Joe has sent me some pictures of his latest creations. In Joes words: A ghastly Percival Prentice, and a DB Tiger Mouth, both electric powered, all ready for maiden flights. Who knows when ? And: I Still have two models to go, another small 36” Tiger Moth by Dale Tattam, and a Flair Puppeteer. Many… Read More »
I decided to try dyeing the balsa before covering with translucent film and chose pale pink to complement the ‘heather’ pink Solarfilm I’d bought for the underside. I should have known that pink and yellow makes orange. Will orange and pink really GO together?? Rather than use plastic hinges I thought stitching might be nice.… Read More »
When I first fitted both wings there were ‘issues’ namely fit to fuselage root rib and span wise squareness to fuz. So there was some head scratching. In the end I had to adjust the main joiner tube in the fuz which fortunately had not been glued in. Although I could only move it a… Read More »
Since I left the hobby around 1980, glider fuselages seem to have been on a diet – so many these days have extremely spindly bodies with hardly a curve in sight. I must concede, though, that the word ‘fuselage’ does in fact come from the French word fuseler meaning ‘shape into a spindle’. I’m sorry… Read More »
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 »