Tabla de contenidos para April 2024 en RCM&E

I was suffering from ‘designer’s block’ when I came across my old plan for Oodalally, a model that I had been very fond of. Unfortunately, it had been demolished due to a brittle control horn and that had been the end of it. With my new plane I decided to convert the model to electric power and being lazy I bought the complete kit from Sarik Hobbies. This did have some effect on the conversion. I chose the power set up as specified by George at 4-Max. It just so happened that it was my favourite combination of a PO-3541-1070 motor with a 45-watt ESC. The prop chosen was an 11” x 5” wood and the battery is a 3000 mAh item. THE MODIFICATIONS Since I was using the pre-cut…

I’ve always had an admiration for the unorthodox designs by aerospace engineer Burt Rutan, most notably his line of LongEze canards. These fascinating machines are what inspired me to design Shifty, a quick to build pusher that can be configured as either a canard or delta depending on the builder’s preference. Shifty is a one-piece model that’s economically sized around a cheap drone motor. It features profiled sheet balsa flying surfaces attached to a common box type fuselage, shaped to give its off-beat lines. In keeping with the common fuselage, I opted to steer both planforms via elevons at the drawing board stage. This meant omitting the traditional forward elevator normally associated with a canard. It’s an uncomplicated set up that has produced a pair of eye-catching, smooth and predictable…

EXPERIMENTAL DELTA Please find attached some images of my (very) semi scale Boulton Paul P.111A. The Boulton Paul P.111 was a one-off experimental aircraft designed and flight tested to explore the characteristics, performance, stability and control of a tailless delta wing configuration. Three wing tip shapes were tested; my model is of the cropped delta configuration. The aircraft first flew in October 1950. After initial testing and some hairy moments it was modified, principally by adding artificial feel to the flight control system and adding airbrakes, and redesignated as the P111A. The aircraft was retired in 1958, amazingly still in an airworthy condition. It now resides at the Midland Air Museum next to Coventry Airport. Data from the programme ultimately informed the design of the Vulcan. My model is a…

Espied at a recent club PSS event was a rather lovely scale model I’d never seen before in flying form. I knew it instantly, having seen a display model in a French aviation museum; it was the elegant six-engined Latecoere 631 flying boat. Some questioning of the shambling attendees unearthed the owner, Phil Stone of the LMMGA, who gave me chapter and verse of the model’s history. Through various means Phil had acquired the model, which had been built many years ago by flying boat aficionado Robin Andrews. The original airframe had been powered by an array of 400 size DC ‘can’ motors and was in a reasonable, if rather scruffy state. Like my own recent renovation project (see Not The Only Renovator), Phil had taken this older model and…

With my Pilot-RC Extra NG finished (see last issue) and safely ensconced in a local storage unit whilst waiting for the local flying fields to dry out enough for its maiden flights (will the heavy rain ever end?), I was able to clear my workbench in preparation for my next ‘project’ model. This is the super sleek Epilogue 1900 from BJ Craft which I ordered last year from Bondaero (https://www.bondaero.co.uk). As is my usual way with such ‘project’ reviews I will be covering the build of the Epilogue 1900 as it progresses, resulting in a further two or three articles before concluding with its test flights and trimming, assisted by an experienced F3A pilot. MODEL DESCRIPTION Full details of the Epilogue 1900 can be found on the Bondaero website in…

The 2023 BMFA Nationals for F3A were held at the Hurley site hosted by Steve Carefoot and the Plane Crazy MAC, with UKF3A Chairman Garry Peacock running the event. Some twenty plus pilots attended over two days, flying in the five classes offered, with the top class flying the FAI P23 and F23 aerobatic schedules. It was good to see so many pilots supporting the Nationals. In fact, this event was literally a who’s who of UK aerobatics, with most of the top pilots from the last twenty years in attendance. The weather was, as usual, a little mixed in late September, with a stiff breeze and feeling cold, with rain affecting some of the flying at times. The judges were cocooned in their sport brolly enclosures which attempted to…

HEINKELIKE We are sure that the Heinkel He 162 needs very little introduction as judging by the numbers of models of the type that we see submitted for Pilot’s Pictorial it seems to be a very popular subject for R/C models. One such aircraft is this simplified version, designed by Colin Baxter. Colin says, ‘I tried to include as many of the He 162 styling cues as possible whilst avoiding getting bogged down with accuracy and detail. I didn’t want a rocket ship, so the wings are much larger than scale. But other than this it is hopefully recognisable as an He162. I’m not sure I’d even call it semi scale, hence the name ‘Heinkelike’, or ‘Similamander’ if you prefer. Construction is straightforward because I’m not dextrous enough for anything else,…

It’s an oft-asked question online and quickly distils down to: “What was your favourite model of all time?” Well, that’s any easy one for me to answer. Nearly a decade ago I was gifted a genuine ‘attic find’ in the form of a 1970s, 54” aerobat - the Antares. Designer J. Patterson had his baby published in the long defunct Radio Modeller magazine and my new/old airframe obviously dated from then. Personally, I think it owes a lot of parentage to Phil Kraft’s world beating Kwik Fli III of a few years previously. I’ve no idea who the original builder of this particularly nice airframe was though. To be fair my new gift horse wasn’t exactly a beauty in that it was covered overall in drab brown tissue. Internally there…

In the first part of this article, we looked at how things went during my van’s first outing with a temporary internal set-up. Taking the lessons learned from that week’s foray into operating the van I have made some changes and the van is now ready for the coming season. I really enjoyed the break and the excursion into carpentry. Not quite a busman’s holiday but you get the idea. Most conversion enthusiasts use 15 mm ply for van interiors, but I felt 12 mm was more than enough. The thinner material gave problems in sourcing T section edging material and it was like Henry Ford’s colour choice - black. But I saved a fair bit of weight, and I am confident that everything is strong enough. The bench seats…

Due to Covid the last F3CN World Championships took place back in 2019 in Germany where the GBR F3N team came home with Silver Team medals. Everyone was keen to compete again but the fact that the 2023 F3CN World Championships (for F3C and F3N helicopters) were due to take place in the USA, with the associated costs involved (flights, excess luggage etc.) a lot of the competitors, especially in F3C where pilots mostly fly models fitted with fuselages, were not willing to sign up for the financial commitment that would be necessary. It wasn’t until seven weeks before the F3CN 2023 Championships were due to take place, from 5th - 9th August, that we received final confirmation that it would go ahead. This was due to the low number…

High pass, low pass Here’s a few more details about our cover star this month, which is also featured in Keith Jackson’s F3A Nationals report. We asked the designer, Dan Workman for a few more details: ‘It’s called Halo, an own design of all balsa construction. It has an Adverrun Contra drive with a D3 ESC and is powered by 10S 5000 mAh LiPos (2 x 5S 5000 mAh in series). I get a friend of mine to do my laser cutting. I have put a post on a Facebook F3A group with all the build pics and offering the files to build one if anyone fancies it. So, the files are available to anyone if they want them.’…