Evening Flying 17th June

Hi everyone, actually no one saw the sunset last night as we had by then drained our batteries or gone home. Anyway a beautiful evening on the strip with a light NE breeze. The car park was full and later double parked, a successful meeting I’m sure you will agree. Our illustrious chairman Cliff treated us to some evocative flypasts by his WW1 biplane and Tim maidened his Inside F3J, seen at the last club meeting, remember those, and deftly launched by his wife Carolyn, flew away with no issues.

One success story was the recovery of a model from 30 to 40ft up a tree. The model was recovered without a scratch early this morning by an ingenious pole and hook, very well done by a determined pilot.

Regards

John

A 5414mm Ws K7 build is John’s next project

Just a few flights of last winter’s KA7 scale glider build by John and the plans for a 5mtr plus K7 have been bought. I hope you are not wishing the summer away too soon John.

Home Page lead picture

To try and keep our website current, I thought it might be interesting to have a lead picture or video clip on the home page that I will change at least monthly and possibly more frequently. To kick this off the lead clip is of Roger’s FMS Pitts S2 taking off at L.H today; as coincidentally it is the same model as covered in June’s RCME. just click on the home page to view.

I also have a few video clips from recent maiden flights and near maiden of a flying bicycle at L.H and am in the process of reducing their sizes to fit within the constraints of  our hosted site.

If anyone has an interesting photo or  video clip then please email it to me and I will load it up to our website.

Robert

 

Returning to flying after a long lock-down in 2020

It was a glorious morning on Thursday 21st May when we met up at Little Haldon (socially distanced and sanitised of course). A gentle breeze from the North West with thermals and buzzards following our gliders up and up. Several good flight were made, reaching a good height in the thermals although areas of sink could easily be found by those less experienced at reading the signs like me. The land owner, Ralph Rayner, kindly brought up some top-soil to fill in some of the divots.

Little Nellly

Joe continues to build. This time an auto-gyro called Little Nelly that I remember being a futuristic little craft with rocket launchers in ‘You Only Live Twice’ so I have added a shot from the film to the photos Joe sent me.

Little Haldon – watch out for deer!

I had a very close encounter with a deer racing across the B??? road between the duel carriageway and L.H this morning. I just managed to accelerate enough that it passed the boot by a very short margin. When they go, there is virtually no time to react so I felt very lucky.

I wonder if the lack of humans and traffic has  made them much braver and they have started to reclaim the road for there own territory.

Robert

Chris’s Cobra build update

A further update from Chris. Its looking impressive Chris, I don’t think that you would want to use my patio as a grid reference though – unless you are building a banana. I look forward to your Maiden this summer

It’s been awhile since my last post, but still building but once the wings come out of the vac-bag, things slow down a bit.

After the wings were done the next thing to do is fit the wing joiner tube in the fuz. This has to be in the right place, using  the patio slabs as a grid ref, a piece of string taped to the fin, and a tape measure.  After the fuz is square, the wings can be put on and moved until everything lines up; the joiner tube is tack glued to the fuz, with the wings removed, the tube was fully glued to the fuz. The wing roots are then placed over the joiner, the wings refitted, and the roots lined up, and glued in place,  balsa infills were glued into the gap, then topped with filler.

1/4″ ply was cut  to form the cockpit frame. This was glued in place, then glassed, small magnets where glued in to retain the canopy. With the cockpit frame done, the canopy frame could be made. This was made from 1/4″ ply base then 3/16″sq was added to give a bigger gluing area for the canopy.

Chris

The full build is here

BMFA News – Return to the Skies

BMFA have just issued this brief bulletin and intend to issue further guidance soon.

*** IMPORTANT UPDATE – PLEASE READ ***

A Return To The Skies

First and foremost, we would like to thank members for adhering to the government guidelines during the lockdown.

As many of you are no doubt aware, the Prime Minister indicated in his speech last night that there will be some ‘relaxation’ of the current restrictions and that from Wednesday it will be possible to leave home and drive somewhere to participate in a sporting activity (provided it is with members of your own household).

Our hope it that this will permit the resumption of some model flying activity subject to compliance with certain guidelines and social distancing.

We await the publication of further details/clarification today and will issue further detailed guidance to members once we have had an opportunity to review this information.

Chris’s SZD Cobra update

Some more intriguing photo’s from Chris

A bit more progress:  The full size had a all flying tailplane, I was going to do the same, but with such a small bearing width 19mm, and a tailplane at 900mm, I couldn’t stop the tailplane wobbling, at the tip, well not enough for me.

Not a problem, fix the tailplane and have a elevator, so I measured and cut out the elevator, problem no2; the elevator was going to be top hinged, 15mm at the center, tapering to 3mm at the tips. It gave a nice curve, OK when on the center line, but when you try to go down or up, the tips want to move away from the tailplane.

Plan C; split the elevator in the center, and operate with 2 servos, or make a new elevator with the top surface level, went with a split elevator.

I have made the wing spars, 2mm ply with carbon on one  side, a center foam core, then carbon toes laid on top of the foam, top & bottom. The spar was then glued into the foam cores, balsa was then glued on top of the toes, so that this could be sanded down to the wing profile. Glass cloth was placed on the foam with epoxy, obechi verneer, placed on top, then epoxy brushed on top of the veneer, then tissue paper placed on the wet epoxy, mylar sheet then placed on top, and the whole lot placed in a vacbag.

Check out the photos

Chris