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With some very light sanding and a second coat of black followed by some acrylic lacquer spray and stick on decals it now looks like this. At 587 g (20.7 oz) with an 1800 mAh 3s it weighs exactly the same as the earlier Prototype Hunter. It also has the benefit of a slightly more powerful 50 mm EDF. The most obvious scale error is the roundels should have white borders!

Not quite. The first man carrying aeroplane was designed and built by Sir George Cayley but before that the first powered aerplane, a 10ft span model was built and flown by John Stringfellow, both achievments in th 19th century. So the first aeroplane was invented by Stringfellow, not withstanding the fact that Leonarda da Vinci sketched the concept in the 15th century. Anyway we invented the language, so the correct spelling is "aeroplane".

The depron wrapping on the fuselage was formed cold round a vac cleaner extension tube when forming depron it has a grain which is not noticeable but one way it forms the other it splits.

It's because there plain chocolate.

He's certainly persistent, this guy. I just wish he'd persist somewhere else frankly.

So here is a start on the basic frame of the body. After two sides are built out of 1/16th balsa stripe. Steve.

As requested elsewhere I am going to do a build blog of my current build, a Miles Magister from the Dave Platt plan. I picked up the plan from Aerofred and had it printed out at my local printers at 120% to take the wingspan to 80" approx. It will be electric powered and is targeted as a replacement trainer for my Ivan Pettigrew DHC-1 Chipmunk which is now showing its age (16 years old) having been flown in all weathers. Target weight is around 4.5lbs, as I will be using construction techniques learned with my Ivan models to keep the weight down and strength up. I will not be doing a "bit by bit" blog but will be doing a "bits of interest" log. The full build will be hosted on my own website and found here. I already have an issue with the plan in that the aerofoil section used is incorrect and is thicker than necessary. This may be because it was designed and built in 1967 when radios were somewhat heavier and motors less powerful. That is probably also why the plane weighted 10lbs.

1st "bit of interest" I am using an old technique used in the period for the tail feathers, in this case the tailplane. A thin core of 1/16" balsa to provide the shape required. The tailplane and elevators have an 8" chord which means I can join 2 pieces of 1/16" x 4" of balsa to provide the core. The split rear tailplane spar has been glued to the core and the elevator section of the core removed to have the elevator front split spar fitted. Next the leading edge, which will be made up of 4 laminations of 1/16" strip stuck to the core. The strips will be wetted with a water mister on both sides of the strip only where the corners are. The strip will be held in place using a mixture of pins, clothes pegs and weigh in the form of expired 6v lead acid gel batteries. 1st strip in position. 2nd strip 3rd strip fitted and the whole assembly left weighted to dry flat. Final strip will be added tomorrow night.

Names withheld. Location withheld. Year withheld Custody unit charge office, big police station; present, custody sergeant, staff, and a well respected police surgeon (AKA, a local GP with extra training). comes the cry, “sarg, drunk in cell 1 is dead”, General charge towards cell 1. Police Surgeon examines body. “Sorry Sarg, he’s dead” Sergeant swears mightily, with visions of a future writing long reports on short bits of paper, and kicks the corpse, who wakes up. A true story. Btw, I was not that sergeant. Off post, sorry, but Lazarus can walk again. Not often.

Did I mention, I don't like sanding ?

We still do Frank here in glorious Aberdeen.

I experimented with a number of geriatric SLA batteries recently after reading various methods involving topping up the “sealed” cells, pulse charging, shock charging, extended float charging etc. etc. Not one of them came back to any meaningful extent.

I do wonder why aeronautics wasn’t corrupted to Airnautics - the reason often given for the widespread adoption of the word airplane being that the “aero” prefix sounds old fashioned to US ears. What do I know though - I still enjoy referring to radio frequency receiving apparatus as wireless… On the subject of heavier than air flight, I’m firmly in the Sir George Cayley camp. Derek Piggott’s flight in the replica of his machine adds great weight to his claims and proves that there was a reasonable measure of aerodynamic stability and control inherent in the design. Cayley stated that a form of internal combustion engine needed to be developed before heavier than air flight could be sustained but didn’t live long enough to take advantage of the Otto Cycle.

I thought this was supposed to be a welcoming forum where views can be aired and debated (within bounds of the rules) freely.

I’ve done this by making support blocks from 1/8” balsa to pin under the (false) leading edge and trailing edge of the wing every few inches during construction (see photo). This method has worked well for me on a number of occasions.

Yup 3S 2200 will be dandy for the starter. I keep a second one in my box, running the glow / pump.

Here you go

may be some small parasitic discharge going on. or it might have self discharged, they lose around 5% charge per month when new, and two years of that would see it flat ideally, they like to be stored quite full, so need regular charging, this is why there are lot of 'maintenance' chargers out there (for e.g. motorbikes or cars) that are left permanently plugged in and keep them topped up

as don say, it's dead ideal time to change over to a 3S lipo?

No lead acid matter likes to be stored in any state but full charge. It’s dead. Sorry.

Great work Eric. This is fascinating and I'm going to have a crack. For anyone interested, this 'how to' video for the Flite Test P38 is essential viewing. One thing I note; their approach is really refreshing. Rather than trying to replace balsa,they are trying to find the best way to make an airplane from this material. I think this is the right mindset. I'm looking forward to experimenting and seeing where we can collectively take this. Graham

Wing building continues. Top sheeting added, leading edge and top cap strips. Trailing edges notched out with three hacksaw blades taped together, quick, easy and accurate leaving just enough wood to fine tune with a file: Wing tips built using the supplied laser cut flat sheet and scrap, ailerons finished and roughly shaped: Airbrakes made from laminations of 1/32" ply and 1/16" balsa, simple sheeting surround: Leaving me with a pair of basic wing structures needing servo installation, wing joiner tubes, root area top sheeting and sanding:

Looking good ?? Steve.

Sorry Jon, I should have realised that after making a remark on the cocktail sticks, in my last reply I should have said fin not rudder or vertical stab if you prefer. there are many ways it can be held down while the glue sets, a length of string with equal weights on each end hung over the elevator will put pressure on . With the Mustang I used superglue on the fin to elevator then PVA for the blocks either side these were then pinned till the glue dried.

Yes but the shallow end is a bit deep

Clarence is on the other side of the big wet bit just to the west of you John, where the corrupted version originated. I certainly don't hear the abbreviated word at my club and I don't think it's generally in use even by the internet generation. I'm sure we were all educated properly by copious repeats of Reach for the Sky! 5 minutes 40ish....

Have never liked the now popular term " airplane " It always used to be aeroplane or aircraft.

That it ? I have no sales pitch Clarence, I'm not trying to sell anything.

I believe he already ran threads on his method here.

Hi All, And a Happy New Year to you all. Well I was convinced that I had glass cloth somewhere in the cupboards, but after a good search through nothing was found, so I ordered some and it finally arrived yesterday. Whilst waiting, I gave the hull a coat of sanding sealer, the dope based type not the water based type, and sanded it with wet and dry. So, with no time like the present the cloth was cut and I applied a coat of Poly C through the cloth and then two more coats after it had dried. Poly C is great stuff applied in thin coats, however, back to my earlier comment about the sanding sealer, on a previous model I used water based sanding sealer and what I found was that the Poly C, also water based softened the sanding sealer/balsa to the point that several areas had to be cut out as the balsa had warped very badly. I don't think it would have been an issue here with the hull but better safe than sorry, nothing worse than repairing a model whilst still building it. Left overnight to dry and cut off the excess cloth with a new blade Then a gentle rub down with wet and dry once more Mixing up some of "Freddie B's" filler recipe which is basically mixing all of the above ingredients in equal quantities (ignore the Poly C) into a paste and apply and leave to dry thoroughly and sand away leaving a smooth finish. It looks a mess but it will all sand away as it just fills the holes and weave. Next, Sanding back the filler and apply more if needed. Plus I'll finish off the power cables and solder all the connections now that I have all the bits I need That's all for now Regards Robert

Big fan here, for sport scale models. They are cheap, easy (forgiving) to spray, and you can get in any colour you like. Ref below: chipmunk red, white, grey over ceconite and epoxy fibreglass; Russian spit green and grey undersides over epoxy fibreglass and overcoated with flat clear spay can enamel; PR Spit blue all over over wbpu and over coated with 2k clear for glow fuel proofing; and tiger moth cream sides (ceconite) over coated with 1k automotive gloss clear. all these mentioned colours are hardware store acrylic mixed to colours of my choosing, in a mix of resene, Val spar and who knows what else. I thin the paint to the consistency of full cream milk with plain tap water, and spray with a cheap mini 125ml hvlp touch up gun, as found on ebay for around 15-20 pounds, e.g. Link Unless you're aiming for top level sCale, why not?