Friday 30 August 2019

Fame at last!

Well, I thought it was a prank by Phil Cooke, but I seem to have made the cover of the UK's only aeromodelling magazine - RCM&E.


Scary!  Good news for the association though, and my 6 week Spitfire build :D

Tuesday 20 August 2019

Some flying and other projects

I had a great 5 hour session on my club slope at Burton Dassett this past Sunday, with 3 aircraft flown.  Booming lift, but very bumpy close-in (the trees at the base are the cause, I'm sure) and massive thermals once pushed out from the slope.


CeePee and Mini-Blade Carbon

Mini-Blade and Valkyrie
The Mini-Blade performed as well as always, but could have done with some ballast I feel, but I flew so many high powered aeros from altitude, I'll forgive it's lightness. I really don't think I've ever flown so many non-stop aeros with any other airfraft as I did with the MB that day - spectacular.

The Valkyrie went well, but it was trying my patience when rigging.  It's probably 2+ years since I'd flown her last, and I'd forgotten just how fiddly the assembly is - she might visit the workshop soon for some mods!

The new CeePee...well, it was blustery.  I managed to push her away from the slope and enjoyed the responsiveness and speed across slope, as well as a few simple aeros.  Alas, the blustery bumpiness took its toll, and she was rolled over close-in on a pass that I couldn't recover from.  The fuselage took a big crack nearly around it's circumference, ending it's day.  All repaired now, just need to add some black solarfilm over the repair.

Onto new stuff, then.

I've committed to a 150% Jet Provost build, which should be a great size for the slope, and have already modelled some cockpit parts.


I've drawn up a 56" Gloster Meteor (Meatbox) F4 plan that I'll be getting laser cut shortly.



And I've started build on something else - another "century series" fighter, that Matt Jones and I are building one off each.


More to follow!

Thursday 1 August 2019

Antonov, C17 and some sport models

Some odds and sods being take care of now that the major builds for this year are done with.  First off, the Antonov engine parts.  The paper cups have been chopped to length, primed, then sprayed silver :

I printed 6 off spiders to hold these in the ABS engines :


And here is one mounted in the engine.  A bit of glue, then they're all done :


I bought a small sport model from Silencemodel in France, called the CeePee.  A smart little thing, and a complete CNCkit with hardware too:


All built:


Covering started:


Finished and ready for servos.  Removable wings and tailplane (all-flying tail), should weigh about 220g AUW :


Some mods to the C17.  I've decided to delete the top surface spoilers, due to the complexity and doubts about their stiffness at this scale.  I filled the pockets with soft half-inch sheet, carved them flat, and wiped over with some lightweight filler.  Just a little bit of glass over that, and the it's time to continue with the flap canoes:


A bit of a mix, but the C17 is now firmly back on the bench.