on the cover
Flightline is a company that's gaining something of a reputation for doing things properly. Twelve or eighteen months ago it made its mark in the UK with a 1600mm Spitfire Mk. IX which displayed many of the subtle details that define the famous fighter but that so many manufacturers fail to appreciate. It's been a popular model and as time passed all eyes focussed on Flightline's website in anticipation of a follow-up.
My beloved, ageing 72” span Harvard, built more than fifteen years ago from a Flair kit, hit the ground like a dropped jigsaw. We’d been through a great deal together over the years…balmy summer evenings, winter snow. . .
on the cover
Foam. Love it or loathe it you have to be impressed by some of the models that are turned out in the stuf f these days. The new Arrows range has raised a few eyebrows and with 3S batteries costing buttons the new 1200mm warbirds have really hit the spot. You see, not only do we all (well, most of us) have a handful of 3S packs, the 2200mAh jobs are low enough in capacity to make field charging eminently practical.
Anyone researching electric flight for the first time can’t help but notice the advice to buy a wattmeter which appears in so many magazine articles and forum posts aimed at beginners. Let’s look at what they do.
Quite simply a wattmeter is an electrical measuring instrument that is connected within a DC electrical circuit and measures and displays the current flowing in the circuit and the voltage present. It also multiplies the voltage and current together to present the watts consumed by the circuit.
on the cover
With the show season on the cusp of kicking in, this, we thought, might be a good time to remind you of how show-going can enhance the hobby, a fact that the editor highlights in his photo report of last year's wonderfully diverse and colourful Woodspring Wings event. One of the many highlights was the aerobatic artistry displayed by flying buddies from the combined Az Aerosports and Renegade teams, of which this 107” Pilot Extra 300LX was a part. With Aaron (Azza) Stephens on the sticks you'll struggle to find a better model and pilot combo (page 12 – 18). Photo: Graham Ashby
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REVOLVER II
In days of old R/C autogyros had a habit of being a bit hit ‘n’ miss.
3Dprinting may seem like a fairly recent innovation, however it’s been around for longer than you might perhaps imagine. The first 3D printers appeared commercially in the mid 1990s, but priced in the region of £75,000 they certainly weren’t cheap - you were in Ferrari and Porsche territory.
The technology was developed in the 1980s, Chuck Hull being accredited with demonstrating his SLA-1 printer as the first commercial example some 34 years ago on March 9th. His intention was to develop a machine that would be capable of speeding up the time it took to create prototypes as using a one-off machining process was expensive
in terms of both time and money;the ability to print an item in just a few hours represented a major breakthrough as you can imagine.
on the cover
Large, majestic and utterly lovely, our lead feature this month takes a close look at a brace of 1/9-scale Canadair CL-215 water bombers, built by Luís Montenegro and José Lumbreras from the Clube Vuelo a Vela Fontefría of Galícia, in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, Spain. At 126” span, powered by twin O. S. GF40 single cylinder petrol engines, both are impressively large examples of the firefighting flying boat and are frequently flown in their natural environment.
JAMMIN'
“Whilst removing a propeller from my model I encountered a jammed collet-type prop adaptor”, writes Henry Leong from Brisbane, Australia. “This wasn't the first time this had happened, and the subsequent firm, twisting and tapping required to separate the tapered outer collar from its shaft is always a worry, risking damage to the airframe. What I needed was a set of claw-like fingers, precise enough to pull the outer collar whilst a central finger pushes the collet shaft in the opposite direction. Memories of my dad's crank pulley removal tool flashed past and I came up with an improvised tool that would act as a very effective collet puller, based on a (cheap) skeleton-type caulking gun from my local hardware store.
ON THE COVER
To coincide with the UK debut of the Arrows Hobby foamie warbird range, Graham Ashby gives the Grumman F8F Bearcat a run for its money and concludes that it's not half bad. Spanning 1100mm and suitable for the benchmark 3S 2200mAh LiPo, it's a warbird with practicality and performance written all over it. Read our full review, undertaken all weathers and all conditions, on page 12 and see if you don't fancy one yourself. Photo: David Ashby
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STARSTREAM 2
Originally designed in the late 1960s, Ray Malmström's unorthodox free-flight ducted fan design has been given a modern R/C makeover.
My home-brew winter project has reached the stage where the woodwork is essentially complete, bar some final gluing up, and it’s time to cover the model. Since the aeroplane is a sports design I’ve decided to use an eye catching scheme in a bright iron-on film. Now, before applying any covering I always perform a trial installation of the radio and engine, including all control runs, as it’s all too easy to damage a covered model during this process. Also, it’s very much easier to cover components whilst they’re still flat objects on the bench.
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