Table of contents for November 2024 in RCM&E

Welcome to the November 2024 issue of RCM&E. I have taken to protecting my LiPo connectors with 3D printed caps to prevent any unintended short circuits. A ter one lying session, I couldn’t find a missing cap, but I didn’t worry as I had plenty of replacements back at home. That same day I heard a mysterious crunch when closing my car’s tailgate after extracting my models at the flying field. I didn’t think much more of it, being keen to get flying and it was promptly forgotten. However, on the drive home I noticed that the tailgate warning light was on, so I pulled over to investigate but the door was shut nice and tight. Back on the drive and with everything unloaded, I locked the car but when…

Ihadn’t quite realised just how busy the Elmbridge Model Club (EMC) was back in the 1970s and 80s. Sure, there was the Sandown Symposium but for many years the club was also involved in the organisation of flying activities at the Pontins Model Festival at Brean Sands in Somerset. My family were regular attendees. That we endured the accommodation for which Brean became infamous was due to the friendly and well-run flying sites not far from the camp. No Elmbridge, no Pontins. Or Sandown, of course. The full Sandown story is for another time but what struck me, reading the club’s 22-page history at July’s 50th Anniversary Family Day, was the sheer amount of hard graft and organisational nous required to set up and run what grew to become Europe’s…

You are now in a position to close the front and rear sections of the fuselage. Check the rear fuselage skins for fit against one another and the tail fin and trim as necessary. I usually add small supporting pieces of Correx where needs be. Glue one side of the fuselage skin in place with Evo Stik and hold it closed until dry using tape. Add a further piece of Correx to the underside of this skin along top dead centre to support the other fuselage skin and then glue that side too. (Image 1 & 2) Mark and cut out the cockpit floor and fuselage front upper piece from 3 mm Correx. Size the cockpit floor to fit the fuselage opening, then score and fold up the rear section…

MORE DOPPLEGANGERS! For the September issue, Jeff Barringer sent in a wide selection of pictures of his DB Autogyros built by him and his Northampton MAC clubmates. Unfortunately, space was too tight to do justice to Jeff’s pictures, so let’s try again… WATCH THE BIRDY! Here’s John Freeman with his Eagle which he 3D printed from files available from the planeprint. com website. John’s bird has a two-metre wingspan and weighs in at 1250 grams. It uses a hybrid construction method of PLA and LW-PLA (Lightweight-PLA). TONY CROSSOVER This is my ‘Tony’ fun fighter built in the summer of 1996 from a free plan in Radio Modeller. It was a Chris Golds two channel design for a Cox .020. The trouble was that I couldn’t get the engine started (Chris…

The F3A European Championship was hosted this year in Grandrieu, Belgium from the 21st to 28th July. The UK F3A team, comprising Thomas Davis, Malcolm Balfour and Brandon Ransley, travelled to the club site run by the Association Aéromodéliste du Sud Hainaut (AASH) in Grandrieu, Belgium. This was the location of a previous European Championship in 2018 and the club is well versed in accommodating these large team competitions. Also joining the team were Team Manager Adrian Harrison and Chief Judge Alan Williams. The following report was gratefully received from Malcolm Balfour. For those interested in more detail about the competition the event website is: https://www.ec-f3a-2024.be TRIP PREPARATIONS Preparation for an event like this starts at least a year before the actual event commences. The UK F3A Association holds a…

GR7 HARRIER For those of you who have seen Tony Nijhuis’ exploits over the last few years when trying to get a model Harrier jump jet to successfully VTOL, you may be a little disappointed that his latest Pro-Plan jet offering doesn’t have any VTOL features. But don’t let that put you off building one as Tony reckons it is an absolute peach of a model to fly and performs faultlessly. Tony’s VTOL version took 13 attempts to get to hover and fly successfully and the all-important lying characteristics of that thirteenth Harrier have been used to develop this latest hand launch EDF jet. BUTCHER BIRD The Focke-Wulf Fw 190, when introduced by the Luftwaffe in WW2, caused quite a shock to the Allies. It had a top speed of…

MOTORS & ROTORS CELEBRATES 30 YEARS Congratulations to Dave Wilshere and his Hertfordshire based R/C model business, Motors & Rotors, which has just celebrated its 30th anniversary in August 2024. Dave writes: Motors & Rotors was started in 1994, mainly as a model helicopter distribution company representing the Miniature Aircraft USA X-cell and Graupner Heim ranges. Back then model helicopters were huge, before quad-copter drones shrunk the helicopter market and, ultimately, affected model shops in general. Many shops did not realise it was the helicopter market that kept them going with the constant requirement for heli spares, especially during the 3D craze. The relationship with Graupner led to Motors & Rotors importing fixed wing models and more of the huge German company’s range of accessories. The owner of Motors &…

The weather at the Pontefract Single Channel & Retro meet behaved again this year. It was not outstanding but was eminently flyable and not cold, so I’m counting that as a result. It was the same format as always - electric models of any genre, plus IC / electric control line on the Saturday and the Retro and Single Channel event on Sunday. GET TOGETHER With the weather being much kinder there were scores of modellers and models in attendance. The event is now much more than a flying meeting and it has become a great social get together. You can fly, display, reminiscence or meet up with old flying pals. It’s all part of the enjoyment, with modellers arriving from as far afield as Devon and Sweden. Sadly, our…

The latest FAI Scale World Championships took place in Ploiesti, Romania from August 11 -17, 2024. WHERE TO START As a scale modeller my dream has always been to fly at the World Championships as part of a British team. The FAI re-introduced control line scale to the World Championship for 2024 and the competition in Romania was to be a test event. If well supported F4B would be back on the international calendar. Having qualified for the British Team in F4B I was thrilled to be asked to be part of the GB scale team heading for Romania. I didn’t need long to think about my answer! Preparations for the 11-day trip started in earnest with a series of online meetings where we thrashed out ideas on how we…

Steve Bishop and his team have been running the Weston Park Model Show for 27 years and they seem to have got it off to a tee as, once again, they had bagged some impressive models and pilots for this year’s displays along with a substantial trade presence. The only thing they couldn’t control was the forecast and this year’s show was treated to some weather of biblical proportions, especially on the Saturday, including wind, rain, hail and thunder. The sun did show up between the showers so it wasn’t a total washout. The brisk wind was often turbulent and crosswind thanks to the trees lining the runway so it was not ideal conditions for flying. A mere mortal would have seen the conditions and gone home but the Weston…

One day I was browsing the balsa section in Weston UK when Alan approached me and asked if I would like to write an article about their new kit of the Cougar, building it from plans to covering. Two weeks later I was given a box of laser cut parts, sheet and strip balsa, glue, covering and accessories, along with servos, ESC, motor and LiPo battery. I had everything required to build and finish the model, except for the full set of plans/drawings and only an A4 sheet showing details of the tailplane, elevator and rudder. While scanning all the laser cut balsa and ply sheets, I noticed that the parts numbered 65, 69, 55 and so on were numbered by the length of that part e.g. part 55 is…

This stylish 705 mm span semi scale model of the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet is presented hot on the heels of the XFly-Models F-22 Raptor reviewed by Steve Hannon last month. But the timeline between the release of these two models is longer than it appears as the Raptor review was held up by the wet weather last spring and strong winds and overcast conditions over the summer. But we got there in the end and so can now move on to show you XFly’s newest addition to their expanding range of twin 40 mm EDF powered jets. So, let’s see how Barry got on putting together this fast build kit. When I was offered the XFly-Model F-18 Hornet to review I had to decide between two attractive colour schemes.…

Two things quickly became apparent when I started slope soaring. First, I had a lot to learn and, second, there were some incredibly clever flyers, designers and builders on the hill who rarely, if ever, flew anywhere else. One, Paul Westrup, usually brought along a large sweptback wing of his own design and making, then flew them with particular skill. I asked what he called his creations. “Oh, I’ve never really thought of a name,” came the reply. Before he added, “…I should do really because I’ve built 31 of ‘em.” Hang on, thirty-one! To say this was a man who liked large sweptback wings was flirting recklessly with understatement. I needed to know more. We’ve slope soared together for a few years now but only recently sat down for…

Even an interwar bomber needs a bomb load, so some lightweight scale 300 lb and 20 lb bombs were made from pink foam and balsa. The ‘bombing up’ test fit proved that all ordinances could be accommodated. Online research turned up some expensive vintage wheels, so I decided to make my own, but lighter. The lightweight wheels I did buy were too thick, so I used an Olfa blade to cut a 6 mm thick bagel slice off each side, followed by belt sanding to grind down the hub flush to the thinner wheel thickness. The wheel covers are thin aluminum sheet with some 3D weathering. The nine-cylinder engines were made by copying a picture and gluing to 1/16 ply, cut to shape and with connecting rods added for realism.…