Mike.K

I like these Seagull kits. They are very complete and fly well. They are excellent value for money and you would be hard pushed to build from scratch at the price. For speed of construction and with the core parts built and covered, they make a good choice for a time limited constructor. Now under my belt are the two other Seagull kits I`ve already built, namely the Bowers Fly Baby monoplane and the now out of production, Miles Sparrow Hawk. The big 72" Stearman pulled at my heart strings so I now await delivery which is likely to be after Christmas. Presently the kit is on a slow boat from Ho

Near new SC180FS unit bought last night via eBay. Shame I could`t afford a Saito R3! Mike

Date. 28/11/2019. Guys, Does anyone have a good used 150/180 or similar size four stroke nitro engine they wish to sell? Contact me on 01 883 625406 if you have one. Thanks. Mike Kennedy

The Sparrow Hawk is 99% finished now. Just the screen to glue into place. That has been left as the last job due to its vulnerability. The covering standard is not quite as good as the Fly Baby monoplane but some iron work has cured the majority of the faults. The revolting turquoise stripes on the underside of the wings have been removed. In there place yellow Oracover Cub Yellow replaces them as a perfect match. An additional stripe now runs from the underside of the wing leading edge to the wing trailing edge under the fuselage and completes an all over continuity of colour from one end of

Ye ha! Got one!! The Seagull Sparrow Hawk 63" kit is certainly a rare bird presently in the UK. (12/11/2019) Rob told me that J.Perkins currently show non availability with no delivery date being advised. Much as I`d liked to have bought through Rob as a preferred, known and trusted supplier, not to mention pushing as much of my business as possible in his direction, this time I had to resort to an internet search to locate a supplier who physically had a kit on his shelf. This time Leeds Model Shop came up with the goodies. With post and packing, they relieved me of £189.89 to conclude t

Hi Guys, After nearly a couple of years of flying now having returned to the hobby after an absence of some forty years later. Boy, did I find the whole game had changed. I needed to get into a serious learning curve! So what did I struggle with? New fangled 2.4 radio gear and electric power plants. I found myself totally out of my comfort zone. OK, the radio gear was fairly easily overcome but electric motors, UBECS and LiPo batteries were completely outside my knowledge library. To begin to bridge that gap, I resorted to taking advice from George Worley at 4-Max. I`m glad I did.

The Tiger Moth re-cover and the Fly Baby bi-plane projects are presently stalled due to non availability of further supplies of Hobby King 115 Solid Silver covering film. This is obviously highly frustrating...I suppose I should now be making some new cabane and interplane struts for the little Se5a. I regret to say I put the model on the roof of the Peugeot van thing I use to transport the models. Annoyingly, I later opened the electric garage door with the inevitable result....crunch, squash, graunch! So what is next? Liking the Seagull Fly Baby 69" monoplane, Rob supplied me with a kit

Guys, I tripped over James Hollands web site this evening. James, as many will know is a terrific TV presenter of World War 2 related programs and has an amazing ability to explore and capture little known facts relating to the conflict. His interest in this period of history goes back many years and incredibly has managed to interview many of the participants....in fact I`m quite taken aback by the number of interviews he conducted. Almost my entire evening tonight has been spent browsing his site. What he has achieved is an outstanding record of anecdotal evidence gleaned, for instance,

About three weeks ago, Rob Newman sold me a fairly ancient 48" Tiger Moth complete with servos and an SC 30 FS motor. It was thought to be a Pilot kit. Finished in war time yellow and dark green training colours, the model appealed to me so I bought it. Some of you may have seen it hanging from the ceiling in the shop. The Tiger was in reasonable condition if a little dog eared and faded in places. It was a sweet little thing and I just had to have it. As the coverings were so faded, embrittled and flat, I`ve elected to strip it down, make any required repairs and generally re-life the mo

A quick progress update on the Flybaby. Tail feathers and fuselage have been partially covered and the top wing built and trial fitted to the cabane wires. So far so good. Hard points and mountings for that wing still remain to be constructed. Note the somewhat unusual main spar arrangement designed into the model. It is rather similar to that employed on the full size aircraft. Note the similarity in proportions to the Tiger Moth. One can`t but help think that Pete Bowers might of been slightly influenced by the Tiger Moth! A little off topic but as the Tiger Moth figures here, the

Quite by chance, I tripped over an old Pilot magazine on eBay which detailed the very aircraft that I`m in the process of building. This was in the August 1997 edition of the magazine. I`m pleased with this purchase as it gives a very good detailed insight into some of the finer modelling points and is likely to be helpful particularly in the later stages of construction. Images of the relevant pages have been added below. One of the things I found useful when the magazine arrived was having confirmation of the core colour scheme. Originally I thought it was white with blue trim. Now I`ve

Last night at the September 2019 club meet, the big Flybaby bipe build took an interesting turn. James took another look at my fuselage and became certain that my 84" version from the Eraldo Pomare/Nexus/Sarik plan was the same size as his one built some thirty years earlier. He recognized the designers name. He had earlier measured the wing span of his example and found it to be around 64". That is something like a 20" span difference when set against the dimension quoted on the plan. Placing my fuselage in his Volvo estate, he became even more convinced that my model was indeed the same size

A progress report here. Three weeks on, the build of this big 84" Flybaby bi-plane continues well. To add to the fun the first few flights of the new kit built Seagull ARTF Flybaby mono-plane took place. Now fitted with a replacement port wing due to the original item being badly warped, I`m pleased to report this model flies very nicely indeed. With the new wing fitted, I didn`t even need to adjust trims on the transmitter to obtain straight and level flight. The model is perhaps just a tad nose heavy but this can easily be corrected by shifting the LiPo back about 25mm. That can be done

A Flybaby update. Correction. The warp was due to a distorted wing which had 12mm excess "Wash in", ie the port wing tip was at a higher angle of incidence than the root of the wing. Not nice. The offending port wing panel went back to Rob. He immediately agreed the panel was a real shocker and phoned Perkins on the spot for a warranty replacement. Just over a couple of weeks later a replacement wing was supplied together with a new aileron, cyno hinges and a nuts and bolts pack which included a replacement glass fibre aileron control horn. Back in the hangar, the new parts were joi

That oak tree certainly grabs the models. I`m certain the thing is mounted on a moving trolley. As we know it grabbed Chris`s model on Sunday afternoon. Image attached. It has already had my Super Chipmunk and my No 1 Ultra Stick! Thanks for posting the details, Amol. Phone number now saved to my mobile.

The big Flybaby build is progressing only interrupted by back surgery at Guys. I`m somewhat incapacitated at present and a second stage of surgery is needed the week after next. Undaunted, I`ve continued with kitting the model with materials supplied by our Rob at Avicraft. Rob is attempting to source a SIG Piper Cub J3 one quarter scale fibre glass cowl which fits this one third scale model. The replacement wing for the smaller Seagull Flybaby mono-plane is expected from Perkins in the near future. I made an appearance at the field on Sunday taking my cut out kit parts and plan with me.

I`ve always loved James wonderful white 70" Flybaby Bipe which I understand is now over thirty years old and built from the RCM&E plan. James flies the model to perfection with a .95FS nailed to the front. I must admit to being transfixed by that model and I suppose it was inevitable that I would eventually have to have one myself. That time has arrived and I`m on the case! As an interim measure, I bought the Seagull Flybaby 70" monoplane kit version just to help me partially scratch the itch. Trevor and I flew that model last week but discovered after the first flight that the port w

Another late afternoon/evening session flown. With the chunk of ballast already in the model moved right forward into the motor cowl and a further 20gms added, the model became further improved. On the first flight I considered the model now a tad nose heavy. Removal of 10gms and another flight found this model just about perfect in trim. I`d also adjusted transmitter expo to give 35%< which took all the bite out of aileron and particularly elevator inputs. An aileron to rudder mix of 50% helps the model avoid yaw although rolls tend to be of the barrel type. I need to learn to counter

Here we are again as at the end of August 2019. Having gained my A-test and piled a load of air time in on the Ultra Stick, my abilities are rather better than when I re-started flying after a forty year break in April this year. I`m certainly more confident now than I was and have learned to fly out of Fickleshole with a reasonable certainty of being able to get a model back on the pitch. With confidence improving and to an extent also my own ability, I decided it was time to fly the Se5a myself. Yesterday saw me up at the field flying the model. During commissioning in the wo

Some news about the Flybaby. Prior to the maiden flight, it was seen that ailerons were loosing their neutral position upon switching on Tx and Rx. Re-setting arm positions and messing with the linkages then followed to restore positioning. After a few stick waggles, the servos and ailerons would loose the plot again. It was most frustrating.The more the transmitter stick was waggled, the worse the issue became. Power/signal leads were fitted new as were servos. I`d perhaps bought badly. Although I`ve previously purchased Tower Pro digital servos with a metallic purple label, the ones pu

A few external shots taken today. It seemed like a good idea at the time....I love James`s wonderful Flybaby Bipe. It really does fly like a full sized plane and I fell in love with it months ago. To have one is an itch I just have to scratch. So I bought a plan from Sarik for a 54" with the intention of having the plan blown up to about a 70" span. Then the plan arrived and I opened the envelope to find it was for an 84" span model with the prototype weighing in without fuel at about 9.7Lbs. Power was from a Super Tiger .61 two stroke glow motor. The cowl used was from a SIG 1/4 scale pi

"Build" is perhaps the wrong word as the kit is an ARTF so "assembly" is the more accurate word. Collected from Rob on Thursday, the usual retail price of this lovely semi-scale model is £217. It is a very nicely constructed offering from the thriving Vietnamese Seagull company. The parent owner would appear to be SIG. To complete the model you need either a .61 size two stroke or .90 size four stroke I/C engine or electric power set up. In addition, you need radio gear. Other than those items, its all in the box. Value for money, its a lot of nicely constructed model for the dosh. T

Hi guys. I`m on the hunt for a good new or used OS 91/95 four stroke for my next project. This is likely to be a Flybaby Bipe similar to the one James flies. PM or call me on 01883625406 if you have a motor you wish to sell. Thanks. Mike Kennedy

Inspired by Jim Beagley`s RCM&E article detailing a Panic build, I just had to have one. Robs design is bullet proof. I suppose every modeller eventually has to have one in their hangar collection. As we know, the model is as simple and functional as it gets. The kit is distributed by J Perkins and produced in Pakistan. The timber grades are first rate and the laser cutting the most accurate I`ve yet seen. The build was a doddle. Not perhaps easy for the first time builder but quickly put together if you have a couple of other model builds under your belt. My total build time was

A few more images of the finished Bi-stormer. Note my originally upright mounted motor which caused a few issues with the throttle rod which included acute ends at either end. Control wise, it really didn`t make the required grade so I ripped the motor and mount out again and butchered the starboard cowl cheek to allow the motor to be turned by about sixty degrees. This allowed a straight push/pull from servo to throttle arm along the tank floor. The modified installation now functions in a much improved fashion compared to my first attempt. I didn`t want to hack the model around but push beca