Roger Auker

A fellow flier recently left here (Dubai) for Trinidad and the shippers refused to allow fuel to be in the container along with the household items.  He gave it all away and I managed to score a couple of gallons of fuel for the price of a cup of coffee, now that can't be bad.

This is a really great idea, well done you guys !!   I am a hoarder of magazines and still have magazines in the loft at home in South Africa (fish moth food now ?) from the late 70's.  When we moved house it took ages to pack  them as I kept opening them and reading articles !!   Since moving to Dubai in September 2004, I have started another stash up here as well, wife is well impressed as you can imagine.   Keep up the good work and that "flexipage" programme is magic as the pages turn in either direction at the click of the mouse, just like reading the magazine. 

Living in Dubai it is easy for me and some friends to get down to Abu Dhabi.  We have done this for the past 3 years and really exciting to watch.  Will not be able to attend next month as heading off to Thailand for a friend's wedding.  Can you imagine tellng the wife, "sorry dear, can't go to the wedding and the short holiday planned as have to go to the Red Bull Air Races instead !! "  Not good for matrimonial harmony, oh well, it will be on TV at some stage. Similar to Dave's comments above, a "must see at some stage".

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all.  Many thanks for the help and discussions during the year and may 2009 be filled with everything you hoped for. Off to South Africa tonight (well 04:25 on Thursday morning) from Dubai for my Christmas break with family and friends. 

Normally take 2 planes as that is about the limit to fit in the car (Volvo S40).  Can be a combination of Extra 330 (World Models with an OS 91), Mustang (World Models 60 with an RCV 91), Sebart Angel and a fun fly (South African kit build with a West 36 T1).  Normally the Angel and the Mustang or the Extra and the fun fly. Try to fit in at least 2 flights with each model taken but busy instructing 2 guys at the moment and time goes so fast with training them and then flying my planes and of course, the obligatory chat with those present.  Mustn't forget the refreshments either.  Always good fun and look forward to Friday flying (live in Dubai) and that is our weekend, only 1 full day off !!!  Back to work on Saturday until Thursday.

Byron specifically make a 4 stroke mix, however, in saying that the nitro content is usually best at 10% for 4 strokes along with about 16% oil.  Suggest you keep this fuel for the 2 strokes mentioned and get some "proper" 4 stroke fuel for any 4 stroke engine you have.  Saves a lot of hassles and possible poor  running of your 4 stroke. I use Byron 4 stroke fuel in my RCV 91CD as it needs some castor and have used the 10% nitro Premium Standard in my 2 strokes.  However, of late I have exclusively used Coolpower 10% fully synthetic in all my 2 strokes from a West 36 to an OS 91 FX, no problems.  Byron all the way for the RCV though.  Several guys here in Dubai use the 5% fuel you have and no problems on the 2 strokes.

Enjoyed the flying on Friday morning and had 3 very good flights with the Angel and 3 with my World Models Mustang. This apart from a few training flights with a couple of guys I am teaching at the moment. The battery went well and had a 9 minute flight including taxiing and took out 2885 mah from each of the batteries (one is 3700 and the other 3850), so very happy and thanks for all of the advice. As for the temperature at the moment, yep certainly cooler than a few months ago and "down" to about 17 in the morning and up to 30 at lunchtime.  The Dubai Rugby 7's have their new home about 5kms from our flying field and you may have seen some of it on Sky.  Don't know if they showed the surrounding area and the freakish weather on Saturday but we had a sandstorm, thunder and then rain !!  Luckily Friday was great and hardly a breeze blowing.  The temperatures do not seem to affect our planes in any way, thankfully, however, in summer I tend to try to keep the cockpit area covered between flights as we have no shade at the one flying field.  Our new filed has shade cloth and far more pleasant.  I do not fly the RCV 91 CD in the Mustang during summer as the engine gets quite warm anyway, but apart from that we fly all year round.  Just have shorter sessions early in the morning in summer as by about 09:00 it is far too hot and humid to stay outside.  Thanks once again for your help.

Hi Tom, sorry I didn't reply to your mail sooner, work got in the way of the hobby, as usual !! The individual cell voltages are in the region of 3.9v, so all appears OK.  Will be flying again in the morning and will let you and Nick how it went on Sunday when we return to work.  Here in Dubai our weekend is Friday and Saturday, at the moment.  From 1st December we are only having the Friday off !! We do finish early (15:30) on a Thursday and may keep a plane in the car during the cooler months and get a few flights in after work. Heading home to South Africa on Dec 19 and will spend 2 weeks at home before heading back to Dubai. 

Nick, thanks for the advice.  Put the battery on a slow (1A) charge and it continued to charge until "Battery Full", removed the battery and reset the charger and then re-connected the battery and it now recognises all 6 cells, many thanks.

Thanks Nick, will give that a try this evening.  Hope it recovers as I really cannot see why it should suddenly only show 5 cells on the charger / balancer unit.

Thanks for the reply Tom, I will check the pack.  However, I have a second pack (Thunder Power 3850 mah 6S) that was charged immediately after on the same charger i.e. the night before flying and this didn't show anything wrong with the cell count on the charger after a flight of roughly the same duration. The problem in slow charging the pack will be getting the BC6 unit to accept the fact it is charging a 6 cell unit as the "R" setting (the number of cells the unit has detected) shows 5 and the "S" setting (the number of cells entered manually by me, shows 6).  ESC settings are correct as have checked those with the Hacker Software and borne out y the fact the second battery is still OK.

During my flying session last Saturday I had completed a flight with my Sebart Angel and removed the battery pack for charging and just mentioned to a colleague that the battery was nice and warm, not overly so, just "warm".   He said his batteries never get that warm, but he also doesn't fly for very long either. He said he would put the battery on his "Flightpower Balancer unit" to check the voltage and said it was low according to the lights on the unit.  I thought nothing of it and attached it to my Bantam BC 6 unit, when running through the start procedure,  the unit only recognised 5 of the 6 cells, now what ?  Despite turning the unit off and running through the programe again, it still did not recognise the fact the battery had 6 cells (battery is a Flightpower 3700 mah) There is no "puffing" of the pack and no "magic smoke" from anything.  When connected to the Hacker ESC in the plane it gives the requisite beeps from the ESC and only gives 5 beeps and not the usual 6. So my question is, what has happened and what can I do ? Can I just re-programme the BC 6 to charge 5 cells and fly it is a 3700 mah 5 cell pack or are there wires to be cut to ensure the battery charger does not try to charge a dud cell, or any other suggestions ?  I hope I haven't ruined a pack by letting it be attached to the "other unit" mentioned above.  It only has about 10 flights on it as that would have been a very expensive introduction to electric flight.

Hi Cliff  Once again, enjoyed the flying and took a few photos.  I will attempt to create a "Photobucket" account and get them posted.  If you prefer, send me a PM and I will send directly to you.  We flew out at our new flying field, it is about 35kms from the centre of Dubai and still being developed.  However, we have a 200m tarmac runway, a large pit area and and taxiways, also tarmac.  Grass is still to be planted and other facilities include a clubhouse, storage room and toilet blocks (all air conditioned of course).  Most importantly we have shade for the planes in the form of a large area adjacent to the pit area for the planes and us to relax under. Regards  Roger

I have built and flown the World Models Mustang 60 with an RCV 91CD in what can be said to be quite extremes of temperatures, from a "freezing" 10° to the early 40's°C here in Dubai. A great combination. I have only enlarged the exit to an acceptable level on the bottom of the cowl.  Eric was correct in saying the hot air is larger by volume and needs to get out of the cowl quickly.  The general rule is the exit should be 3 times the intake volume, not sure if I have got that but the engine still ticks over nicely and has "oodles" of power for fast low, very low, passes up our runway.  I will be flying the plane again tomorrow morning but as we are heading into winter will have to endure a  minimum temp of about 21 in the morning and low 30's by the time we leave the field at lunchtime.  I will take some photos of the opening I have, this should help and hope the photos will help you.  Of course, I realise that you may have flown the plane already, if so, hope all went well. The undercart is fairly "wobbly" but has held up well.  We do have 300m of tarmac to aim at but you know the misjudged occasional flare can catch you out and it is still in one piece. Use half flaps on the base leg to slow things down a bit.  When turning onto finals dial / switch in full flap and keep a few clicks of throttle to settle into the correct glideslope, flare, and just as the main wheels touchdown chop the throttle completely.  Let her run on the mains and watch the tail slowly descend as speed decays.  This is one plane that will give you goosebumps on the low passes and when you get the landing right, enjoy.

I always tell the people I have taught to fly to read up on all information they can get. Obviously top of the list is the "Newbies" Forum here and then branch out from there onto the other interesting forums.  Also try to pass on as much written literature as possible as a kind of  "homework".  Sometimes wonder why I bother as the same mistakes are repeated the following week !!  Oh well, at least the 2 gents I am instructing at the moment do listen and are coming along nicely.  Sometimes think that I have forgotten more than most people will know (or I am able to remember !!) as I have at my home in South Africa, magazines going back to the late 70's and onwards from there.  Always nice to look back and see just where we have come from...."you tell the kids today and they don't believe you" (Monty Python - Yorkshire Men sketch).  The radios we have today take most of the head scratching away in not having to actually plan the radio installation.  Always instruct people to go back to basics and not rely on electronics to get around basic installation problems.  Firmly believe that people don't read instruction manuals and then wonder why it doesn't work properly.