Mike.K

Hi Ben, About 14.25Lbs seems to be an early figure. Added lead until the C of G appeared right. The total weight figure will be less than I added because the exhaust is still to be built. Just Engines are starting on Monday. Two week delivery is expected. The cowl and spats are cooking in front of an infra red lamp presently. I have to spray outside, then dash the parts inside to prevent paint bloom. Not perhaps one of my finest finish jobs but that is how it is with somewhat inadequate facilities and current low ambient temps. It is amazing how much spray paint gets used. All the white an

A bit of bling added this morning. Two registration letter runs added to the fuselage sides. Not cheap though. £16 for the two stickers to my own sizing. 65mm in this case with the length being dictated by the font and style. Something like 390mm for each sticker. Ordered on line from The Sign Builder. A quick and efficient service. Recommended. The cowl and spats are now under two pack white paint. The landing gear is now painted blue and looks good. I`ll not touch any of those parts now for another day in order for the paint to harden before adding blue and grey over the next few

A bit more completed. The canopy is on and the result quite pleasing. Hingeing is boring but canopy fitting is a nerve jangling once off, get it right first time or it looks dreadful situation......this time it all went very well. I cut back the covering down to the wood where an adhesive bond was required, carefully made sure the canopy was exactly the right size and in places blended to ensure it sat well against the fuselage. I used a clear Evo-stick adhesive product, Serious Glue, ex Halfords, in a small and manageable tube. It is solvent free and has a very fast initial grab time. Be

Some 24 days have passed since I last posted on this build. A lot has happened over the period. Images attached tell some of the story to date. All your comments and observations gratefully received as always. The model is now hinged and covered, the motor installed together with the spark ignition module, kill switch and all the radio gear. Direct action, no snakes, twin servos for elevator and rudder all mounted both sides under the tail plane, singles for the ailerons. The rudder servos push and pull in opposite directions so that worked out fine. The elevator servos, one working each

Any petrol members there? I`m now completing my build of a Midwest Extra 300S which has been fitted with a two stroke petrol DLE 40cc twin and the standard ignition module. Power is from two separate 6.6v 1100mAh LiFe batteries. One powers the receiver and the other, the ignition. I`ve also fitted a Rcexl Opto Gas Engine Kill Switch V2 to provide what I hope will provide an auto kill for the ignition should either the receiver or the transmitter fail. A red LED is fitted which is part of the kill unit and a tachometer plugs directly to an outlet from the ignition module. RX power comes fr

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I`ve replied with a private email to Dave. In his PM, Dave emphasized the importance of keeping weight down to the 7Kg limit and also detailed the mandatory maximum 82Db sound limit. I wish to confirm that I take both matters very seriously and will not fly this model if weight and noise issues cannot be addressed. As in all things in life which pose a problem, in many cases issues can be overcome by using logic and rational. In short, one has to diagnose the issue, understand the issue and then address the issue. The process is infallible and needs to be be applied to this particula

A bit more on this Extra 300S from Midwest. Planning is all. Its always good to know what size target you have and its properties. On the basis of that, I check weighed all the kit components including the ones already built. In addition, I`ve estimated the weight of the coverings knowing what the Hobby King material weighs per metre length, less its backing sheets. The manufacturers weights for the now ordered DLE 40 twin and ancillary components have also been factored into the total estimated predicted all up flying weight. My list also included typical servo, Lipo, NiMH batteries etc.

I much enjoyed the EGM last night. I must thank the brilliant Committee member (sorry, I don`t know his name) who came over to me after I asked for help and advice in respect of a workable engine spec for the Extra. He spent a good half hour with me and assisted me towards making a correct and informed decision. The consensus was that the model was crying out for something like a petrol two stroke 40cc flat twin. The obvious choice was the DLE 40 with several other less well known makers also being run past us on my laptop. Obviously I wanted to buy a well known and trusted motor with dec

I`ve just had offered to me an AGM 55 two stoke petrol motor. New, un-run, still in packaging, £130. New, retail is £196. Would this be suitable? It would be a cheap answer if ok. 5.5hp. Spec as per this link. New AGM 55 RC Plane Aircraft & Muffler Gasoline Engine-agmhobby.com. I`ll be at the EGM tonight. Perhaps we can discuss further. Mike

A seriously well constructed appraisal, Ben. Thank you very much. Loads to think about. One thing is sure...its going to cost money! Mike

Thanks for the comments, Ben. The only big engines I presently have are the two ASP 1.08 two strokes I acquired at the recent auction. The similar sized Great Planes 300S states their model will be suitable for just a .91 or 1.08 two stroke. I appreciate that a 1.08 may be a little small especially as the model will be quite weighty. It will certainly lack the performance of a larger engine model. Obviously I could fit something rather larger later. Lets get Christmas over first! The first thing to do though is get this thing finished and covered. Advice and comments appreciated. What do

Another eBay win for me. This is an expensive American kit which I collected from Stourbridge yesterday. Of unknown vintage, the model came to me part built and what has been constructed appears to have been reasonably well executed. Clearly the kit has passed through several hands before my acquisition. The eBay seller bought it a couple of weeks ago for £140, then decided he wanted a 120" version. Back on eBay it went again and became my win for just £75 plus £40 of diesel fuel in the car! I`m a happy chappie! I looked on the internet to get some idea of the new price. Well over $1200 U

I thought this model was finished.....not so. George at 4-Max pinged me to say one of his customers ( an aerodynimasist) had the same kit and a few issues had arisen. Predominantly a problem with the incidence angle of the top wing. In addition the C0G as shown in the manual was incorrect. Watching RC Model Geeks videos, parts 34 & 35 of a DW Tri-plane build and first flights revealed that Rob Lewis down on Hayling Island also had the same model and was also rather struggling with getting it flying correctly. He had also had conversations with Georges` areodynamisist customer wi

Thank you Dave and Ben for your comments. All good stuff. However, before your three posts appeared this evening, I found what appears to be an almost unused 7C on ebay for £95 including post. The "buy" button has been pushed and money paid. The job is done and there is no turning back. That should be on its way tomorrow. A quick, compatible fix which continues to align with the six 617 receivers which I have inherited or otherwise acquired. The 7C with the duff screen can be fixed in due course with no rush to get it done. Rob Newman at Avicraft knows the guy who does the Ripmax, Enfiel

My transmitter packed up tonight in the workshop. Perhaps one indication of impending doom occurred last month when Riddlesdown member, Steve Fysh first flew my SE5a and the small Ultra Stick. The transmitter on some model numbers refused to change from heli to fixed wing. In addition, I`d also had peculiar difficulties with jittering aileron servos on my Fokker DVII. I`ll add that all three models were all fitted with individual Futaba FS617 receivers. Whilst I was working on the DVII in the workshop tonight, the 7C transmitter screen started flickering and produced odd hieroglyphics bef

Exactly four weeks after this kit arrived in a ply box, it is now complete with nothing more to do. My time input has been at least 300 hours but perhaps more likely as 350. The eyes were on the prize. Its the settlement of an itch to build a Fokker Tri-plane that I`ve nurtured for years. Now the urge has been satisfied. Emma together with Rob Newman have been the first to see the finished product at Avicraft this morning. Rather a different thing to the box of goodies that I took over twenty eight days earlier. It is done and dusted and is ready for testing. I`ll post more on that with images

A collapsed back and severe sciatica preclude any chance of me personally running a marathon......so I`ll sit here in a sea of balsa shavings and build the models! I don`t mind pushing a sweeping brush around the place at least half a dozen times a day. I`m always amazed at the amount of crud that gets generated!! The 17g metal geared servos have just arrived from China so I`ll be getting those in at the same time as installing the carbon fibre push-rod sheaths for elevator and rudder. The aileron servos will mount on plates screwed to a base mount in the wings and fixed with strong doubl

A few more hours work early this morning saw the wings and also ailerons covered. This really visually increases air-frame volume and presence. The covering has now been itemised as a Hobbyking product as covering 102. This comes direct from the UK suppliers at an exceptionally interesting price of around £6.53 per FIVE METRE roll. Can you believe it?! It is what shows on the Hobbyking site as the price. This obviously needs checking but I`d certainly expect VAT and post to be added to the final invoice total. Covering Film Solid Bright Red (5mtr) 102 The motor, ESC and UBEC arrived from

I`ve been busy on the Tri-plane over the last ten days or so and have been having a very enjoyable time in the process. The final images in this post showing wings fitted with three of them covered. This has accounted for about 120 hours of building time. Its amazing just what a difference having pre-cut parts make to the speed of a build. Only a few small issues encountered mainly due to lack of detail in the build manual. Those were of little consequence and construction has progressed rapidly and predictably. Wings look reasonably in line with each other, spaces between each panel look even

Twenty four hours late having sat in the DPD depot in Basingstoke over the weekend, the kit finally arrived on Tuesday. Frustrating, but at least it arrived without having been run over by a lorry. The Chinese produced 5Kg package is presented in a laser engraved ply box. Its hard to grasp how a 60" span model is compacted into such a small volume. Four hours were spent popping out all the parts from the sheets of ply and balsa. The cutting is generally well done but perhaps not quite as accurate out of the sheets as the parts found in the SFM SE5a or the SFM Fokker DVII. Just a little tr

Awaited from George at 4-Max on Monday is my next build. This is the laser cut Dancing Wings Fokker Tri-plane B version kit which includes 8m of covering material. With the price of covering material being quite expensive ( typically around £18 for a 2mx600 roll from general retailers) the B kit represents seriously good value. The kit is available in half a dozen versions from basic, basic with coverings included, right the way up to an ARTF version. Those choices of kit are only available via the Chinese DW eBay site and are priced in US dollars with P&P included. It isn`t very clea

Nine days on, eight of them building, sees this DVII now complete and ready to fly. About 90hours taken and no real issues. As predicted, the top ABS fuselage cowl was perhaps a slight headache. I`ll detail that before going further. The removable top cowl is built on a chassis former with several perpendicular formers giving the top shape profile. On the SE5A, 2mm balsa sheet was damped and rolled around the shape, and held in place for half an hour to persuade the balsa to acquire the roll. Dried off with a hair dryer, it was then super-glued to the cowl former before being trimmed. It

The DVII kit arrived just 22hrs after I placed the order with 4-Max. Great service as always. This is NOT an ARTF type kit but one aimed at the modeller who enjoys building but without the hugely time consuming business of scratch building from plans. This type of kit cuts hours off building a fairly complex model at a very keen price and within a reasonable time scale. My SE5a from the sister SFM kit took just 120hrs from start to completion of covering and installation of radio and propulsion gear. This kit is very similar to the SE5a with many identical construction details and cu

As said in my SE5a thread, I`ve got the hots on another build. This time it is the Fokker DVII kit, again from the same stable as the SE5a. That kit went together so nicely, I just had to get another from the same people...Ripmax. Once again supplied by George Worley at 4-Max, I`ve raided the coffers once again and ordered the kit. The kit is £98.99, a PO-3547-700 motor £35.99 and next day postage £9.49. That`s a total of £144.47. I found in my Fathers bits box, an unused Detrum 40A ESC so that is suitable for this model. Had I needed one on this occasion from George, then a suitable one