Just a brief update on the BE2.

I took it to the flying field today having made no changes other than introducing more "down" on the elevator and fitting the incidence wires, and yes BB those are the very wires I fitted yesterday. It took ages to rig and I was ably assisted and advised by a chap called Tom who is very knowledgeable in all matters concerning aerodynamics. I had three flights with it and the engine cut on the landing approach on each occasion. I put it down to the engine being new. I found that I had to use the rudder a lot in the turns because the ailerons produce a lot of drag and there is no aileron differential. With a single centrally mounted servo rigging up aileron differential would be impossible. On the third flight my pal Kit Davidson asked me what it was like to fly and I said, "You can't relax for a second!" Mind you that was partly me not the model! Maybe it's just a question of getting used to it and running in the engine. One thing I do know is that I don't need to add any more weight to the nose of the model.

There are a number of small jobs to be done. I think I'll try reducing the aileron travel and mixing some rudder in with the ailerons. I might also put a couple of washers under the rear bolts of the engine plate. There seems to be a leak from the fuel tank which couldn't have helped the engine reliability and I would like to replace the plastic clevises on the end of the aileron struts with steel ones which will involve me shortening the struts. The first two landings were wheelers but the last one flipped over breaking one of my new incidence wires so that's got to be fixed too.

The Laser and the Enya have turned up. The Laser appeared to be seized but the good thing about Lasers is that they will stand upright on a flat surface so I filled the cylinder with fuel and left it overnight. I fitted a propeller this morning and found that it turned and that the valves opened and closed. The Enya is a typically sturdy specimen with good compression. I hope to run them both over the next few days.

Bye for now. Must shoot over to the local hardware store. There's a 10% discount for over 60s on Wednesdays.