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Another addition is a BH Lysander my friend Nick has just put together. Laser 180 in the front turning a 19x6 3 blade prop. Flat out the engine does 5500rpm but the performance is perfect for the lysander and it looks great in the air. The only mod incoming is a more scale tail wheel but this combo really looks the part with the big prop and custom made spinner.

Hopefully, the problem with the inner engine exhausts has now been fixed. This picture shows the gap between the exhaust flexy pipe and the silencer stub; exhaust heat directly onto the silicon tube bridging the gap soon destroys it and if the flexy touches the tank, that too is melted. The simple solution was a short length of K&S thin-walled brass tubing, the silicon now forms a bit of a seal between the flexy pipe (which is slightly smaller than the silencer stub) and the brass tube but does not come into direct contact with the hot gasses. With there now being a metal bridge, there should be improved heat conduction. As an additional safety measure a piece of thin aluminium sheet has been glued under each tank. The 3rd flight was captured on video, still shaky in parts I’m afraid, but proves that the model has successfully flown again. The day was fine enough though a little choppy leading to the model being buffeted at times. The speed was kept slightly on the high side, I’m sure this can be reduced in better conditions to create a greater sense of realism but the greater aileron movement afforded by a one-servo-per-aileron installation showed that the model can now cope with a bit of turbulence. Resized, edited DH86 3rd flight.mp4 The little Lasers started easily and performed faultlessly, once again thanks to Jon Harper at Laser Engines for working his magic. From building three other deHavilland twins and multis, I’ve found there is a slight disadvantage (for the modeller) to their designs. The adoption of a single fin/rudder puts it out of the propwash. With the DH86 the outer engines are a considerable distance from the centreline, less than perfect engine synchronisation causes a tendency to swing on the take-off run which is difficult to correct with rudder alone. To counter this, each engine servo has its own channel with the outer engines slaved to the rudder. Full rudder output will advance the opposite outer engine by about 10%, ie right rudder will open the throttle of the left outer engine. The right outer engine in this example is not reduced by 10%; modern radios make this mixing very easy as Side A and Side B, in Futaba parlance, can be programmed independently. The cost of the restoration hasn’t been kept but it will have been a few hundred pounds, cheaper and quicker than starting from scratch I suppose. Cynically it could be described as mutton dressed as lamb, however I’m pleased with the final result and hope now that it has proved itself. it gets flown a bit more often than when first built. I’ll admit that it has been a more enjoyable project than I first thought, given that I reluctantly carry out repairs and this restoration was essentially just that. In building a model from scratch most are effectively prototypes as a subsequent one doesn’t usually get built to correct the inadequacies of the original, so a first for me on that score. This was the second of a two-model refurbishment I had tasked myself to do (the other was an equally old DB SE5) to prevent unairworthy models from taking up valuable space in my shed. In truth that was only buying a bit of time as now they are complete, I feel the need to tick off another attractive subject on an ever growing list. I’d better sweep out the workshop and worry how I’m going to squeeze another project into the shed.

I'll put this one up, MR Camel with 200v VID-20220502-WA0001.mp4

Hi, as the event organiser and BMFA Records Officer thanks for the positive words and enjoying the strategic thinking for getting the most models in the air from the various posts here. Thank you as well to all of the clubs and coordinators for embracing the record as well. Just to clarify the record verification, if all goes to plan we will set a UK absolute record and submit the dossier for the FAI diploma when all of the results are in. The diploma is fantastic recognition of the achievement. We will then submit to Guinness after this. We have around 250 clubs registered at the moment making this the largest multi site model aircraft flying participation activity ever attempted in the UK and possibly the World! I thank you again for your enthusiasm and hope you have a fantastic attempt. Simon Vaitkevicius BMFA Records Officer

PatMc, With full size aircraft, the trim is adjusted for a fixed set of circumstances. Change anything and the plane gets re-trimmed. We as model flyers expect our planes not to change trim through the flight envelope, hence we modify our set up to limit the amount of change for variations in power / speed / attitude which would make full size aircraft inefficient due to extra drag produced.

Thanks for the compliments and pleased you liked the refurbishment blog. This is the first time I've attempted to record a build or repair sequence though might try another, I see Mr Fenton's efforts are popular and if it encourages people to get building, or help to stem the decline in building which is more to the point, it can't be a bad thing. Thanks for the tip regarding the use of fibreglass Manish, of course that won't burn so will be stored in the grey matter for possible use.

To my understanding 'downthrust' is an attempt to reduce the effect of the difference between the thrust line and the centre of drag. The centre of drag is entirely dependent on the configurtion of the airframe. It follows that the airframe configuration and the physical value of its thrust have to be considered to determine what effect a change in thrsut line may have. For example the effect of down thrust will be completely different between a high and low wing design.

I shall do. The rudder comes to the end of its physical range before the end of the servo range, which is a pity because it is a waste of torque.

I would say leave alone but set up rates with lower movement then fly and see.

At least some of us were listening then!

On the 8th May 2011, I started a project, to construct a semi scale Bachem Natter. At the time I realised that my chance of success was pretty low. Not helped by my success criteria that the model should be flown in all weather conditions. Although I thought I understood what the major issues were, It turned out I was wrong. My principal problem was obtaining an acceptable CG, without an unacceptable wing loading. About the same time Simon Chadwick embarked on the same challenge, with slightly differing flying criteria. His philosophy was a very lightweight construction, accepting that the flight envelope would be limited, in that in some weather conditions the model should not be flown. He was successful. Meanwhile my partial model lay about the model room. It moved house. It was kicked from pillar to post. Its mear precsence caused annoyance and frustration. In the mean time probably 20 other models have been built and flown. More recently. I reflected on suggestions made by others on this thread, ideas that have been buried in the back of my mind. Plus I have purchased a 3d printer, which I continue to learn about both design and production. Somehow the two elements combined. the bullet was bitten. Work restarted. This is as far as I have reached The picture below is of a real one at the Deutsches Museum of an early model along with a Rhinetochter (from memory) $R5F7Z8H.stl

Hot off the press. Our coordinator has just sat through the video thing and it will not be verified by Guinnless, as I suspected. There will be record status apparently. Verification will rest on the coordinator to get a group photo, a list of names and BMFA numbers and then self-certify the numbers. Guinness evidently expect a single venue and allegedly charge well to attend and count up. My view, it’s more to do with a fun day and some esprit de corps, although the whiff of some sort of acknowledgement is undoubtedly helping to get c. 50% of our membership involved. BTC

To guarantee no mid airs, we are going to organise a combat session..........................

Pretending to be a politician: Well, I’m glad you asked me that question. North Leeds MFC had a dress rehearsal last Saturday and the headline statistics are, essentially, that we had c. 18 uavs airborne simultaneously with no damage recorded. The actual attempt is scheduled for c. 20 fixed wing plus several drones and all members not flying will be provided with a chuck glider (P51, no messing here) which could get us to c. 30. I will claim to have had a hand in this and as there may be unrehearsed forumites reading this, I’ll just indulge my vanity by describing the scheme. At the outset I had an image of 16 planes in 4 tiers, with large powered gliders taking off first, climbing to 600’ via a vario and landing last. Tier 2 is big petrols at c. 400’, landing second to last; followed by sports planes, Wotties, Riots etc. at c. 200’ landing second, and finally Tier 4 of floaty foamies flying low and landing as soon as the noon hooter blows. Subsequently it was felt that if four planes could fly in a sensible circular circuit, five or six could. My main concern has always been landing 20+ planes in about 10 minutes. Lessons from the rehearsal, which was flown three times: taking off not an issue provided the pilots were prepared, engines warmed etc circuits got a bit ragged, probably because it must be difficult maintaining station with so many planes up landings went well despite an unhelpful stiff 90deg cross strip wind timing was a lot less critical than we envisaged, because the Tier 1 gliders could have stayed up an hour and the Tier 4 floaty foamies only had to fly round once or twice, then land definitely needs two flight directors, one in the pits sending pilots out to the pilot box in sequence and one directing flying airhorn to count minutes down and signal noon essential Arguably the major revelation was how much less time it takes to get airborne so instead of gliders going out at 11.50 we’re now down to 11.54, so Tier 4 will go at about 11.58. Nobody runs out of fuel or battery, thereby deadsticking and blocking the runway although fetchermites need to be available, just in case. We have ordained full radio checks, failsafe, throttle cut and protocol, to ensure nobody has to retrieve a live plane. Good job we did, a lifetime member was uncovered with no throttle cut. Because we are truly rural with horses and crag rats nearby, we are posting horse guards at each end just to warn and request 10 minutes’ grace. Our surfaced car park will be rammed and we will use a lay-by about 500 yds away, with a taxi to and from the strip. The club is laying on a barbie post facto and some giddy member has even threatened to provide Nigerian claret and Cote de Nitromors to wash it down, T’Committee has rightly ordained that Tx batteries will have to be surrendered as a prerequisite. Hope this helps, glad to answer supplemental questions. BTC

neat idea Craig and welcome back

It is worth remembering that any thrust angle change (or trim) can only create level flight at one specific air speed and thus one power setting. This was a practical situation for un- throttled free flight planes but not so relevant for full house RC or full size. Of course if you throw in a 6 axis gyro with GPS the effect of throttle changes can be almost completely mitigated.

That's a real shame as Beth is a great favourite on the forum as someone who got the subscription and other problems sorted.

Well done fellas, stewards stuck it to me, pleased for Honda and Max though.

Well done Tony and Simon. Must have had a funny turn as I put Hamilton down for third for some reason after a poor start to the season so only got two out of three podium places, normally get one if I'm lucky. John

Thanks iqon ?? Good to see my "Eeeny Meany Miney Mo" technique is finally working! ?

Well done Tony & Simon Tony you fitted an upgrade ? . Your pulling away from me.

hello Steve,the radiomaster uses a multi module unit inside of it which allows you to bind it to different makes of RX's....Matty B and others use this forum and are better qualified than me to answer you question.. ken anderson...ne..1..multi module dept.

Missed this post earlier, and it definitely deserves a response... The short answer to your environmental costs question is "extremely good". Whilst I agree the overall environmental credentials of EVs in terms of lifecycle carbon emissions can be difficult to make work unless you were already a high mileage IC driver, that really isn't the case with solar. This is due to the advances in panel performance, durability and manufacture in the last 10 years + rapidly rising energy prices. Even if they are produced with the dirtiest coal (which I accept some of the cheaper panels probably are), solar panels today have such long operational lifespans and improved efficiency that they are massively carbon reducting over the course of their lifetime. To give you some idea here are real world stats (i.e. adjusted for specific geographic position in the UK, panel direction, shading etc.) for our install - it uses panels from REC, manufactured in Singapore or Norway, with a warranty offering >92% output guaranteed at 25 years: Caveats The carbon figures above don't include the battery system, as those weren't provided in the quote; this is purely for the solar panels and inverter setup Our installation is a big one, and is almost perfectly due south with no shading. Installations that aren't so well optimsed won't have quite such such good figures. So in summary our panels are carbon neutral after ~2 years in terms of pure manufacture. Even if we assume that a combination of "dirty" manufacture (which these definitely aren't, I've researched that) and the carbon cost of transport and installation double that figure, we are still only talking about a CO2 payback of a maximum of 4 years, but they will be generating for a minimum of 25 years, almost certainly longer. Yes you can argue there are better financial investments out there, but for us the value of being 80+% energy independent and knowing our bills can't really increase dramatically in the future is well worth that.

We had a GivEnergy system installed in January this year @MattyB, 11 panels, 3.6kW hybrid inverter and 5.2kWh battery. The system has performed faultlessly so far and output peaks at about 3.5kW up to yet. The panels all face SW. They improved the monitoring app recently so that it polls the system locally and updates at 10 second intervals. I think I should have bought a larger battery but otherwise very satisfied. We rarely suffer power outages here so haven't missed the ability to "island" and power the house during an outage.

We have bought the GivEnergy system - it is a British owned company and seems to be well thought of, with a long warranty (10 years) on the battery. Obviously whatever you choose though you are relying on them still trading for the duration of that warranty period! This should give you an idea on costs, though ours was a fair bit cheaper as VAT was recently scrapped from all solar and battery installs. Unfortunately though it looks like you still pay VAT on retrospective battery installs that go in after your panels, though with such a big array I suspect you would still see a pretty rapid payback given current energy costs.

I have just phoned Mortons for help but they will phone me back when they find someone who can help. I did suggest that when they find the right person they get them to join the forum and let us know what is going on and provide the help that is needed. I will let you know of any further developments. Steve

yes loads,but these lads arent keen on jokes. ken anderson...ne..1....jokes dept.

I set all my designs up with zero wing and tail incidence and no side or down thrust.

Oh, so it's you, not the wind turbine industry, that's behind the balsa shortage! ?

Oh well, after umpteen years of settling down with my favourite mag it's all over No Fenton, Whittaker,and Ashby for me Poor old RCM&E, if they can't get their subscriptions to work, what's next to go? Don't suppose it concerns me any more Now, Where to go? There's an interesting little sexy french number, and even a rather flamboyant american job ernie

The Channel4 coverage should now be well under way, and hopefully those who didn't watch the race live, and don't want to see the results, are watching that rather than browsing the web! In which case I will proceed to post our league results today, though I will delay hitting "Submit" until as late as possible! First, our results for today's (or rather yesterday's!) race; Pos League Rank Team Manager Pts 1 1 0 Essex Racing Tony Clark 162 2 12 3 DMFC Racing Team Simon Webb 162 3 4 2 Revers Racing Pete B 148 4 2 0 Igoronic racing iqon 143 5 5 1 Oyster f1 Glenn Philbrick 140 6 3 0 GASTON Formula Chris McG 136 7 6 1 Pitts Specials john stones 136 8 9 0 PSS Power Flyer 127 9 10 1 Torque of the devil Stu 126 10 14 0 Norfolk Flyers Kevin Fairgrieve 124 11 8 0 teewrex John Tee 121 12 11 1 LetsGoTotoLetsGo GrumpyGnome 118 13 7 2 Hans Brake Zoonie 111 14 15 2 Team Charles Picd Charles Pic 102 15 13 1 The JP Specials johnpflyrc 98 Both Tony and Simon scored 162 points, and whilst fantasygp lists them as 1st and 2nd respectively I reckon they're joint top. Pete takes third place with 148 points. Well done to today's top 3! Let's see how this changes the overall league positions; Pos League Rank Team Manager Pts 1 1 0 Essex Racing Tony Clark 718 2 2 0 Igoronic racing iqon 695 3 3 0 GASTON Formula Chris McG 656 4 4 2 Revers Racing Pete B 636 5 5 1 Oyster f1 Glenn Philbrick 633 6 6 1 Pitts Specials john stones 618 7 7 2 Hans Brake Zoonie 603 8 8 0 teewrex John Tee 601 9 9 0 PSS Power Flyer 592 10 10 1 Torque of the devil Stu 581 11 11 1 LetsGoTotoLetsGo GrumpyGnome 579 12 12 3 DMFC Racing Team Simon Webb 568 13 13 1 The JP Specials johnpflyrc 550 14 14 0 Norfolk Flyers Kevin Fairgrieve 541 15 15 2 Team Charles Picd Charles Pic 524 No change in the top three, with Tony holding on to top place, Iqon still second and Chris third. Pete's result today moves him up 2 places to 4th, with Glenn slipping a place to 5th. John S moves up 1 to 6th, but Zoonie slips down 2 places to 7th. Further down the table Stu and GrumpyGnome swap places to 10th and 11th respectively, while Simon's result today sees him leap 3 places up to 12th, displacing me down a place to 13th, and finally Charles slips two places to 15th. We're back to Europe for the next races, Spain in two weeks time followed by Monaco a week after. Don't forget your predictions!

Full size aircraft are designed by professionals who have access to wind tunnels & measuring equipment then have the prototypes proved by professional test pilots etc etc before any production aircraft are approved. Model aircraft designers, except for a very few, don't really "design" their models. They generally copy previous model's features into their own using the TLAR &/or cut 'n try methods. They are also prone to accepting hangover features from free flight & restricted RC systems of the past without thinking that perhaps those features are no longer necessary when we have full proportional control available. Nothing wrong with using rudder deflection, it's easier to adjust than engine deflection, in fact many full size have the fin & rudder offset built in

I did actually fly it yesterday with no problem except my video camera refused to play so sorry no video. The only issue was the complete lack of wind. Fine for the actual flight but the limited grip on the fuselage made it hard to impart almost any 'urge', I could dee the gtro deflecting the ailerons as it tried to keep the wing level until it had accerated a bit. It flies so slowly the hand launch is no problem in even a gentle breeze but in a true 'nil' wind it is not so good. I should have flown again late this evening (another nil wind) but I was involved in restoring the end of its 'curled up' wing tips and andding small 'finger grips' to the fuselage to give a better hand launch. Still the plus side of a 'no flight' is the A350 is still available for the next time!

It’s been a while! I’ve been away for celebrations past few weeks. There is a method to fix the stab to the fuz but I preferred a different method for maintenance purposes. I screwed in a threaded insert at near 45% angle, then drilled out a dowel which will be the fixing point later. The dowel will be reinforced locally as well. I will later add a carbon tube to guide the bolt down to the dowel and sand flush. The plan method is to insert a 10mm dowel into the fuz stab rib and on the end of this would be a T-nut. I’m not keen on this for alignment and also if the tail plane ever takes a knock it would mean serious surgery. Whereas if the tail plane takes a knock with a threaded insert it’s an easy fix. Retracts arnt due until end of May now so more delays!

Moderator !!! Crutch Whittling ? I cant believe I started this thread . Could be in prison by the end of the week ......

Black doggy poo bags. Put into small bottles and cut off excess. Fill with glue. When you squeeze the bottle the glue will still come out and I'd you retain the tension and cap the bottle you get less air in to maintain life of adhesive.

Different models for different wallets, different models offer different ergonomics, different models offer different build quality, different models have higher class components (gimbals etc). As an example, I have a couple of Taranis X9s and whilst they are really good they do not have the same quality of build or components as my X10S.

Increasingly it is Futaba that are hanging on, I haven’t seen a newly purchased Futaba TX in years and so many people I know have left them for Frsky, Jeti and even Radiomaster.

It's a simple task to combat the effect of the prop, you wouldn't be happy if you built a bent rudder/aileron/elevator, because of the effect it has you'd scrap it and build a straight one, why then would you add trim and create a bent model ? I use no mixes, like to fly it myself warts n all and I can use a rudder. ?

It is rather large with them on plus you have the struts too but it certainly floats, if you missed the vid of its maiden flight (nearly exactly a year ago!), here it is:

I agree. Anyone know any jokes about moderators ? ?