2W

My Flamingo is progressing slowly, but a couple of points which might help other builders: 1. When the length of each former is measured with a flexible ruler, it is clear that it is necessary to taper each plank from F4 back to F5 and also forward to F1, with the taper being most pronounced between F2 and F1. At first I started shaping the planks by sanding the edges to avoid gaps between them, which was time consuming and boring due to the slow progress. Being a lazy blighter, I tried soaking the 9mm ply strips overnight with a damp or wet towel. This not only makes the planks much more pliable and easier to fit, but also makes it possible to shape them much more quickly with a razor plane to get them to fit exactly to the shape of the adjacent plank. It also makes it possible to pin them to the formers with large T pins using a small hammer. 2. The tailplane gave me some trouble. I weighed down the bottom sheet with my usual lead weights along the back edge and also the front edge with tailplane on the jigs and left it overnight. In the morning I found it looking a little odd: it was a flat 'W' shape! I started again by salvaging the formers and laid them out. I measured the height of each former at the front and rear and planed a taper on the bottom of the the 6mm rear beam from T2 to T8 and for the false leading edge. Having stuck the formers to the rear 6mm upside down beam and then added the top sheet by glueing it to the rear beam and glued each former from their mid points back to the to the rear. When the glue had dried, I then glued the sheet to the formers and the false leading edge. I cut the bottom sheet in two, and repeated the glueing as above, clamping first at the back and then when the glue had dried, glueing and clamping it to the false leading edge. When both sides were done, the tailplane was perfectly straight without the previous distortion. Hope this helps, William

Hi Peter, I've been following your build, and am delighted to see you have completed a successful maiden flight. I've nearly completed the fuselage structure of mine before starting on the filling and sheeting. I notice from an earlier post that you added some lead to the nose before covering it with filler. How much (weight) did you add, and did you have to add any more weight to the nose to balance the glider before flying it? Best wishes, William

Golf courses sometimes use synthetic turf, especially for winter tees. Nam Grass is one such product: https://www.namgrass.co.uk/find-a-stockist/ William

Merry Christmas everybody, and wishing you all a covid free new year.

Yes please!

Yes please!

Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

Count me in please!

Yes please!

Just the thing for the grandsons!

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Me too, please.

Oh dear! Yet another one: Mr. Manfred Fasel has sent me an email to ask me to contact him urgently about the delivery of my new ATM card. The reply address is dodgy, @list.ru I shan't be be replying to him.

Please include me!

Please include me!