Innehållsförteckning för December 2022 från RCM&E

Editor: Kevin Crozier. Mortons Media Group, Media Centre, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincs LN9 6JR kcrozier@mortons.co.uk Well, where did that year go? At around this time every year I find myself making similar statements; the older I get the more time seems to speed up. I have so many traditional modelling projects on my bucket list and so little time to even think about starting one or two, let alone finishing any. And by traditional, I mean making a proper good old fashioned balsa airframe rather than the foam fare that currently provides most of my flying fix. As I think I have bored you to death with before, my own personal blockages, both mental and physical, are mostly to do with the state of my model work areas. I have…

It has to be admitted that my fascination with the more ‘out there’ aspects of vintage aeromodelling shows little sign of abating. The dafter a design is then the more I’m attracted to it. If it involves some really troublesome construction methods, then so much the better! So, here we go again with this 1941 design, the Boomer Bus. Designed as a 54” free flighter by US-born Henry Struck, the model was inspired by a full-sized glider - the Bowlus Baby Albatross. It sports not only a pod and boom fuselage but features under-cambered wing panels with a gently curved, gull-wing dihedral. What’s not to like? With the Bus’s plans downloaded, they were tile-printed onto 18 A4 sheets of paper before being gently taped together for further inspection. The fuselage…

CHILLI BREEZE - BACK FOR MORE! I enjoy Keith Jackson’s ‘Aerobatic Scene’ column immensely but regret I haven’t the skill to fly the manoeuvres he discusses! I was particularly interested to read about ‘Chilli Breeze Revisited’ in the October article. I have had three Chilli B’s over the years and am still flying number three. In the early 90s I bought an Irvine Q40 and decided to build a Chilli Breeze for it. I enlarged the wing to 54” span with root and tip chords of 11.5” and 7.75” respectively. The wing had a white foam core, obeche covered. I also increased the areas of the fin, rudder and tailplane. The fuselage was as per plan. The model was a joy to fly, and I used it to pass my…

The 2022 F3A European Championships were held recently in Zamora, Spain, from the 21st to the 28th of August 2022. This was the first major F3A team event to have been held since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and saw 37 pilots from 14 countries attend this prestigious tournament. This was very much a smaller competition than the same event held in Sivry, Belgium in 2018, where in comparison 64 pilots from 23 countries attended, including the World Champion Christophe Paysant Le Roux. However, in the latest case it could be seen that apart from CPLR, virtually all the very best pilots from Europe were in attendance, including previous European Champions Stefan Kaiser (2014) from Lichtenstein and Gernot Bruckmann (2016) from Austria, making this a very tough event indeed.…

Well, this is nice. The first product from HSD Jets for review, one of two tractor prop offerings that complement the brand’s turbine and EDF jet range. You only have to glance at one of these to see that a lot of that know-how has gone into the creation of this sizeable two metre span ‘182. Like the jets it’s made using EPO foam, with plenty of carbon reinforcement where needed. It’s supplied ‘plug-n-play’, requiring your receiver and 6S 5000-6000mAh LiPo battery, along with a smaller 2S LiPo to provide power to a control/distribution box to which the receiver is connected. We’ve seen simple mixer boxes fitted to the more elaborate RTF models in the last few years, but the MFC-2065 control box inside this Cessna raises the bar and…

Engine build On returning home from The Science Museum’s facility Wroughton I quickly got down to the task of making some sense of my hasty scribblings using CAD. Luckily the ‘Power for the Pioneers’ book by A.E. Tagg contains one extremely useful little drawing showing a longitudinal section of the crankcase (see page 25 of last issue). Unfortunately, it is only about 2” long! I managed to scan it however and size it into my drawing using dimensions taken from the engine itself. Although the lines are thick and a little indeterminate in places this tiny drawing made up for nearly all that had been invisible to me. One other source of broad information was a contemporary article in Flight written in 1910, just when the engine appeared on the…

I think it’s safe to say that there are three ways to get a scale glider up into the blue yonder: Throw it off a hill, tow it up with a powered model, or employ the services of a winch. On the whole you can discount the latter: I’ve tried it, and it can get very exciting…! So, when our esteemed editor gently reminded us that there are newcomers to all aspects of model flying, it seemed a good idea to dig out some comments I have made in the past aimed at those new to aerotowing. These days it is carried out with all sizes of models, from micro to massive but, overall, the principles remain the same… TEN TOP TIPS TO TERRIFIC TOWING 1: The first rule of…

In the last issue we looked at Andrew Taylor’s Transavia Airtruk. Just as a reminder, Andrew was a lifelong aeromodeller with a 1000-acre farm in North Norfolk, complete with its own airstrip and model flying site. He was a passionate aviation enthusiast, both model and full-size. Since I visited him, Andrew has sadly passed away, so these two features have been written as a tribute to just some of the contributions to his life-long passion of aeromodelling. Andrew had been a highly respected stalwart of the Large Model Association for many years, hosting Fly-Ins, which raised thousands of pounds for the East Anglian Air Ambulance. “Andrew’s model is an own design, third scale version of the Monospar” GA MONOSPAR Whilst photographing the Airtruk, Andrew got out another of his unusual…

MAKE IT SCALE | Column As scale aficionados will know this year has been difficult, with once again no Power Nationals at Barkston Heath. Frantic plans were put in place for the R/C and Control Line scale events to be held at the BMFA National Flying Centre, Buckminster over two weekends. The R/C Flying Only and Control Line Scale took place in July, with RC1 (F4C) and RC2 (F4H) taking place on September 10th and 11th, which is the event that this report covers. BUCKMINSTER UPDATE The BMFA’s National Centre at Buckminster is constantly changing and the most recent additions I saw were the shower and toilet block adjacent to the camping field. The site just gets better and better. I was not enthusiastic at the start of the endeavour,…

It is odd sometimes how inspiration comes for a new model. I was considering a SE5a for a future project but, wanting to do something a little simpler, I found myself with a parasol design that just seemed to feel right. So here is the latest figment of my imagination in the form of a 56.5” (1435mm) wingspan sport scale design suitable for a .52 cu.in. four-stroke or equivalent electric power. The wings are made in three parts, with a connecting tube spar, but could easily be adapted to a single piece if so wished. Flight characteristics are benign, but Kestrel is capable of all the basic aerobatics and simply looks pretty in the sky with its scale like proportions and is just a little bit different. I had laser…

Anyone reading this grand magazine will surely know that Alcock and Brown were the first to cross the North Atlantic non-stop in 1919 aboard a Vickers Vimy. By the same token it is very unlikely that anyone knows that the first people to cross the South Atlantic by air were two Portuguese aviators. Their flight could hardly be called non-stop, though… On the 17th June 1922, Cdr Sacadura Cabral (pilot) and RAdm Gago Coutinho (navigator) reached Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) aboard a stock Fairey IIID. This was the third aircraft they used, the previous two having been lost in accidents: a broken float while alighting their special long-range IIID in the open sea by the St. Peter and St. Paul’s Rocks, a small group of islands in the equatorial Atlantic…

KESTREL CONCLUDES We always knew that this month’s pull-out Pro-Plan for Lindsay Todd’s parasol wing Kestrel was likely to need an extra plan sheet to complete. But it turns out that this stylish 56.5” (1435mm) wingspan sports model needs both the pull-out sheets in the next issue in order to do full justice to Lindsay’s latest design. Kestrel is suitable for a .52 four-stroke or equivalent electric power and would make a perfect winter build project. MODELAIR SCALE WEEKEND Mid-September saw Ken and Sheila Sheppard host another of their popular ModelAir aeromodelling weekends at Old Warden. This time it was the return of the ModelAir Scale weekend. Stuart Marsden attended both days to capture the non-stop model flying action. It was windy over the whole weekend, but this didn’t stop…