Clean

There have been about a dozen really nice days for flying in the past several weeks AND we've been busy each time. Only a couple of cool, wet days but plenty of 30 mph plus days. Summers coming, there'll be some days in here yet.

GallopingGhostler

Latest acquisition, an NOS pre-1956 Cox .049 Thermal Hopper.


NOS pre-1956 Cox .049 Thermal Hopper in need of minor cleaning and a prop nut.

Telemaster Sales UK

You do realise of course gentlemen, that most of these engines so lovingly restored by their new owners, will be going for scrap once we shuffle off this mortal coil and our beautifully built airframes will be burnt! Cruel but true.

The weather has been dry and sunny here for several days but it's a bit windy this afternoon, a good afternoon for hanging out the washing! I'll go flying tomorrow I need to get in some practice for La Coupe Des Barons.

The dog and I had an interesting experience on our walk yesterday morning. We have to pass a house in which a Border Collie lives. He's normally restrained by a chain but he always barks at us as we walk by. Tiko doesn't take any notice. One morning he was off the chain in the middle of the road and both dogs were squaring off against one another. Rather than provoke a dog fight,Tiko and I retraced our steps. Several months later we found him in the middle of the road again. This time I thought that we could walk by on the side of the road but with every step we took to the side, the Border Collie would advance growling and barking. Suddenly Tiko let out a growl, barked and launched herself at this dog practically pulling me off my feet. The look of fear in his eyes was unmistakeable as he retreated a couple of paces then ran back into his yard.

Well yesterday morning he was again loose on the road perhaps thirty or forty metres away. He took one look at us then legged it for all he was worth! Tiko was desperate to chase after him but I had her on the lead!

flyboy2610

My Feedback: (1)

It is said "You don't have to beat a bully, you just have to hurt him." Or put a little fear in him, as the case may be.

GallopingGhostler

David, what you state is probably why I was able to get this motor for only $33 US with shipping and all. I will put it to use, because it is after all, just dross. It will most likely benefit no one else after me. The younger generation has no interest in these.

I can see that Tico is putting the time to good use! Happy Easter to all!

Telemaster Sales UK

The two best flyers at my club are Erwin Curien and his son Hubert who is twelve years old. Fortunately they live in Paris so only come down to fly with us during the school holidays. Some of you may remember me mentioning Hubert flying a thirty year-old ARTF trainer powered by a Webra 40 in inverted circuits last year. Well, he crashed it which proves that he is human after all so I gave him a WOT 4 fuselage, wing and tailplane which had been cluttering up our club's workshop for years. I'd won two WOT 4s on a well-known auction site. They were photographed in a poor light and when they arrived they were utter dross! Lesson learned! I managed to make a model out of the parts. I called it the Rosse D'Hiver, the nearest I could get to "Winter Hack" in French and I covered it in offcuts and threw the rest away. I started to glass the bare fuselage until someone said that glassing a WOT 4 fuselage would make the model too heavy so it was put on one side and forgotten. I also managed to acquire another wing from the Boot Hill Corner of my old club's premises in England but this was left abandoned alongside the bare fuselage here in France.

My first WOT 4 was the Classic version with a parallel wing planform. This was my original Winter Hack. One day the throttle on the Irvine 46 stuck wide open and I lost orientation before the fuel ran out. I rescued the tailplane, chrome yellow on the top, pale blue underneath.

So I gave Hubert the wing, fuselage and stabiliser. It lacked a fin and rudder but by calling up images of WOT 4s on line they were able to make them up. They didn't bother with the cosmetics. The lad simply covered the fuselage, fin and rudder in white film, glued my old tailplane in place, fitted an OS 55AX to it and took it to the flying field yesterday afternoon for its maiden flight. The engine cut out on the first flight but after a bit of needle twiddling the lad put us all to shame by flying the book. Loops, rolls, Immelmanns, Cuban Eights, inverted circuits, the only thing he couldn't do was make it fly backwards!

I flew my Super 60!

PS. They've repaired the trainer too!


La Rosse D'Hiver

My Original Winter Hack

Father and son start the engine.

It flies!




Utter dross!

David John Davis

I had a visit from my best friend Marino Pacini and his wife Sharon earlier this week. They drove over in their long wheel base 1998 Jaguar XJ which Marino, a professional motor engineer, has restored. On Thursday we drove down to Oradour sur Vayre to visit Sharon's cousin. A very comfortable ride.

They left on Friday to visit the northern cities of Troyes and Arras. Naturally I had got a fair bit of food in stock for their visit and they had brought a few parts for my 1974 Rover which languishes down in the cellar. At lunchtime yesterday I discovered about a kilo of beef in the fridge which I put out on the worktop before going back to fitting the petrol pump to the Rover. I intended to make a stew of it in the evening. This would have lasted me three or four days. Fitting the fuel pump was not as straight forward as it sounds because it's surrounded by the brake servo, reserve tap and coil so access is not easy.. I had just finished the job when my dog rushed past me with the last of the beef in her mouth, the remains of the wrapper too! She must have eaten about two pounds of raw beef! Little thief! It doesn't seem to have done her any harm but she's on reduced rations today!

The weather has been very wet here recently. I hope to go flying this afternoon if the field is not waterlogged.

Have any of you been flying recently?

PS. In her excitement for going for a walk this morning she knocked over a 5€ wine glass with her tail and smashed it! My fault for leaving it on a low shelf last night.

mgnostic

I finally got in a few flights with the VK Cherokee early in the week. Around here it is catching a day when the wind isn't gusting to 40 mph. I started out with a Tiger Shark .46. I thought this was a broken in engine as I remember it having been on another airplane but it acted as though it needed more bench time. Two flights, two dead sticks. I swapped in a well loved O.S. 46 ( the TS .46 is pretty much an O.S.. clone down to the point of parts interchangeability) so I lost the pretty red cylinder head but gained reliability. There are some other adjustments to make. This airplane was completed with stuff from the spare parts box. The nose gear is a little short as it takes a pretty good pull on the stick to get it to lift off even with considerable speed. Once it it lifts off, it flies straight and level just fine. It is an interesting comparison to more modern sport models. There seems to be a lot more inherent stability built in. It would have been a nice second airplane, an aileron trainer for those who learned on three channels. It's not especially maneuverable, the rudder in particular is kind of meh. It really won't snap or spin. I suppose I could add some weight to the tail but it really isn't that sort of airplane. Despite the Facebook pundits shouts that it wouldn't fly on anything less than a .60, it is about as big as my Super Kaos, it zips along nicely on the .46. It's not a terribly exiting airplane but i thought in needed finishing after languishing unfinished in the corner of a shop for at least a couple of decades.

FlyerInOKC

My Feedback: (6)

Congratulations Matt!

David, I had an old Boxer/Beagle who was quite the opportunist, she once stole a stick of butter (1/44 lb.) off the kitchen counter and ate it wrapper and all!

GREG DOE

"The nose gear is a little short" Solution: Put a larger nose wheel on it!

FlyerInOKC

My Feedback: (6)

That should work!

Telemaster Sales UK

I didn't actually fly yesterday because I was too busy doing other things and didn't arrive at the flying field until 5pm, besides the wind was across the runway which is not a good thing for a three channel model. I took my Baron to the flying field to test its fuel consumption. I shall be flying it in La Coupe Des Barons competition in June and I've fitted a Thunder Tiger 54 FS and a SLEC 4 oz tank which converts to 113.6cc. Having started the engine it ran for over ten minutes at maximum speed before running out of fuel. I calculate that it's using a little over 11 cc per minute. As each flying round lasts five minutes I could get away with a 90cc tank thereby saving a little weight and still have enough in reserve for swanning about waiting for the starting signal. Of the four flying rounds, only the pylon race requires flat out flying from the start.


Ukrainian markings this year!

FlyerInOKC

My Feedback: (6)

Here is hoping you flying in June is as successful as the engine run!

mgnostic

Conveniently, I just inherited a grocery sack full of random wheels.

Telemaster Sales UK

I have decided to build the David Hurrell triplane. I have contacted SLEC and will send them the plan so that they can cut out the wing ribs and the formers. Although I have good stocks of wood I will need to order some more for the project so they might as well have the order for the extra wood too.

I have not yet finally decided upon a paint scheme but it will be a triplane in early markings with black Maltese crosses on a white square to aid orientation. I will chose from one of the following.

1. Von Tutschek's black-tailed Jasta 12 aircraft.
2. Vallendor's Jasta Boelke aircraft
3. "The Tripelane In The Background" pictured below. This is an aircraft with the fuselage and other parts finished in white. You may see it in the background of the last photograph taken of Manfred von Richtofen just before his final fatal flight.. In the photograph he is seen playing with his dog Mauritz. I have not been able to find out much information about this aircraft but I suspect that it was being prepared for one of von Richthofen's flight leaders, Hans Weiss, weiss being the German for white.

mgnostic

Osprey's Aircraft of the Aces No. 40 "Fokker Dr1 Aces of World War I" has a lot of nice color profiles. Just a thought, a lot of the triplanes pictured with the Balkan cross started life with a Maltese cross. They were often painted over in the field as regulations changed. Unless you are going for competition where you have to provide documentation you can argue that whatever paint scheme you like started life with the Maltese cross.

Telemaster Sales UK

Well I certainly won't be entering any competitions with mine Matt! I suppose I'll have to fit a pilot and a pair of guns to make it look right but I doubt that I'll bother with much of a cockpit, You can't see these things when it's flying!

I'm leaning towards the von Tutschek scheme because of its simplicity and because I already have sufficient black Solartex in stock and I cannot think of another use for it!

To pay for the Dr1 project, I'm going to be offering a number of kits and engines for sale initially on my club's website.

FlyerInOKC

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I have done that a time or two!

wingstwo

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We know Frank Ponteri, along with Jim and Ruth Van Loo of Giant RC and IMAA fame passed but
are Don Lowe and Jerry Smith still with us? They would be in their late 90's.
SMI481

GallopingGhostler

Just a side note, but looking at the thinner airfoil profile on the Fokker Dr1, it is interesting how Anthony Fokker designed it as the latest state of the art war machine for speed with lowest drag, slight undercambering for maximum lift using the available power at the time. Petrol back then wasn't as refined either.

The use of incendiary ammunition was revolutionary and deadly as well, too. Not only packing a punch, they would set fire to these muslin doped coverings over the wooden frameworks with ease. No longer did the pilot have to aim for the engine, fuel tank or pilot to down the plane. The planes then became flaming coffins on their way down.

In the freezing air, pilots had to dress very warm, because it was even colder up there. There were no cabin heating systems, heated grips on sticks, etc.

WW2, it amazed me the way the aircrew dressed, they developed electric heating suits to keep warm. I look at the B-17's with their side door gunners exposed to the cold high altitude air. There were few comforts in those aircraft.

David John Davis

Funnily enough, von Tutschek flew in a cut down RFC leather coat. There were one or two German pilots who flew in British clothing which they judged to be superior to their own issue.

David John Davis

I've just sent off the plans to SLEC, Cost me 16€! Then someone informs me that there's a BUSA kit for sale in the Charante. He only wants 150€ for it! Should I build two triplanes?

FlyerInOKC

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It would be fun to compare them!

FlyerInOKC

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I got an early birthday present Saturday! I turn 65 on Tuesday. Check it out this classic from 1966!

mgnostic

That's a nice present! I roll over 60 myself next month.
Regarding comparing triplanes, I would love to see an article contrasting all of the triplanes ever kitted. I would include the RC conversions of Dare and Guillows up through the VK kit, all three BUSA kits, Flair, Glen Torrance and whoever is making the monster half scale tripes. I would bet that if you counted some of the more obscure kits, arfs and now Chinese kits you could come up with a dozen planes to compare. I would also like to see a side by side comparison of all of the BUSA 1/4 offerings as flown by an objective observer one after the other. All it takes is deep pockets.