Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2024 i RCM&E

F-22 RAPTOR £169.99 I www.cmldistribution.co.uk Faithfully bringing the profile of Lockheed Martin’s supersonic stealth fighter to the R/C arena at an attractive price, X-Fly’s 27.6” (702 mm) span twin 40 mm EDF is sure to whet the appetite of any jet jockey. Designed to be as true-to-scale as possible, the model’s unmistakable profile is complemented by numerous scale details. A factory-installed pair of 1413-KV5000 brushless motors and 20A brushless ESCs – along with the owner’s choice of 4S 1300-2600 mAh LiPo – combine to deliver flight times of around 3 – 8 minutes and an abundance of thrust for fast climbs, rolls and loops, with high-alpha manouevres also on the menu thanks to the F-22’s low wing loading and full-flying stabilisers. Moulded from EPO and easy to assemble in around…

MAKE IT SCALE As I sit at my keyboard, looking forward to Christmas, it’s often a time of reflection over my modelling year. For the most part my modelling this year has been really enjoyable. I have competed in a plethora of scale competitions, indoor R/C scale, outdoor R/C scale, and have even managed to win the F4B control line scale National title again. I attended the BMFA dinner and was humbled to be awarded the Eric Coates Trophy. The past winners engraved on that award are all icons of the modelling world. To see my name alongside theirs seems surreal. So, yes, a good year. Apart from the Eric Coates award the highlight for me was the Euroscale Masters at Buckminster. The weather was amazing, the camaraderie second to…

The Foka 4 was a single-seat sailplane built by the Polish SZD concern in the early 1960s. This one has been built to represent the full-size version at the Glider Heritage Centre at Lasham. In the process, several liberties have been taken in the name of constructional and operational simplicity. The top and bottom airbrakes have been substituted with top surface spoilers instead, the rearward placed landing wheel of the full-size has been moved forward slightly to be nearer the CG and the full-length sliding canopy transformed into something more traditional. The last issue provided a builder’s guide to making the fuselage and empennage. This time we look at making the Foka’s wings. “…standard lengths of spruce are not long enough and the main spar will have to be spliced…

SHIFTY Richard Harris has always had an admiration for the unorthodox aircraft designed by Burt Rutan, most notably his canards. These fascinating machines inspired Richard to design Shifty, a quick to build pusher that can be configured as either a canard or delta depending on builder preference. Shifty is a one-piece model that’s economically sized around an affordable brushless motor. It features profiled sheet balsa flying surfaces attached to a common box type fuselage, shaped to give its off-beat lines. Richard opted to steer both planforms via elevons, so omitting the traditional forward elevator normally associated with a canard. It’s an uncomplicated set up that has produced a pair of eye-catching, smooth and predictable fliers. A COMPANY CALLED FLAIR In the next issue we welcome back a stalwart of the…

AMMAN VALLEY RADIO CONTROL CLUB John Walter, Chairman of the Amman Valley RCC, writes: If you’re looking for a model flying club in the Upper Swansea Valley/Amman Valley area, please let me introduce you to Amman Valley Radio Control Club. AVRCC was started in the early 80s and in its early years it had a number of different flying sites due to the perennial problem of locating a suitable flying site and keeping it. It finally settled on a site in the village of Gwaun Cae Gurwen, which is within a short driving distance from the major towns of Swansea, Port Talbot, Neath and Ammanford. Since 2019 the Club has been using the site under a 25-year lease from Neath Port Talbot County Council, permitting it to fly seven days…

I hope you all had a great time over the Christmas and New Year break and revitalised your modelling mojo for 2024. Time to dig out those projects you started in the 1990s and finally finish them, eh! If you’re an aeromodeller of a certain age (a nicer way of saying old) you will surely remember a couple of names, Skyleader and Merco, two stalwart manufacturers of the UK modelling scene. Back in the 1970s you could virtually guarantee seeing a Skyleader advert in all UK modelling magazines and with good reason. It was a reliable, popular set (especially with competitive pylon racing and aerobatic pilots), available in a range of configurations up to seven channels and well-priced. Servos supplied were their linear or rotary SCR1 and, in my opinion,…

BIG FUN Here is a picture of my Bill Kits Big Fun. This was chosen as our Club Model for 2023. Eleven kits were bought, I think eight were built and one crashed early before the serious competition flying started. The survivors have battled it out over the summer and there are just two more disciplines before the contest ends, Spot Landing and Ground Handling. The model has been challenging in different ways to individual modellers. We all tried to make a ‘one off” model, hence the Shark Face and Magnatilla influence on mine. Apart from tweaking the outline, I changed the wheels supplied in the kit. We fly from grass and I decided to use a larger diameter wheel to cope with wet grass. The wheels are based on…

In September 2020, I was looking for a new warbird as a successor to my P-61 Black Widow night fighter. Looking further back, my 3.6 metre span Douglas A-26B Invader, built to 1:5.9 scale and which I finished building in 2015, was the successor to my four-metre span B-17 Flying Fortress. With my B-17 and P-61 I won over 25 international scale contests all over Europe. With these models I was six times Europa Star Cup Champion, a European Championship for semi scale models up to 25 kg, and both of which I am still flying today. Once again my new warbird had to be one from World War 2. At last, I made my final choice, a Republic P-47 Thunderbolt Razorback to 1:5.7 scale and with a wingspan of…

Capturing the plume In Mike Roach’s ‘Spirit of Ivan’ article in the last issue we featured numerous waterplanes. We thought we would continue the theme with these super pictures from Arnaldo Correia in Portugal, who says: ‘These Canadair CL-215 models have appeared before (Model Magic, April ’19) but I was never able to get a good ‘plume’ during their water drops. This time at Mira Beach conditions were quite good so I was finally able to get pictures that, hopefully, will do justice to that airborne cascade! To recap, these 1:9 scale models were built by Luís Montenegro and José Lumbreras of Galicia, Spain, both sharing the construction work, one doing the wings and the other the fuselages. With a wingspan of 126” they are each powered by two O.S.…

Last year was another memorable one on the slopes for the Power Scale Soaring Association, who successfully ran six of their seven planned Fly-Ins at various UK sites between April and October. Somewhat unusually the first half of the year was dominated by easterly winds, which dictated events being flown from less familiar slopes. It wasn’t until July that the weather systems fell back into a more familiar alignment and the prevalent westerly winds returned to UK shores. The PSSA keeps busy over the summer. The events calendar provides just enough time between meetings to recuperate and, if needed, to patch up any evidence of ‘slope use’ before the next event runs. It’s a fast paced and varied schedule! This report aims to bring the best of the action from…

Last year I promoted the BMFA Dart as a club indoor challenge model. Okay it’s not R/C but a bit of diversification is a good thing and 75% of the distributed kits eventually flew. They gave us some exciting and light-hearted moments. At the end of the first ‘Insider’ I left you with a photo of what I described as ‘an interesting piece of micro kit’. Looking for a new club challenge I collaborated with a designer colleague in devising a model based on the innards from a cheap and cheerful foam, capacitor/motor combo glider. We had some good results, particularly when we fitted it with a much larger capacitor. Then, suddenly, these motor gliders appeared in a new guise… The innards now consist of a circuit board with charger/timer…

To use our FREE READERS’ AD SERVICE simply fill in the coupon provided and we’ll print your advert here, in Britain’s best-selling R/C flying magazine FOR SALE ELDERLY FLYER has surplus planes. Travel Air Super Sports 40, a 40-size trainer, Max Thrust Aggressor, electric glider. No transmitters. All planes complete - £50 each. Buyer to collect. Call 07496 710948 (Cambs). FREEWING DH VENOM, 90mm EDF jet, 1.5m span, with oleo sprung retracts, flaps and lights. Little flown and never crashed. Flies really well and in excellent condition. Just add your Rx and 6S 4000-5000mAh LiPo battery - £275. 07860 312025 (Kent). VALENTA ASW-17 (3.5m span) fibre glass fuselage and rudder only. Never used. Canopy base too but no glazing - £50 ono. 07860 312025 (Kent). HSD JETS CESSNA 182, never…