Adrian Smith 1

I had to scrape the frost off the car before I ventured to the field this morning, although the sunny start provided all the encouragement I needed get out and fly 😀 I wheeled out the Sbach 342 which hadn't seen the wide blue yonder since January. Three glorious flights with her. I had forgotten how frisky this plane is. If the cold hadn't woken me up, the first minute or too in the air would have done. Ops. were curtailed after that due to the tail wheel connecting rod to the rudder coming loose. This has happened before and despite filing a flat on the rod and using blue thread lock on the grub screw it has happened again. I can't say I am surprised as the tail takes the occasional thump on landing. I am going to have a think on doing some sort of modification the stop it happening.

Looks to me you are up to date with your gardening (very nice it is too), but don't give up on the flying yet!! ✈️😀

A lovely selection of of my favourite planes, Philip. Looks great!😀

The S6 is a thing of beauty, Chris. Lovely snaps too 👍

Lovely setting, Aidan. Makes you realise this is one of the reasons we do this hobby. 😀

This is what sometimes happen to me!!!!

She is a looker, Martin. Nice one.

I tried the more powerful servos today and was pleasantly pleased by the improved liveliness. I still have 2 oz of weight in the nose but I really don't think it needs to be there in future. That's the next job coupled with increasing the aileron EPAs slightly.

Lovely flying day today if you don't mind the cold and a 10mph+ NNW crosswind blowing across the strip. Just look at those clouds! Today was the day I found out how good my use of the rudder is. Landings were quite tricky bearing in mind the pitch\diameter of the prop are no help in slowing her down (23x12). Adding to the landing speed was the only help the wind was in the cross leg and not on finals, hence she came in like a racing car. It doesn't help that the throttle needs to be kept on a bit otherwise one can see the stalling wing waggle beginning to develop. That said I managed to get it right by the third landing . Lovely day never the less.

Yup, I am ready to go for tomorrow. A bit nippy but gotta get out there!

scary, leery. Glad you got down safe!😣

As I had a few days to my kick heels in the work shop due to bad weather I decided to do a job on the Capiche I have been promising myself for a while. Partly due to my wanting to save costs I put a set of HV Macgregor digital servos with a stalling reading of 21kg/cms at 8.4v in the Capiche. In my defence I was guided by the manual which was written for another time which featured a similar recommendation for most of the servos around this sort of level. Well after a few flights I thought a move to more powerful HV 31kg/cms at 8.4v servos was more appropriate as per the rest of my 50-60cc squadron. Well in my musings in the W/S I notice my SkyWing 71' Edge 540 sporting an equivalent 35cc Dualsky motor on the front has these more powerful servos installed. A bit of an overkill possibly. Anyway the current servos in the Capiche would be just fine in the SkyWing Edge. Therefore for I set about swapping them out both planes this morning. It was a fiddly job mainly because of the elevators wires going through the fuselage, but in the event it didn't take too long to do the job. I am looking forward to the next outing for both and I will report back here.

You know as soon as you get into it, Bonzo the weather turn out to be perfect for flying!

Nice day for flying and although the wind was flyable it would mean having to wrestle with my planes too much. I do actually want to enjoy flying, therefore took the opportunity to cut the grass strip and fiddle around in the work shop.

Just gagging to fly today given the recent poor weather conditions. I was greeted at the strip by sparking sunshine and a nice steady 7-8mph SSW breeze. You can't wish for anything better so on with my varifocal over shades and off we go. When I was clearing up one of the full size flying boys came across for a chat. This time of year it's the RV8 MOT and service. Apparently, apart from the weather, they are grounded because of the delay in spares being delivered. Something that has never happened before. Their bad luck is my gain in the short term I guess. 😀

Nice one plane there, GG. I am going to test out your flying weather theory tomorrow! 🤞

cracking find 👍

I greatly appreciate the clip Jesus. Thank you very much. This answers all my questions 👍

I used to own a couple these great aircraft. From memory they both had OS91FX in the front. Lovely aircraft to fly and great fun. 😃

Well the decision to be made by transitioning from I/C was a simple one. Having graduated from glow to some of the larger petrol engines required for large scale beasts it reached a point where the decision to go all electric was reached. Until recent years the battery technology just didn't measure up as far a duration and performance was concerned. That's all changed now along with the advent of great performing Opto Escs rated up to 200A and top of the range supplier Hacker we prominent. As a philistine I disliked starting I/c motors in cold weather and pre petrol the mess and fuel ingress glow engines left behind. Noise became an issue where I am based even using good silencers and tuned pipes surprisingly. Electric transforming it had to be. I agree the upfront cost of electrification is quite substantial, but I was fortunate to be able to do it. It is eminently possible to fly 60cc sized models using good electric gear. The duration may not always match 10-15 minutes of glow or petrol, but 8 minutes+ for me is enough for my concentration! I accept that with some of the larger electrics emit some noticeable prop noise, but nothing like my old I/C engines. I can't say I have looked back since.

I currently possess a Futaba T14SG TX which is still giving me excellent service (9 years) I must add. However, without wanting to tempt fate, I fancy an upgrade and using the current model settings in a new Futaba TX. For argument sake I quite like the Futaba T18SZ and both have an SD card socket. Is it a straightforward process to transfer the model memories from one TX to the other using an SD card? I understand the SD card will need to formatted in one or the other Futaba device for this to work. Anybody done this recently and what are the pitfalls?

Absolutely! A great exhibition of skill. 😄

love it. Watching with interest 👍

I managed get out for a session today. I decided to take out my electrically converted Capiche 50cc. She has only had 9 flights so far and now I have sorted out the trims today was a good day for a test. Light cloud, wind 4-6mph down the strip. On the first flight when opening to WOT in the air I noticed a short high pitch wine which disappeared at lower throttle settings. I thought may be the timing was too advanced or the thing was about blow up! Landed and after examination on the ground at full throttle I notice a 6-7" loose of seam covering on the starboard leading edge flapping around in the slip stream. Out came sellotape from my tool box and put that right. And viola on the next flights not a peep so all good now. I am sure this has happened on a previous model some time ago. Anyway the session continued without trauma and I must say I am warming to her. She is very precise and always stays in the position you put her in until the next TX input. 👍I think one of our regular contributors, Peter J. is right in saying she is a bit porky in his experience. I do think she could benefit from a bigger motor (mine is a Dualsky 6000.8 model) as largely all the weight is in the front with the power packs well forward. Something to think about.......

Hobbywing Platinum ESCs every time for me 👍