David Davis

,,,and just to add my two pennorth, some glow engines need time to run in before they'll function perfectly.

Why this reluctance to entertain the glow engine ToTo? Its only a matter of adjusting two needle valves and in most cases once the low speed needle is adjusted it may be left alone for years at a time.

If I were looking for advice on WW2 warbirds of about 5-6 feet in the wingspan, Jonathan Harper would be the first person I would approach. He is a very experienced builder and flyer of this type of aircraft and until he started his new job he was the development engineer for Laser Engines, a British four-stroke which you may have heard of.

I took both Barons to the flying field yesterday. I programmed in 5% down elevator with the throttle stick above 75% travel. For a computer phobe like me that's quite an achievement! This had the effect of stopping the model from climbing at high speed. I must do the same for the other one. The Ukrainian Baron, Boris, is fitted with a Thunder Tiger 54 FS. The threads in the exhaust port are worn and the exhaust pipe keeps working loose. I'll try Loctite but I don't hold out much hope. It's a pity because I've owned that engine from new and it's always given good service. There does not seem to be sufficient metal around the exhaust port to allow for a helicoil insert. Spares are difficult to find. There is a brand new cylinder head on eBay but the seller wants £100 for it. I have at least four OS 52s and 48s. Perhaps I should fit one of those. The British Baron, Bertie, is powered by a Magnum 52 fitted with a Weston four-stroke silencer. This works very well but it is much bigger and heavier than a standard four-stroke silencer. Again when I landed the model yesterday I found that the exhaust pipe was loose. The threads in the exhaust port seem to be sound, I'll try some Loctite and hope for the best. If it continues to work loose I'll fit a conventional silencer. That will be a pity because I've grown to love the sound of the Weston exhaust! Any advice on keeping exhaust pipes in place will be gratefully received.

Temperatures touching 25C in the northern Creuse with light winds. I flew my Big Guff twice, my Ukrainian Baron twice and my British Baron once. Bertie, my British Baron is just about set up perfectly for La Coupe Des Barons in June. Another club member who used to fly in the Eighties but who has lacked confidence to get back into flying, finally found the confidence to fly his expensive ARTF 3D model powered by a 60cc engine. He managed to take off, fly about and execute some aerobatic manouvres successfully. This will make him more confident in future. My dog was a bit uncomfortable in the heat.

I still haven't invested in a Radiomaster transmitter because central heating oil and van repairs have had first call on my money! There is a basic trainer in our club's workshop which anybody can use. However, its fitted with a Futaba receiver. I realise that a Radiomaster transmitter will work with Spektum receivers but can you connect a Radiomaster transmitter to a Futaba receiver?

If you're into building Bas I'd recommend the Radio Queen as a basic trainer. It's very stable in light winds and with repeated flights it instills confidence in a novice before he moves on to an aileron trainer. I used to have one with an i/c engine years ago which I used to give elderly novices their first experience of radio controlled flight. It's one of the two models I regret selling. The other was a Flair Hooligan. By chance they were both pictured on the same photograph! If anyone builds a Radio Queen make sure that you don't overpower it. We tried three different electric motors before finding one which flew the model nicely. if fitting an i/c engine a 40 four-stroke would be a good match. The plans show the engine bearers spaced for a 2.5 cc (0.15 cu.ins) diesel!

For the last three years I have been trying to teach my Belgian mate Frans both how to build how to fly. He's built a Ben Buckle Junior 60 and a Radio Queen but I was on the point of suggesting that he had a few sessions with another instructor when he went solo this morning for the first time on the Radio Queen! The weather was perfect, he flew the first two flights with me on the buddy box but I did not have to intervene at all from take-off to landing so I persuaded him to go solo on the third flight which he did. We had a beer afterwards to celebrate the occasion! 😆

...and it's obtainable from Model Shop Leeds and most other good model shops. https://www.modelshopleeds.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=291_1011&products_id=79264

I hada similar experience! I bought an OS 46 AX second hand minus the silencer but found something suitable in my box of two-stroke exhausts. I must fit the engine to the club's trainer and remove my beloved Enya 50 which is destined to go into a Calmato Alpha. Can't have such a beautifully made engine in the clumsy paws of beginners! 😏

It was a lovely day yesterday in the middle of France. I took both of my Barons, Bertie and Boris, with me to practice low level flight for La Coup Des Barons in June. The wind was a bit stronger than forecast and unfortunately I was too low and too slow when executing a downwind turn with Bertie. The model stalled and hit the deck damaging the fuselage. After thirty-six years of flying these things you'd think that I would have learned something! It's certainly repairable and it will give me a chance to make a better job of an old repair. I may change the elevator actuation while I'm at it. Quite a bit of rain has beeb forecast for the coming week so I should have the time. Both models flew well but the thread in the exhaust port of the Thunder Tiger 54 in the Ukrainian Baron is on its last legs. I have some Liquid Metal which I could use but even if it's a successful repair it will lock the exhaust in one position. If the worst comes to the worst I have at least four OS 52 and 48 Surpasses which would do the job. The Ukrainian Baron is 100 grammes (3.5 ounces) heavier than the other one but I could detect no difference in their flying chacteristics. At full power both models climbed like hell and I was having to hold in some down elevator to achieve level flight. I thought about introducing some down elevator at full chat but don't know how to do it. I use a Spektrum DX9. I also flew my World Models Super Frontier Senior, an ARTF copy of a SIG Kadet Senior but that was so boring that I didn't bother taking a picture of it. Despite the fine conditions only five of us turned up and one of those didn't bring a model with him. All of the others flew electric ARTFs, all but one were foamies. C'est la vie et un signe des temps.

This might be suitable for your engine. It's cheap enough but it could do with a clean. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/355534920581?itmmeta=01HTWSZWXSYGJ193VZ1JVBTGB2&hash=item52c7885b85:g:EDcAAOSwIvdl7xjg

So do I.

I had a similar experience. I used to live in North Devon. Every year at the end of the flying season, the Exeter Club used to hire a school hall and a caterer, and stage a giant auction. People came from miles around, there were usually over four hundred lots. I bought a diesel engine, I think it was a PAW 19 but I can't be sure. I brought it home, put a prop on it and squirted some diesel fuel into the exhaust ports. Casually I flipped it over and the damn thing burst into life! There I was standing in my kitchen with a model aeroplane engine screaming it's head off in my left hand and the kitchen rapidly filling with exhaust smoke. My immediate though was to chuck it in the sink but being a single man, the sink was full of dirty ditches! So I had to stand there holding the damned thing until it ran out of fuel. Of course, they get hot don't they, so it became increasingly more difficult to hold on to it. Fortunately it stopped before it became too hot to hold! 🙄

Just a little rider to all of the above about a lightweight Junior 60 powered by a 15, I have just dropped £6 on an Enya 15 which looks new but it must be very old because it has a butterfly valve over the exhaust port. If I win it, I hope it's not too noisy! I did think of using a PAW diesel but changed my mind because they're so oily.

Maybe, I've never used it before but i couldn't get the engine to run satisfactorily using old school methods.

I'm the polar opposite of you Hillclimber, I can't abide the asthmatic wheeze of an electric motor! Indeed I'm thinking of removing the electric motor from my Super 60 and fitting a small fourstroke. I love the challenge of getting an engine adjusted so that it runs spot on. For example last week I had just finished a Baron ready for La Coupe Des Barons in June. It is powered by a Magnum 52FS. Though the engine ran well, every time the throttle stick was pulled back below the half way position the engine would cut. I carefully adjusted the throttle pushrod and aligned the servo output arm and the throttle lever but the problem persisted. I tried the travel adjust function without success then reverted to using the sub trim feature on my DX9 for the first time. That solved the problem. How I ever managed all those years ago on that Sanwa Conquest, I'll never understand!

and mine.

If electric is to be the future it's a good job that I'm not going to be around for that much longer! 😏

My dirty plates are in the dishwasher.

Oh I'm not beating myself up about it Leccy but in addition to the models mentioned above I have five unstarted kits still in their boxes: a Hawker Hurricane, a Stampe Monitor, a Supra Star, a Super Kaos Junior and a quarter scale Fokker triplane. Then there's that DSM Aerostar in need of refurbishment and that Flying Flea I inherited when my best friend died over twenty years ago but as you say it's a hobby not a job. No wonder the garden's in such a state!

I don't suppose that this applies to everyone but it does apply to some of us. Why is it that if we have a model to finish, or several models to finish, that we start to build another? Take my case. I just need to fit the radio, engine and undercarriage to a Galaxy Models "Mystic," I have a DB Sport & Scale Auster in a similar condition and I need to repair the wing of my Guidato after the dog had jumped on it, and yet I am tempted to start building another Junior 60! If I build it, it will be the fourth which I have built and that's not counting the Junior 60 which I helped my protégé Frans to build. I have both an OS 26 FS Surpass and an ASP30 FS which are currently unemployed but I'm tempted to build it very light, cover it in doculam and tissue, which will be a first for me, and power it with a 15 two-stroke. I have a roll of Micafilm which I could use but that looks awful! So I have the materials and the plan and the temptation but I'm kicking myself now for having given away a brand new Enya 15 last year! Mind you those old Enyas require an awful lot of running in so the neighbours have been spared! The Junior 60 was my first successful RC model so that may have influenced my thinking. There are better trainers, not that I need a trainer these days, but I just love the way the Junior 60 just seems to hover in calm air. I'll let you know if I start cutting balsa. Two of my previous J60s below, one with my much younger self! My first one was covered in olive drab nylon. The dullest-looking Junior 60 you ever saw! PS. As for the dog jumping on the Guidato's wing, it was my fault. I had incarcerated her in the van for too long when I was in England for a few weeks last year, and she made a bid for freedom damaging the Super Sixty's wing and that of the Big Guff too. I've repaired the Super Sixty and the damage to the Big Guff's wing is only superficial. PPS. In all of the Junior 60s I have built I have used standard servos, mostly Hitec HS 311s. For this new projected Junior 60 I plan to fit lighter servos. I have a Savox SH-0255mg sculling about. If I were to buy two more, would they be suitable for the Junior 60?

I was once on the phone to Mr Eiflander, the manufacturer of PAW model diesel engines. He told me that his main business was in making parts for machines which are used in hospitals, so the engines were just a sideline. I built and flew my first r/c aircraft in 1988 having built free flight and control line models in the Sixties. In 1988 every model on the flight line was built by the pilot or purchased second hand and they all had an i/c engine in the nose. Today most of the models at my club's flying field are electric powered ARTFs. C'est la vie. However, some of us like engines for some unfathomable reason and enjoy getting them to run properly. Some of us don't mind cleaning a little oil off the side of the model at the end of the day and some of us like the sense of satisfaction you get from building a model from scratch and watching it take flight, but we are a disappearing minority. Those of us who like engines may bemoan the paucity of new ones which are available but given the fact that so many good second hand engines are available at very reasonable prices, our needs will be catered for for some time to come. I've just worked out that I have thirty-three engines ranging from a Mills 75 to a Laser 160V. Having turned seventy-six on 11th March I think I have enough to be getting on with. For the time being at least.

Model Shop Leeds is taking over the distribution of the spare parts.

That's what I was thinking! Most of my engines are like this.