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leccyflyer

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Everything posted by leccyflyer

  1. Lovely sunny spring morning with very light winds, skylarks having a grand old time and got some good flights in with Sea Fury, Seafire and a couple of Spitfires before the wind started to get up, as forecast, immediately after lunch, so it was time to pack up and head homewards calling in for some flying on the slope. A group of three paragliders mostly kept out of the way and the lift was excellent. My Easyglider was climbing out with ease and reaching great heights, but the highlight for me was flying a true classic glider the Veron Cobra, which we worked out that I'd had the model donated half a dozen years ago and I hadn't flown it since. Really nice smooth flyer and very happy even in light lift, it was great fun today.
  2. Not been flyable here for about ten days, pretty much constant wind and rain. Forecast is better for tomorrow so planning some flat field fun in the morning then as the wind is building after lunch a spot of slope soaring on the afternoon, fingers crossed.
  3. Maybe I should change the wooden prop on the Magnatilla for a heavier one, to help with Lomcevaks? 😉
  4. On a couple of Durafly models fitted with navigation lights on the wingtips I find that in normal daylight conditions you only really get a momentary glimpse of the lights when they are pointing right at you, when you get a flash of red or green. There's a chap on RCG who has programmed an Arduino microprocessor to flash morse code signals from the bright light mounted to the upper fuselage of his Spitfire, which is pretty cool. It strikes me that a bright white light in the nose of the wee Arrows Hawks is a great idea, if flying several together and one of my clubmates has one fitted to his Hawk.
  5. Not sure it qualifies as trendy, but the Canny Man's in Edinburgh has had a DH Vampire hanging up for ages, over the bar, with the ski poles, parasols and brass instruments..
  6. They are called Wattmeters presumably because they measure the watts, at least mine does? No additional calculation required. The readout gives watts, amps, voltage and aH consumed. Together with an optical tachometer that was the standard kit for the measurements you needed to work with your power train, before Lipos were ever even a thing. Later on I added a Graupner clamp meter, just for convenience sake as being much more rapid in use at the field, without having to make any additional connections. The Whattmeter remains a quality piece of kit.
  7. The original wattmeter, before any of the knock-offs were a glint in their daddy's diodes was the Astro Flight 101 Super Whattmeter.
  8. Good point Pat - I was describing this in a discussion about using the WattsMeter at the field a couple of weeks ago. Many years ago I was running a series of motor tests from my Balsacraft Hurricane - brushed sp600 sized motors at the time - and the results were interesting. If taken at face value one motor and prop combination would have really stood out above the others as indicating it would produce the most power, given that it was pulling the most amps and generating the most watts. That was entirely misleading since the highly inefficient grotty old sp600 motor was just an amp hog, without producing any more waft compared to the other equivalent motors, with much lower prop RPM. The light show of sparks at the brushes and smell of burning were other pointers to how well the motor wasn't doing. My notes at the time were two words - Bin It!
  9. One of my adages is never say never. Despite having dozens and dozens of e props in a vast range of sizes I've still found some of my IC props to be very usable and efficient props for electric. One example would be my lovely wee Robbe Dynamic 7" x 4" props which are still in use on a couple of sports models giving exactly the 25amp current draw that I was looking for. Still in use more than 20 years later and tough as old boots. Similarly the JP bendy props that I have on my BC Bearcat stands up to the rigours of belly landing with little protection on dodgy fields much better than brittle APC-E props of equivalent size and pulls the Bearcat around with aplomb. Finally my venerable Top Flite 12" x 6" wooden props do a grand job on my Magnatilla and look the part into the bargain. I still keep a collection of such wooden props, which are used when they suit.
  10. I'd be a bit concerned Richard that in freehand sanding the dihedral angle into the root of the outer panels, that I'd get the dreaded taking a wee bit extra off the leading and trailing edges than the middle, leaving a gap.. I think I'd have to jig it up with the tip raised by 35mm and then use a Permagrit block tight to the bench top to ensure that the root of that panel was completely vertical.
  11. Got the base colours applied to the Hurricane fix up and I'm happy with how it has turned out with EzeTissue applied over the tape stringers. Paints are brush applied B & Q sample pots, well thinned and the Dark Green has come out a nice satin, whilst the Dark Earth -which I'd used on a previous Hurricane - turned out to be matt. I'll be masking to apply some painted roundels and squadron codes, plus a few wee waterslide decals, so, once the minor weathering is completed, the model will receive a dust coat of WBPU to equalise the finish. I was partly diverted by making a replacement wing for my pal Bob's wee 16" span VMC Hurricane, kitted out with Volantex gear, which had an unfortunate meeting with the windsock a few weeks ago, and which he'd very kindly passed on to me. Luckily he'd retained the scrap balsa from which the wing ribs had been laser cut, so I was able to quickly knock up a replacement wing, cover it with 38um laminating film and use the original paints to restore the wee Hurricane to flying condition. I just need to replace the markings, which I'll do with some laser printed waterslides.
  12. Sorry to hear that Matty and I hope that you make a speedy and complete recovery. Take care mister. Brian
  13. I'd happily buy from them, as they have loads of interesting stuff, but they are not interested in sending it to other parts of the country.
  14. You could argue that there is a tangible fire risk associated with electric powered gliders which could come down away from the landing area and, if the throttle is not closed immediately could burn out the motor and/or the flight battery. One of the very few model fires that I've witnessed was an electric glider and had we not been able to rapidly extinguish that fire, in the undergrown, it could have caused a serious grass fire.
  15. Hi Tosh It's the "standard" 9g Durafly servos - HK own brand - which have caused problems. Just in our mutual club myself, Jim J, Steve and I believe possibly Mike, have all had issues with the Durafly servos failing. At my local club at least two of us have had Durafly servo failures. At least half a dozen crashes directly attributable to those servo failures - On the Hobbyking site those servos used to be about two quid each - they don't appear to be listed at the moment. I routinely swap them out now and won't take a chance on them.
  16. Understood, but Basil had said that he was seeing differences in operation between using A dry cell and using a lipo. I was seeking to clarify what exactly he meant by A dry cell, as it could have been relevant to the issues he was seeing.
  17. I've got Hitec DC RX crystals in 62, 64 and 78 if any of those would suit?
  18. Okay - the concern with Futaba isn't with the ploarity of the conector, that is the same for Hitec, Futaba and JR. I believe that Airtronics and Sanwa are different, hence that warning. As regards the crystals, yes, as a Dual Conversion Receiver you will need to use Hitec dual conversion crystals as stated. Futaba DC crystals are not compatible. What frequency are you looking for, I do have a small stock of Hitec DC crystals and you're welcome to have one is I have one suitable.
  19. So not a dry cell at all, rather four rechargeable Nimhs, Thanks for the confirmation.
  20. Paul commented that he was finished with Hobbyking, due to having been censured (sic) on RC Groups and his posts deleted. It appears that his posts were actually deleted by Hobbyking on a Privately Moderated thread there. That functionality was a bad idea, which I was strongly against at the time it was implemented.
  21. What does the note actually say, which causes your concern? I've used many Hitec 555 receivers in the past, some with Futaba servos, which were usable with no issues by simply trimming the wee tab that Futaba put on their servo plugs and running a blade down the sides of the plug to remove the sharp edge.
  22. Was it deleted or was it moved to the Bit Bucket? Was it a privately moderated thread?
  23. I know what a dry cell is Martin, I'm just trying to find out what Bas means, as the most common forms of dry cell would either be too low voltage (1.5V in the case of AAA, AA, C, C, D batteries) or too high a voltage (9v -PP3, PP9) for those servo testers.
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