient flyers, I find an opportunity only presents itself when each of these elements combine. 1. Low wind 2. Generally fair conditions 3. No previous arrangements 4. No adhoc demands from the family to take advantage of the generally fair conditions 5. No high priority maintenance tasks ( house, cars etc ) 6, Batteries are recently fully charged and safe to use ( requires a constant charging vigil or foresight of when all the other conditions may be true ) 7. A minimum time period of 4 hours ( IC engine ) where all these are true 8. Daylight 9. Any other restrictions from your chosen flying site ( availability, flying time window ) I have been a member of a club for 1 1/2 years now and have been to the field 4 or 5 times. Admittedly some of this time was spent building the plane. Maybe, just for a different angle, you could look at what weather conditions to fly in and useful resources for prediction, ways in which people manage their time and commitments, tips for model preparation and transport with the emphasis on speed. Once you're at the field I think the key skill, the hardest to get right consistently, is orientation. I'm sure if we used a view from a camera mounted on the front of the model 99% of control inputs during training would be in the correct direction. When the trainee is fixed on the ground, it's a different matter. As a relatively young pilot I am no stranger to twiddling joysticks and have always pushed the stick down to look up. After floating an Aerobird around in the wind ( the lack of power makes it really difficult to tell who is in charge of the model ) and crashing a Parkzone FW190 a few times I joined a club and started using a simulator. I think we all realise that a simulator is very different to flying the real thing but what it is very good at is teaching to fly with the model at different orientations to you, and the good news here is it can be practised virtually anywhere at any time. Personally, as mentioned in a previous post, I also had problems with nerves. I am relatively nerve free now but this did serioulsy compound problems when learning to fly. This brings me on to my last point about learning to fly at a club with a tutor and teaching yourself with a park flyer model. Our flying site is significantly larger than any 'park' I managed to find. In a 'park' I found that I was forcing myself to fly within the 'boundaries' of the park. This led to more pressure, more mistakes and crashes. On the official flying site I have what feels like an infinite amount of room, less nerves, less panic, better flying. This is another good reason to join a club, or at least a point for begineers to be aware of. Michael

It's mine, all mine