Peter Garsden

I have just finished my German Oldbury Something or other version Interesting that Phil's C of G is 85mm - mine is 78mm but I have lead in the tail to balance that and I am at 139 grams which is a bit heavier - mind you lots of paint on this one. Maybe I could have done the flashes in waterslide - could have been done. Maiden at the LMMGA Comp, hopefully, this Sunday - looks like Edge Top to me. Anyone tries these in 15mph winds, which is the forecast?

Sorry Mike, didn't see this. In answer to your question I went to my local engineering shop and bought some concentric sizes of tubing that all fit effectively inside each other. Unbeknown to me I bought mild steel, which I recently had to replace with piano wire and the sizes are 1/8" and 3/32, but you could use the metric equivalent of say 3mm and 2.5mm or 2mm I am sure.

Nearly finished hopefully in time for the Lleyn meeting next weekend. Have been putting off the under wing fairing. I followed the previous wing and used 4 pieces of 6mm. For the front pieces I steam bent the balsa to follow the curve of the wing. I also adopted my usual method of adding masking tape to avoid marking the surrounding fuselage and wing. Now ready for covering.

Wing location dowels to front leading edge of wing - a tricky job as I said. This is what I did. Made up some short pieces of dowel to push into the holes in the fuselage. The dowel was slack because I had eased the holes for the last wing, so I wrapped the dowel in masking tape. I then spot glued the dowels top and bottom with cyano and pushed them in place into the fuselage holes leaving about 6mm protruding. I made sure that the front of the dowel pieces was sanded flat. I covered the fronts with thick black acrylic. I pushed the wing into place and the black paint gave me the position for drilling into the plywood you see at the leading edge. I drilled ever large holes with a hand drill and the wing in the vice making sure it was vertical, and glued the dowels into position, having checked that they fit, which they do! Result. Rear wing bolt holes I used my usual method of sharpening a scrap piece of 6mm wing bolt to a point then screwing it into the screw thread of the captive nut so it was nearly home. I then placed the wing in position and marked one hole in the trailing edge. I then drilled it out with 3mm, 4mm, 5mm then 6mm drills. I then screwed one side into position, and did the same with the other bolt hole. Result. A piece of ply - plan specifies 3/32 and I don't have any so I laminated a piece of 1/16 with a piece of 1/32 which I have in abundance. This strengthens the wing bolts and can be seen in the photograph. I cut it to size from the plan, and glued it in position then drilled through for the wing bolts. Wing Reinforcement over Join I found that the 2 inch wide bandage was not strong enough on the original wing so wanted maximum strength and made a mix of 2 inch wide wing bandage and a diamond shape to reinforce strength top and bottom. You can see the shape in the photographs. You can also see the peel ply ready cut to shape - this will be laid on top and will soak up excess resin. Don't you find that if you don't you get bobbles of resin which would interfere with the balsa wing centre fairing which lays underneath, so it will be maximum strength minimum thickness and weight. Film will also adhere to it better. Also shown is the paper template I used to get the shape right. Also shown are my amazing Kevlar cutting scissors which I got from a glass supplier. If you have ever tried to cut Kevlar and watched it destroy scissor blades you will know what I mean. £47 but worth every penny if you cut a lot of cloth. Heavy and brilliant. Next job is resin. Bottom first then top letting it dry in between.

Apologies, I have made some progress but not taken pictures. Please see, however the servo mounts which I made by scooping out foam with my wire foam cutter then lining the hole with 0.8mm ply and gluing in the servo mounts I took out of the old wing. I am going to cover the surface with some clear plastic, iron on some film and selotape them on. The point is that as the Sable lands flat on the wing one cannot have clevises sticking out the bottom, so all control rods poke through the top of the wing. Note that I left a bit of wire pudding inside the recess, should I have to take them out again. I also had to make holes for the flap servos. Phil from Cloud Models had already made holes for the aileron servos which came out in the right place as he had assumed that the servo would be placed as per the plan which I sent him. The flap wire holes, however, I made with a sharpened brass tube lined up by placing a ruler on top of the wing. I then fed through the wires by gluing the ends to a piece of 2mm carbon rod and pulling it through. Next job was to join the wing together. As the original wing kept breaking, I asked Phil to make me some 1.5mm ply braces which fit inside the wing through pre-cut slots. Perfect fit. I had to feed the aileron wire, however, through the rearmost joiner and glue everything into position with the wires fed through the top before it dried Trailing Edge now glued on with epoxy and front part of wing sawn off to butt against the fuselage former with dowels yet to be recessed inside the wing in the correct place - that will be a challenge!

After a fateful crash at the same site as the above picture ie the NW Cafe Slope of the Orme, from whence the Warden in his wisdom and partly due to use allegedly upsetting the nesting chuffing Choughs (no jokes please), as a result of which I wrote the wing off, I have decided to make a new wing, this time in foam and veneer. I think the C of G was too far forward because upon launch in admittedly a light wind, the model dived headlong downwards and hit the far cliff. Fortunately it avoided a watery grave, and Phil Cooke, God bless him, scaled down the almost vertical slope and retrieved it. The problem is that I have made a fibreglass fuselage with wing fairings which is too rigid for the flexibility of the built up wing. It has now broken 4 times, so I am going to provide more reinforcement in the new wing with a diamond shaped piece of fibreglass wing joining cloth, and some plywood wing joiners. Phil from Cloud Models skilfully cut me some veneer covered black foam wings to exactly the right shape which was helpful. I sent him the plans for the built up version. I have now attached the leading and trailing edge. I am just working out how to feed the wires through to the servos. There is a hole near the trailing edge which I am hoping to use and has been bored through for that purpose methinks. One can see the handy masking tape method to stop the David Plane cutting off bits of veneer.

Well I have just returned from a more or less windless PSS weekend at the Orme. I took the Petrel because I wanted to try it out in light winds, which we had in abundance - no good for PSS heavies but OK for the Petrel. I arrived on Friday evening to Sun and about 8 to 10mph on the NW slope. I quickly assemble and Stevie chucked her off. She soared effortlessly as though on rails. She does dive a bit so I think I will remove 2 chunks of lead from the cockpit I flew her for about an hour, so delightful was the experience. The wind dropped to about 6mph and she seemed to cope with it easily rising even in that wind. I also flew her the following morning on the North East Pier slope which was equally rewarding and idyllic. This one will be flown a lot. I must go, however to find some accomodation for the Shrelow Aerotow next weekend.

So...maiden yesterday up at the back of Roaches, Flash, near Leek, which is a perfect site for a maiden as long as the wind is NE to ENE. The forecast said 15 to 25mph which was perfect, if a bit strong for the Petrel, but Chris's Magazine article told me that it could cope with stronger winds. In fact the stats showed that it was slightly under the weight of Chris's prototype as follows Weight 7.62 lbs/3.46 kg. Wing Area 7.39 sq ft. Wing Loading: 16.712 oz sq. ft. Pretty good for such a big glider. I wouldn't launch it in anything higher than 25mph, and am planning to use it for aerotowing if I can find some information about the Sherlow Event. Well I am provisionally going but being a newbie to aerotowing it is a bit auspicious. Will have to rustle together a towline methinks. Oh gawd. So how did the maiden go? Well I arranged to meet some chums to help with the launch of such a big glider (to me anyway!). When we arrived it was a bit chilly and I should have taken my microlight suit. Good medium strength wind, so I attempted to assemble. Even though I thought I had screwed in the hooks for the wing hold together bands in the right place, I hadn't done so. The rear ones were more or less in the right position but not the front ones which I had to remove and replace with Diamond Tape to hold the wings on. Not a problem, but they are now fixed and in the correct place. The big moment came. I was a bit nervous about the incidence of the wing. Bob gave me a good heave ho, and she was off. I had to feed in some up elevator so added some trim. Too much so I used about half of the trim travel and she was zooming around perfectly. She actually rises in the turn rather than falling out of the sky as some mouldies do. Against the hill she looked lovely. I tried some loops which pulled round very well, a stall turn which was perfect, a Chandelle, then I thought I would try a roll. Chris had specified 50% Aileron Differential which was dialled in. I also mixed in some rudder with aileron as per the Flamingo, which worked very well. No sign of adverse yaw (whatever that it?) So I clicked in full rates and decided to try a roll. Later in the day the wind moved a bit to the North and the lift improved. We were followed by Buzzards and a Red Kite, whom we also followed for thermals. A lot of height then a dive followed by a roll. I just couldn't believe how quickly the model rolls. Amazing. It might be the thin wing tips which cut through the air but I hardly needed any down elevator and the speed of the roll was like an aerobatic glider. I had 3 long flights which I thoroughly enjoyed. I would like to try it out in very light winds to see if it stays up - according to Chris it does so. Thank you to Dave for taking the pictures. My transmitter allows me to put the Butterfly elevator trim on a rotary knob so that you can adjust it in flight. I thus took the glider up high and tried out the crow brakes. I gave it slightly less up elevator which worked well. You can see here it coming into landing with full crow applied

Finally, the closing up of the gap underneath the ailerons which is quite large because they are top hinged, Chris W has a very clever system of strips of mylar held in position by double sided tape. The double sided tape is attached to the wing and the ailerons move within the mylar umbrella.

I didn't show you all the steps I have taken since the above, as they are fairly self explanatory. The metal skid along the bottom of the fuselage. I got a piece of 20mm wide 1mm thick aluminium off Ebay, cut it to length, drilled 6 holes where shown on the plan at the front and back, countersunk the holes, then marked the relative positions on the balsa keel, drilled progressively bigger holes up to 6mm for the wooden dowels which I glued into position with the 5 minute PVA adhesive. This is a better hole gap filling glue than the Titebond Aliphatic Resin I also use. I then drilled pilot holes in the dowels, bent the skid to follow the shape of the keel and screwed it into position with 4mm screws. Balancing weight - the C of G is 85mm from the leading edge of the wing according to the plan. It needed quite a few pieces of lead to bring it into position. I feared that I had inset too much lead behind the P38 filler nose, but not so. With Reginald in the cockpit there is little room for even the receiver, so I had shoe horn it into the instrument binacle of the canopy. I now understand why Chris made it detachable with screws - so that one can insert lead inside it, which I screwed into position from underneath. Finally here are some pictures of it assembled. It weighs in at 7.62lbs, which is not far off Chris's estimate of 8lbs. It is a handsome beast. I now await a suitable day to launch off the slope. I still have to tidy up the servo wires inside the cockpit, glue in some guide tubes for the aerial wires, make some pieces of 2mm carbon rod to secure the wing joining bands, and make a wire hook for retrieving lost wing bands. Oh and very large radiator insulation bags, and some more "Petrel" vinyl sticker for the ailerons, plus stick on my Operator ID somewhere. Still stuff to do.

I think we are nearly done with the Petrel. I have covered the wings in a combination of clear film for the outer half of the wing and red Solarflim for the inboard half before the gull join. I would have used clear for all the built up bits but I did not quite have enough, and it is now unavailable at Hobby King. It seems to have been on back order forever. On the Flamingo I used some different plugs I had not used before from 4 Max called Maxlock - https://www.4-max.co.uk/maxloc-connectors.html The only problem was that they are 6 wires wide and sometimes get stuck when I am attaching the wings, so this time I opted for the green Multiplex plugs I usually deploy for mouldies. Whilst they are a bit narrower one has to reinforce the joins to avoid the connections working loose. For about £30 you can buy a machine to make the hot glue reinforcement of the wires, but I do my own with a couple of pieces of scrap aluminium to compress the hot glue when applied. The one on the right is awaiting application. This article tells you more - https://www.gliderireland.net/multiplex-green-plugs-mold/

OK so the fuselage is done apart from the closed loop rudder system, and the wires for the spoilers/ailerons, so onto the wing which is covered in film. I have got some clear Hobbyking Film left over from the Flamingo, but I am not sure I have enough for both the root open area and the ailerons. So I decided to start on the ailerons, which are covered. Next is the inserted clear film for the outer wing section. To get the shape right I used a 4B pencil rubbing paper template as shown, which worked just fine. I will use it to cut out the red solarfilm to the correct shape also. This shows the fuselage with the rudder and AMT fitted I have made 4mm wide black lines out of Solartrim which makes the join so much better. This is the rear assembled. I tried the balance and I think it will be spot on with no extra lead needed, so fingers crossed.

Well we are nearly done with the airbrushing methinks. I have given the fuselage about 6 coats of white primer before overlaying about 4 coats of Flame Red which is the closest to Solarfilm Red I could find which I am using for the fin, the tailplane, and wings in combination with some clear for the flying surfaces. The cockpit area is masked off because that has been painted in white. It needs another coat of red before overlaying clear gloss lacquer. Next was the canopy which I completely covered with Tamiya yellow masking tape before drawing on the frame lines from the plan - width 4mm. I used the two flexible rulers you can see, which work really well. I then used a brand new blade in the scalpel to make sure of clean lines. You have to press but not too hard to avoid going through the plastic canopy as well s the tape. The first coat is just plain white to give the inside of the canopy the correct colour and also to give the red the correct base. I changed the nozzle of the airbrush from the fan shape to the single hole to get a narrower coverage.