After the excitement of finishing The Plan I rather fancied celebratory drink and a sandwich. Not any old sandwich, a rib sandwich – two thick slices of aluminium filled with 13 balsa blanks. Once this aeronautical snack was rasped into shape (and the drink consumed), I finished it off with the sanding block, then repeated… Read More »
Hi all, The fuselage and the tail end have been put on one side now for some weeks while I began construction of the wings. As with the rest of the kit there are many laser cut parts including false ply LE, all ribs, main spar web ( the 1mm ply sheet glued between top… Read More »
Back in ‘71/72, we used to fly control line models for three hours every Sunday morning in a field next to The Rowdens at the top of Eastcliff Lane in Teignmouth. Not a silencer in sight. How the neighbours stood the noise I will never know. As far as combat flying and aerobatics were concerned,… Read More »
Although the breeze was from the North East and unfriendly for gliders, it was good to get out and enjoy the really calm and clear air this morning. I decided to get out the thermal clothing and take my Riot up for a few circuits and try out my new Runcam2 camera for some area… Read More »
By today’s standards my new ‘DR420’ is a blast from the past – balsa and ply, with spruce spars, full length flaperons, and mechanical mixing. She’s also the first model aircraft I’ve designed in over 40 years! Maiden – test flights 1 & 2 – Black Hill Her ‘maiden’ consisted of two flat field… Read More »
I um’d and ar’d over how to hinge the flaperons and eventually decide not to – to just let the film be the hinge. Multi-tasking was never my strong point so rather than try and wing-cover and hinge all in one go I decided to top-hinge the flaperons with a narrow strip of film first,… Read More »
The K7 continues to grow slowly and the bags of laser cut parts are starting to diminish. After doing all I could to the fuselage I started on the tail end. The fin is integral to the fuselage so a rudder was next and fairly straightforward of balsa and 0.4. ply. A double horn was… Read More »
An electric palm sander is a wonderful thing! If only I’d had one in the 70’s I could have filled the whole bungalow with balsa dust rather than just my little bedroom. Oh and the wonderful smell of cellulose dope… those were the days. And mixing my own diesel fuel… I regularly bought Amyl Nitrite… Read More »
I don’t know about you but I always like to start with the wings. Using root and tip rib templates cut from some old aluminium I made a couple of ‘rib sandwiches’ using up bits of scrap 1/16th balsa and new ply for the root ribs. It’s a method I used ‘in the old days’,… Read More »
Hello DSSC. I thought you might be interested to see my new slope soarer design which carries on from where I left the hobby in 1980. The repeated design/build/fly/crash, design/build/fly… cycle which dominated much of my spare time in the 70’s, culminated in this rugged 2-channel model I still have 40 years later. My new… Read More »