Piers Bowlan

BMFA have had a couple of well publicised auctions recently with hundreds of engines and kits sold. Might be worth considering if you plan to part with your HS 146 or anything else for that matter, when the next one comes up. If you join the BMFA you will get all the info on forthcoming events like the auctions as well registering to get your operator ID.

Pete I’m sorry to hear of your awful fire scuppering your plans for a new X- fire kit. Did you read Outrunners post above saying that he had an old plan, perhaps you could PM him to see if you could obtain a scanned copy. Failing that maybe you could ‘reverse engineer’ one if you got hold of an old x-fire airframe. After all it’s been done with full sized aircraft! I rather fancy a X-Fire kit myself.

If I download an Outerzone plan and get it printed by my local print shop it costs £4 per A1 sheet. If the publishers were to sell plans at that price they wouldn’t have a business. If you are a digital subscriber and you fancy building from the free plan then buying a copy of RCM&E from Smiths or wherever would be more economical than buying the plan from Sarik Hobbies although not by much. The M23c has three sheets to print (four if you get a mirror image of the wing too. Incidentally the current free plan, M23c, is £19 not £17 from Sarik Hobbies, despite what it says at the top of the magazine. If you are a prolific free plan builder a 12 month magazine subscription is only £16 more than a digital one, without having the expense and hassle of getting your digital plan image printed. This is assuming you will soon be able to print full size printable plans from your digital subscription.

Built a KK Ajax when my kids were very young (me too!), a lot of fun to build and fly 😊 Wheelspin Models are doing the kit for about £31 if you fancy a go Greg. It comes with the tissue but I covered mine with Litespan which is still available as long as you like orange! Tougher than tissue, as light and not so likely to produce warps.

Something about Dave Reaps Vulcan on RC Groups, here

Very stylish model Richard, looking forward to the plan. What is the span? It looks like a small model that will get smaller in flight very quickly!

Great restoration/conversion project Murat, following with interest. 👍

The theory is alright as is the practice, - provided you have the speed/height in hand. As you know, flaps produce lift as well as drag. Small deflections chiefly enhance lift, large deflections drag. So if you could program your clever Tarannis to partially retract the flaps on a go-around (overshoot) then that would probably be better (safer). Then retract the rest at a safe height.

Carbon copy do a 10in GRP Hannibal cowl for £28.99. Does it have to be aluminium? You could always spray it silver, unless it stopped you sleeping at night😉

😀😁😅 Seems OK now.

Just checked out the Oct 2021 RCM&E plan. Yep, built up wing. I’m surprised Tony didn’t opt for his usual ‘mini jet’ sheet wing construction on the original 42in span model.

Generally I prick round the rib outline through the plan onto the balsa directly. Then just ‘join the dots’ with a no.11 blade in a Swan Morten knife. It does leave holes in your nice virgin plan however. Didn’t the TN A10 have a sheet wing or have you designed a new wing on your enlargement Martin? Most probably me mis-remembering. Thank you for the heads up re the stringer slots. Some photos would be nice if you get a moment.

Lovely looking model but I suspect flaperons would be the fastest way of re-kitting it. What about trying a smaller (lighter) LiPo to reduce the wing loading a tad? Say, a high ‘C’ rated 1350 LiPo? Shorter flights but a longer lived model?

That is a very sad picture 😢

A ruler, calculator and a sheet of balsa will enable you to work out the +-% you need, to be economical or whatever. You don’t need a graphics program to work that out. Perhaps you need a new printer as on mine I just type in the % I require and press ‘print’ and it tile prints. It is slow, laborious and not particularly accurate sticking the sheets together. I usually use a local professional printers who charge £3 + vat for an A1 sheet, or a bit more for bigger sheets. Probably no more expensive than all the paper/ ink from tile printing, more accurate and convenient too. If you want a section of a plan they will do that too but at that price just get another copy and cut it up as you please.

The ghoulish thing is sick people making fake videos of air crashes. It seems to be the worst side of human nature.

What laser cutter did you get Ron? It’s something I have been interested in and I watched the BMFA Zoom meeting on Tuesday. hoping to learn something. Only the talk was on PLA printing! I can’t really see me investing in one but you never know.

I’ve hand swung a C150 a couple of times but it was chocked or tied down with a pilot sitting in it. I had to swing the prop on my Turbulent as there wasn’t an electric start fitted but I carried a pair of portable chocks, plus I had my ‘patented’ homemade device for pinning the tail skid to the ground. I also used the harness to strap the stick fully back. Belt and braces - safety is no accident!

Ah yes, being able to laser cut a lot of parts for your club mates makes a lot of sense and makes a lot of friends too! I guess it must require several processes like scanning the plans and manipulating the image files onto ‘balsa shaped’ pieces of wood, before you can sit back and watch your robot cutter, work it’s magic. A truly ‘Hamlet’ moment!

In the case of Peter Miller’ o-Four9ier it is really such a simple design that you could probably cut out a set of parts for it in an evening if you had the wood available. I rather enjoy the process of making parts for a model, when starting a build. Many seem to hate it. I wonder why?

RC Hobby sell a PNP version without the Tx and say it is compatible with the Radiomaster 16S. I’ve no idea what protocol either that or Greg’s FlySky Tx uses. In any event it certainly sounds faulty. Who did you buy it from Greg?

This was posted earlier in the thread. It shows the C of G behind the aft wing bolt, the question is how far behind, there is no scale on this plan? It also assumes the rear wing bolt on your model is true to plan! Perhaps you will just have to wait for someone with a Miras to post. Miras Plan.pdf Good luck with the maiden, it should be exciting 😁

If you were to photograph the ‘20-30’ engines together and post them here we might be able to identify them. You might even get some offers. The BMFA have just held another online auction with hundreds of engines and old kits for sale. Anyone know when the next one might be? Would you have a RCV 58CD or perhaps a HP vt-21 by any chance?

My subscription to RCM&E (paid quarterly) works out as £4.16 an edition, so quite a saving on the £6.35 price in WH Smith’s and not even the cost of a bottle of cyano! I don’t even have to make a special trip to WH Smith’s when the latest issue comes out to get my copy (another saving), it’s delivered free to my door 😊.

Good point kc - anyone know?