Innehållsförteckning för July 2024 från RCM&E

TOP RC ASW-28 PNP £269.99 | www.jperkins.com Perfect for both flat-field and slope operation, this slick-looking 2m span ASW-28 motor glider from Top RC has wide appeal thanks to a satisfying performance envelope that encompasses both thermal soaring and scribing gentle aerobatic shapes in the sky, all year round. Agile, responsive and very practical as regards transport and storage, the ‘28 owes its performance to state-of-the-art hybrid construction that comprises a carefully balanced mix of carbon fibre, aluminium, plastic and crisply moulded EPO foam. Very well produced, neatly decorated and with quality fittings, this fine flap-equipped model offers a truly attractive blend of soaring and sport flying. Supplied with a factory-fitted 850 kV outrunner motor, 40A ESC and 6 x 9g metal gear servos. Requires a 4S 2200 – 3300…

Flying models off water has been part of the hobby since the very early days. My ancient plan of the Tomboy has a float option and there were rubber and IC powered ‘rise off water’ planes well before that. Access to cheap radio control gear spread the net very wide but I think it was the move to electric power that made flying boats and floatplanes a realistic possibility. IC engines have a habit of falling silent in the middle of the lake, but electric motors just keep going. My first waterplane was the Ivan Pettigrew Catalina which had many flights off Christchurch Harbour, using the sailing club safety boat as an aircraft carrier. Salt water in the model and the electronics was not a good recipe for a long…

Slope soaring was happening well before someone decided to bung radio gear in a model. I remember reading that the first time modellers took to the hills was pre-World War 1. Inspired by Bleriot’s crossing of the channel they started lobbing simple chuck gliders into the ether. Things progressed, models got larger and a magnet steering system was used to keep the model pointing into the wind to prolong the flight. Although magnet steering wasn’t a mainstream part of the hobby, Trevor Faulkner was the UK’s leading authority, writing numerous articles on the subject over the years. So, when was the first R/C slope flight in the UK? Roland Scott (of Roland Scott Models in the North West of England) set up an international slope soaring record on Moel Famau…

To keep the kids attending the trade shows amused I designed a toffee bomber. Keith’s wife, Anne was a real Mrs. Malaprop and called it Sweet Machine which, although unintended, was a brilliant name and it stuck. John Hodey, a good friend and member of the Flair display team, built it for me. The longerons were 3/8” square balsa and had to be bent into the nose. So, John put the fuselage structure nose down in the bath to soak the wood for bending. The problem was that he had used white glue to build the fuselage, but white glue and water don’t mix, and the forward section of the fuselage came apart! It was quite large, initially was powered by two Fox .36s, and would happily lift a pound…

Get your planes in print! Get in touch… kcrozier@mortons.co.uk FROGGY’S FOKKER I can’t resist sending just two more Flair pics of a stunning Fokker Dr.1, built and flown by club member Dave (Froggy) Lucas. Bob Fletcher CUB TRAINER I’ve really enjoyed reading your articles on Flair Products. In 1991 I joined the Marquis MFC (Weymouth) and was advised to build a Flair Cub as a trainer and my first R/C aircraft. It was a joy to build and it flew for many years. Ray Jerrard SUNRISE CITY A bit of Flair nostalgia for you. Moi with my 100” Flair Sunrise sailplane on the Ashdown Forest circa 1990 (note the Fleet gear). We call this spot on the Forest ‘Sunrise City’ because at that time nearly everyone who flew on the…

This year’s Scale Indoor Nationals took place over the weekend of the 20th and 21st April. The STC (Scale Tech Committee) have used the Walsall campus of Wolverhampton University as the venue for the Indoor Free Flight Nats since 2015. For the last three years the STC have managed to incorporate the Indoor R/C Nats on the Saturday, with Sunday’s Free Flight competition, creating a full weekend of scale aeromodelling. This makes it easier to justify the travel from Europe and is therefore attractive to some of our international friends. Many visit the events at Walsall and Nijmegan, Holland and see the two weekends as ‘book ends’ to the season. As an added incentive, this year we arranged a trip to the Royal Air Force Museum Midlands at RAF Cosford.…

Every few years I suddenly get an irrational urge to design something really unusual. In the past I have designed a couple of the Stits World’s Smallest aircraft, one of which did fly quite well but crashed three times out of six take-offs. Another was a strange French aircraft called the Payen. This time I decided on a little known Russian powered glider called the MAK 15 PM. At least I knew this one would fly because many years ago I designed a CO2 powered free flight model that flew like a dream. It also had the advantage of lots of wing area. ENTER THE MAK In the 1950s the Russians had a glider called the MAK 15. I was lucky enough to buy a CD about it on eBay,…

I was very pleased with the Ares Pup ‘spare parts’ deal as the parts were all fresh and perfect in their original spare part boxes. I thought that something that seemed quite simple, the wing struts, might cause me the biggest problem but otherwise I could see the way forward. I was fortunate in that I had a Mini Vapor Rx module and the geared motor unit from the same model. The underside of the cockpit floor was a perfect base for the receiver (Rx) module, so I looked at installing this and the tail parts first. Carbon fibre (CF) pushrods are in the spares package, however here I made an error. The rudder and elevator linear servos appeared to be on the wrong sides to match the control horns…

After three months of very happy ownership I’ve come to the conclusion that I should have bought a van years ago. For decades I’ve been squeezing overly large aeroplanes into stupidly small cars and making do. The straw that broke the camel’s back, however, was my increasing propensity to drive long distances in pursuit of flying jets and, allied to that, the very real problem of being able to fit more than one jet into the car at any one time. Taking just one jet on a four hour round trip is all very well if said aeroplane happens to acquit itself perfectly, but alas it only takes a small mechanical problem to put a complete kibosh on a lot of time, preparation and energy, and sabotage a whole day.…

SLINGSBY TYPE 23 KITE The Type 6 Kite has been much modelled over the years, small wonder with its attractive appearance and gull wings. Slingsby decided to modify the design by extending the pylon to render the wings further away from the fuselage. This is a model of the Type 23, as it was named, of which one only was built. Scaled to the same dimensions as Chris Williams’ previous rendition of the Prefect, this is a handily sized 2.5 metre scale glider. The airframe is almost entirely built from balsa, other than the longerons and spars. As with Chris’ other designs, this Pro-Plan is too large to fit on the pull-out sheet in just one issue so it will conclude in the September issue. TA-TA, TIM Some years ago,…