Neil James
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Everything posted by Neil James
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They are threatening to fly “toy drones” i.e. under 250g at head height. In that case no laws will be broken and more importantly no flights need to be restricted. Can’t see what these terrorists hope to achieve by that, if it ain’t illegal there’ll be no arrests. The risk is that the fanatics will realise they are wasting their time and escalate the situation with larger drones. I hope the police rare on top of this.
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Has anybody on here got any expertise in programming Graupner MZ-16 transmitter and telemetry devices? RC groups sometimes offers help but there’s nowt to beat personal experience! I’ve now got several models flying with my MZ-16 but there are some issues that Graupner have not been any help with so any advice would be gratefully received. Edited By Neil James on 30/08/2019 16:00:02
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It’s a 1.6 Renault Kangoo diesel. Chosen just because it was on my local garage forecourt and it was cheap! I’m unlikely to do more than 1000 miles per year in it so it should last me out.
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Finished the van so here’s an update: I now have a raised floor which gives me 30cm of room underneath to store wings, wood panels on each side with brackets to hold fuselages and dowels at the top so I can put wings on top of them and hang small gliders underneath. The floor stops short of the doors so heavy items like batteries and flight bags can be propped against it - it gives me somewhere to sit too! There’s still a few models to squeeze in and I might yet need another top rack but overall I think the space is well used.
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Posted by Glyn44 on 19/05/2019 13:37:14: Phew, so relieved. There has been some sacrifice: the van has been financed by selling my ancient Ducati 900SS which I’m sorry to see go but didn’t ride it at all last year so it’s gone to a more active home. Still got a motorcycle to ride though, there’s no way I’m giving up two wheels until I’m physically unable to get my leg over 😉
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That’s excellent, thanks very much. I shall investigate the pvc pipe system as although the van is not likely to be used for anything other than storing models an easily removable system might be handy one day.
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Oh no! The van is as well as the MX5! My wife suggested we bought a sensible car, an estate or similar, but really neither of us wanted to get rid of the MX5, best car I’ve ever owned.
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I got fed up squeezing models into a Mazda MX5 so I’ve bought something more suitable as a mobile hangar and I’m interested in how others have fitted out theirs for maximum storage. Initial plan is a false floor just above the wheel arches for assembled models on top and wings or fuselages underneath then some battens widthwise under the roof for storing larger wings. I’m sure there are some imaginative solutions already in use - let’s see them!
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Thanks everyone, that's very helpful. I can cut with confidence now. I'm planning to fit an NGH petrol engine to it so good to know it's a suitable choice. I've had 3 Magicians and a Wizard over the years and I know how well they fly, including this one (now 20 years old) as it used to belong to a close friend, now sadly no longer with us, so I'm looking forward to seeing it fly again. I'm also definitely thinking that it's time I bought another Magician and fitted an electric motor!
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Hi. I’ve inherited a Galaxy Models Mystic with a webra .90 but as glow fuel is almost impossible to get here I’d like to convert it to petrol. Obviously tank and tubing will need to be replaced so it would be very helpful to get a photo of the plan of the nose section to help me decide which is the best bit of structure to cut out to get access to the tank. Ta.
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Forum members' new models: Let's see them.
Neil James replied to Paul Marsh's topic in All Things Model Flying
Got this just before Christmas but yesterday was the first day weather and opportunity came together to get a flight in. Despite the wind only being around 5kts it flew really well. -
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Addendum: I’ve already found the Graupner USA YouTube channel.
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Hi, I’ve abandoned Hitec as they have stopped transmitter development and splashed out on a Graupner MZ-16 transmitter and various receivers. It all looks very pretty and the receivers are amazing, really tiny, even with gyro and vario built in. However the user manual leaves a lot to be desired and is very thin so I’m looking for helpful resources that might expand the information. Today I got my first glider set up with the basics including rates and expo and the inbuilt help pages were quite useful for detailed instructions. I’ve discovered how to create different flight modes, which they call phases, but how to alter the settings for each phase is not clear so that’s my next task. Any links to on-line help will be gratefully received. Cheers
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I had a serious gash on my finger from a small diesel engine when I was 14 and one of the adults took me home to his wife who was a nurse. She patched me up and we went back to the field to carry on flying. Been very careful since and 50 years later haven’t had any more prop accidents. Loads of injuries from screwdrivers, scalpels and so on though! Speaking of televisions, early in my working life I did a TV repair course, and one of the instructors used to fault find by licking his thumb and poking it onto various points! If he didn’t get a shock he’d found the fault 🤗. Only monochrome sets mind, colour sets were lethal!
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It depends on whether you have any club members competent in HTML. If not then your best bet is a blogging system such as Wordpress. This is very easy to set up and maintain and there are lots of ready made themes for you to customise it. There are lots of companies offering cheap hosting for wordpress sites too.
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Thanks Chris, that looks like a simple fix, certainly easier than trying to drill matching holes in things now it’s all glued together!
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Thanks for the warning! I agree the battery tray could be better secured, I’ve only had a couple of flights but each time I’ve made very sure that the securing bolt was done up tight. It’s a heavy battery to be restrained just by friction though so I’ll be interested to see what you do, I’m certainly keen to improve it. I was think of adding a peg in the fixed plate to mate with a hole in the removable one and this would then take the sliding forces. As far as the battery hatch is concerned, it was such a poor fit that I decided not to bother with it! Edited By Neil James on 26/09/2017 15:44:40
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Finally got mine flying after months of faffing about. There’s some interesting suggestions on this thread which I will take up. First impressions are that it flies great on the recommended motor/battery setup, but assembling it was a pain. I’ll be replacing the interplane strut bolts with clevis pins and R clips, already found some on eBay to save me having to mess about drilling holes in a 3mm bolt! Secondly the aileron connecting rods aren’t up to much either: the plastic clevis is very poor quality and the bend at the other end is only just long enough for the swing keeper to hold it in position so I’ll be replacing those with new rods with a ball joint on each end.
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Update: finally managed to get the first flight in! In the end I compromised & set the CoG to a halfway position of 50mm. The model shot off the ground in what seemed like a very small distance and flew without any problems apart from needing a lot of left aileron trim. Rolls were pretty axial and dropping flaps or gear didn’t need any compensation. Unfortunately the wind picked up & got gusty during the day which made the last landing rather untidy! Fortunately it hit the grass rather than the tarmac and the only damage was the loss of two cannon barrels - I knew they would be a problem! Of course I took a snap before the first flight 😏
