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Well the 'big day' is scheduled for tomorrow, so the BF is in the car and ready. I got chance to fix the exhausts to the fuselage and to apply some of the decals but that's as far as I got, well I did give it the first coat of exhaust smudges too oh yeah, I also sprayed in the yellow bits as I think that may well help when I fly it. Printed the MG81Z machine guns (no real details on the stocks as they will be inside the canopy)

After quite a fight the engine is apart. Its an interesting engine to dismantle and some of the design choices left me scratching my head, and yet some were very well thought out. It also differs from my exploded parts view in a few areas. As you can see here, the piston ring was pretty well welded into its slot by castor. My solution to this is always the same. Soak in fuel for a little while, and then try and get a feeler gauge into the ring gap. Often this will give enough leverage to move a small section of the ring. Once moving, keep gently wiggling it while frequently dunking it in fresh fuel. This will slowly (very slowly) soften the castor and after about 20 minutes of wiggling and dunking the ring was free. I then removed it, cleaned the groove and gave the ring a rub on a surface plate to clean its faces. Refitted with some oil, and that was that. The rest of the bits got a clean up as well and i now just need to order the bearings

Here's my BALSACRAFT COYOTE glider... Completed its maiden.

Here's my BALSACRAFT COYOTE. I got the kit from one of club mates - it is probably 20yrs old.. Great little glider. I modified the design by moving the servos to the wing rather than a single central servo and fixin the wing to the fuse with a wing bolt. Here it is on the maiden at Cairn O'Mount.. 20210523_133742.mp4 20210523_133742.mp4

Much the way I grew up in 50/60's, Was ploughing fields on a Super Major tractor no cab or power steering or any other fancy stuff, just dads old army great coat and a sou'wester when the weather was bad. Started when my legs were long enough to reach the pedals at eleven years. Plenty out there today who dont start work for a dozen more years.

Cymaz I think postage and tax are the same no matter who sends it, though I might be mistaken..... Friend Chris printed another pilot for me over the last few days, this time we used Ron's suggestion of altering x,y,z in different amounts. If you look at the pilot as drawn he is built like a Russian weightlifter. So we took the 1/6 figure and stretched him in x and y (I think it was) by 117 percent, but left the width z at 100 percent. This produced a much leaner chappie. We miscalculated the amount of back side to lose, so he needs to be lowered in the seat a little, but otherwise he is good to go I reckon ? Thanks Chris and Ron, we got there in the end. This is possibly the last post until Autumn, as work has me in Italy for a while. Keep the faith and see you soon. Cheers Danny

Love it. I was brought up earning pocket money on farms and small-holdings. At 13 I was driving a little old grey Massey and a Fordson. At 14 my mate and I would spend a Saturday gassing Rabbits. A £1 a day. A 5litre tin of Cymag, a spoon tied to a garden cane, dust masks and a couple of Amyl Nitrate capsules 'just in case'. No mobile phone in those days. A funny episode was just before Christmas. The village women, including my Mum, were in the stables plucking Turkey's while us lads were in the yard doing the killing which consisted of a noose round the Turkey's legs so they could be lowered into a funnel. A pair of bars were clamped round the protruding neck to stretch it then straight into the stable to get the feathers off while they were still warm. We were just about to start killing when the estate shoot arrived and started forming up. When they realised what we were about to do then the head of the shoot came over and told us not to start killing until the shoot had moved off for the first drive because he thought it would upset the wives of the guns to witness it. This annoyed us as we were paid by the bird but we had to stop. The shoot then moved off and the wives accompanied their husbands as they blasted Pheasants out of the sky?

You May have trouble getting Solarfilm and Profilm is expensive however Hobby king do very good film at a very good prices - about a third of the price of Profilm. Also You can find rolls of so called "seconds" at shows and online very cheaply.

I used to stay at my uncle's farm when I was a kid in the early 50s (10 to 15). My cousin and I had to feed 100s of pigs twice a day at one time. At harvest time the wheat was cut with a binder and the sheaves stored in stooks on the fields (I assume to dry?). Then the sheaves were collected on a trailer and stored in a Dutch barn. The trailer was drawn with a big Fordson Major tractor that took two of us to drive - my cousin steered and I controlled the clutch by standing on it and letting it in by lifting myself on the mudguard. It meant all the men were free to use pitch forks to lift the sheaves. Of course, it would be totally illegal now to allow a couple of 12 year olds to drive a tractor. My cousin is about a year younger than I but I remember at the time he was in many ways more grown-up because of the responsibilities he had from a young age. What we got up to with air rifles and shot guns makes me shudder now! My father-in-law was a market gardener and my wife used to crawl along rows of peas weeding 3 rows after she got home from school. It's not until I stop and think that I realise how much things have changed in my lifetime. Crystal sets to computers for instance ? Geoff

My latest lockdown project

The gem I liked was when Clemmy ( four year old)spotted the sheep out of the field and without an adult decided to sort them out. Herded them back in and as she shut the gate muttered Silly Buggers. Priceless!

Bit of a milestone this afternoon as have completed the final bits of the wing sheeting. I had a little detailing to do internally for the air inlets and radiator opening, which will be revealed later when cutting the apertures. The mould is looking a bit better but still needs a some more finishing work before I can use it. I stuck an orbital sander on it and then some primer filler. Once cut back with fine wet and dry some hard wax type polish to fill the odd pin holes and provide a release for the epoxy laminates.

None here Gary, I'll leave you to it.

Thanks John. No hard feelings I hope. I've had another thought. What has not been mentioned so far is that the entry in the AIP could potentially be used in the future for route planning by autonomous drones - geofencing data? Could it be that a Site Permit will effectively force these sky robots to divert around us? It could if done properly (so it probably won't).

I seem to remember I had a moment as well John! We must be getting old and grumpy!

True, my comment was a bit tongue in cheek and aimed rather at the naysayers. That probably didn't come across well. Apologies. Also, In relation to the strength of 3D printed items, I wasn't aware that the strength was insufficient, that is interesting, thank you.

Hi Charlie, glad you are finding it understandable. It is always difficult knowing how to pitch things. One of the things that helps enormously with smooth flying is working to reduce the amount of control throw you have. Far too many have very large control throws and the result is a twitchy aeroplane. Turn them down and all of a sudden things smooth out and the aircraft becomes a delight to fly. What puts most people off doing that is if they get to a position where panic sets in and they want the extra movement to pull out sharply. The solution to this is to think through what you are going to do before getting airborne on every flight. That way, you will know before hand what you are going to do and what are the issues that you must consider before getting into a difficult situation. I wouldn't like you to think that I didn't go through all these phases myself! It is my experience of how things got better for me that I am sharing as well as advice I've picked up along the way. Good luck with the B test.

LOL Fighter jocks will fly with their right hand on the stick, left hand on the throttle as this guy is. However the Auster and many side-by-side aircraft are flown with the stick in the left and the throttle in the right, the throttle being central in the panel so both seats can reach if needed. So a bit of a control column will be in his grasp. They are very nice figures, and being scalable I am sure will be the source for my future models ? I have always tried to hunch my pilots forwards, much more realistic, a rigid pilot is a pet hate for my friend Andy Sephton, who has often been that hunched forward pilot in reference pics from Old warden. Cheers Danny

Of course you’ll fit a beer glass in his right hand?

Now that is the shape of a proper pilot, not like the ones you see with ramrod straight backs ?. Looking forward to you completing the project.

You were lucky. I only had a rotary hoe to use. No recoil starter, you had to re-wrap the starter rope for each pull. Our first rotary hoe was really too big for me, handles about nose high. The next one was much smaller but wheels the same width as the rotor so needed to be held up to stop it falling over into the previously hoed row. We had 5 acres, half in bush which mean carrying winter firewood timber out on one's shoulder to father who was running the large circular saw. We did have mudflats to row and sail on or catch an outgoing tide in winter, bare feet crunching the ice as you stomped across the mud to launch. Then head out to the open sea for the day. No radio, not communications. There were two rules, be home for dinner, don't drown yourself. Oh, a third rule - obey the other two rules.

A good timed shot Shona.

I use a pack of 700 mA/hr, regulated to 5V, on a CDI and have no problems. I am not familiar with Vapex so cannot comment, but if a model takes 80-100 mA/hr on Eneloops then you will find that on LiFe`s you will get far less back in for some reason. Everyone I know who has changed to these reports a similar situation. So far the HK ones have proved to be ultra reliable which is more than I can say regarding various NiMh`s, especially those 2600 ones which can fail at the drop of a hat and are unable to deliver sufficient current to drive even low power analogue servos. A 2s 1800 Life is way lighter than a 5s 1900 Eneloop and would give far more flight time if you so wish.

Saturday was brilliant all day with blue skies and a 20-25mph wind - North West not our most preferred South West but the lift was great only the landings are made more tricky. As so often happens the winds shifted after 6pm (tidal?) and by 7pm we were flying off the South West slope but most had gone home by then, the hardy few who were still there enjoyed superb flying until dark. Sunday was more challenging with SE winds until late in the day combined with some rain. Again a few stayed on (not me) and those who did enjoyed some fantastic flying on the South West slope after 6pm. Fair play to those who stuck out the day waiting for the winds to change! But we flew our socks off on the Saturday - 09:30 to 21:30 - like Al says, a great start to this slightly compressed season!

Couldn't have asked for a better kick-off to the season. Those of us who prefer the early evening to the mornings got plenty of flying in!

Hi Tony, here are a few photos of the cowl of my Vultee Vanguard. The cowl is split in two horizontally to allow for speedy access to the engine without removal of the prop and spinner. The top and bottom are joined by two 'straps' on each side, the lower screws are removable to allow the parts to slide apart. It takes about 20 seconds to have the engine exposed - this saves having an external wire adjust the mixture. Hope that helps, GDB

Got no argument with the telemetry comments, times change and you should move on, brings to mind, how did club manage this before this technology was there ?

The other wing glued on. With a 24" steel rule for size. It is resting against the radiator like that because the RH wing has only just been glued on. It will have to rest like that for 24 hours. Structurally the centre section is now complete apart from the open panels on the under side. With the EDF and the aileron servos it weighs 233 g. My target is 550 g ready to go. Rear fuselage section next.

Re the application process - why the need to present a 'rationale' for flying over 400'? "Because I want to" would seem to be the obvious answer. Common sense would also tell you that anything over 7.5kg is likely to exceed 400' just on the climb-out from take-off! When it comes to monitoring height, in the absence of telemetry and gunsights, you have to develop your own judging skills. I just seem to have a natural flair for it. Whenever somebody comes up to me and says something like "Jeez! How high is that?!", the answer is, unerringly, "no more than about 400 feet". It's just a knack really, I can't claim any credit for it... ?

Yak 3 is finished and ready to fly. Loosely modelled on G-OLEG previously owned by Will Greenwood and subject to this website, which is an excellent read: https://vintageaviationecho.com/yakovlev-yak-3/ Warbirds Replicas Kit. 55" Span, 5lb9Oz ready to fly (18Oz/sqft). Powered by a 5055 500kv motor on 4S turning a 14/7 3 blade. Static test give over a kilowatt, so judicious use of the throttle will be necessary! Maiden will occur some time in the future when the wind eventually drops...

It's a great size for the slope, and your plans capture the shapes and character of the original really well - I look forward to seeing you and Chris testing them out this season (and perhaps starting mine shortly too!?)

New life for the Ridge Runt Flying my Ridge Runt with EDF for the first time. Set up is a 13,20 euro 55 mm Hobbyking EDF and 50 Amp esc and 1300 Mha 4 cell battery. I think it was ment for 3 cell battery, but at that prize I will run mine on 4 cell Let's see how long it will last.. It pull 25 Amp and 295 Watt on 3 cell and 36 Amp and 560 Watt on 4 cell. On 3 cell it flew ok, but much more fun on the 4 cell. The EDF can be removed again in less than 30 sec.