G'day from the Goldfields
Since the last Goldfields report we have experienced three out of three weekends of absolutely perfect weather. To give readers an idea of the activity level here, on the 30th April, seven members attended with 10 aircraft and the 7th May members attended with twelve aircraft. These numbers are a slight increase on the past few years, but as you can see, we are a fairly small club in real terms with twenty members making up less than one in one thousand of the local population. Everyone knows it's not the size of it that counts, but what you do with it, right? Well that’s the story and we are sticking with it. It does mean, however, that we are blessed with a large wonderful club field and facilities that we are more than willing to share with our fellow fliers from wherever they may come.
One such flyer visiting from Bunbury was Dennis Green. Denis and his lovely wife came to visit relatives and wisely decided to throw in a model for a bit of R and R (as it was a rudder, elevator model, R and R translates as rock and roll).
We were all treated to a visit from Brenwyn Mills, and old member since relocated to Esperance. Brewyn unfortunately arrived a couple of weeks too late to see his Delta, that he designed for John Bates crash and burn (literally, with a little help from John). Brenwyn apparently hadn't flown for eighteen months but was soon back into the swing of things, flying a new .25 size ARF model.
While we are on the dreaded subject of crashing, Peter Oxenham had the misfortune to total his brand new Durabat. All witnesses report that it literally shook itself to death before crashing heavily. Pre-flight inspection raised a lot of questions about the structural integrity of the aluminium boom supplied in the ARC kit. We would appreciate comments from others with Durabat experience, good or bad, as this was not a cheap of quick ARC model to build. My email address is timbailye@hotmail.com.
Gary Adams is sorting out teething problems with his nicely built SIG Somethin' extra. Gary was having all sorts of reliability problems until careful scrutiny of his behalf discovered a slightly loose head.
Teething troubles are also plaguing Mike Proud at the moment. Mike has recently completed fitting a Jet Ranger scale body to his XL .60. The chopper is finished to his usual superb standard and has flown a few times, but the muffler system is problematic at the moment, however nothing that Mike cannot resolve.
Trevor Parnell has experienced something unusual these days. The failure of an engine. The MDS that Trevor was experimenting with a tuned pipe, and broke a conrod. Typically, it would be assumed that the engine failed due to stresses inflicted by the extra power resulting from the pipe, however we have only seen three MDS engines at GAM, and they have all failed in a very short time. All failures have involved the conrod stretching the gudgeon end or breaking. Two of these engines were totally unmodified in any way and used recommended fuel and props. We would also appreciate your comments on these events, especially as the owners suspected over revving may have been the cause. Is over revving even possible?
Over revving is also something that may have occurred to my heart last weekend when, after pulling out of a long spin and heading at a great rate of knots for a low pass over the field, I misjudged the height of the tree line and clipped a tree. The impact almost spun the plane around, however, it corrected its attitude and I was able to save it just above ground level. The event was recorded on video and I am looking forward to getting a copy for closer scrutiny. You are too late mate. John Bates has a copy and, hopefully, we will be able to put a little movie up on our web site so the whole world can have a look. Chortle. -- PdeG
Damage was limited to loss of covering on the top and bottom of the wing outer panel with no structural damage at all. The Scanner lived to see another day. It's a shame that Scanners seem to bet getting harder to find, as they are very capable, easy to fly, initially cheap at around $140, and with a few minor updates during building make a superb all round model that you don't have to be scared to knock around a little. If you can find a Scanner somewhere and you want a few pointers on improving it, give me a call. The Scanner is a low wing ARF 40+ size model produced by Phoenix. I would recommend it as a great second model once you are bored with your high wing trainer's capabilities.
A new club member, Danny Waters, gave me a few moments of anxiety recently. Danny has only been learning for a few weeks and is at the stage of doing circuits and large figure eights. I was monitoring his progress, when I was distracted by another plane flashing by. When I looked back, Danny's plane was observed to be inverted but flying along quite nicely. It was in fact flying so serenely along that it took me a few seconds to register that in fact it was upside down. I yelled at Danny to use his ailerons to right it, and I prepared to take over if need be.
After the situation calmed down, Danny explained that he had, in fact, lost it for a moment during the turns and it had inverted. As he had spent quite a while on his simulator flying inverted he responded appropriately saving the model. I have never used a simulator myself but have seen many occasions where fliers have benefited from their use, and this was another graphic example.
The great weather has allowed me to fly the Trilander more regularly. I've managed to sort out all of the duration problems by increasing the fuel capacity of the third engine with a header tank made out of a film canister. I've also learned to how to land the beast. It requires maintaining a fair degree of throttle right into the ground producing fairly scale looking landings.
The full size aircraft that I used as a basis for mine has recently undergone a refit of cabin glass and interior. This aircraft is bit of an enigma. It is obviously a very productive plane for its owners, however I have yet to find a local pilot who has flown it that doesn't hate it. By all accounts it is a noisy, smelly, harsh aircraft prone to any number of small problems. The impression that I get is that it is seen as the ugly duckling of the fleet and having to pilot it is seen as unglamorous.
Little progress has occurred on the Caribou since last month. I'm still messing about with shaping of the cowlings and researching fibreglass production. I must tell you about the manufacture of the landing lights as the source of the reflectors is a little unusual to say the least.
Most scratch builders have, by necessity a fair collection of odds and ends that they use to fashion various bits on their aircraft. When I decide to include functional landing lights on the Caribou, I started looking around for appropriate items in my collection, and also looking for penlights and the suchlike in Two Buck and Red Dot stores. Nothing surfaced of appropriate scale. I informed my partner of my predicament out of frustration.
It happened to pass that the Fair came to town and amongst the travelling vendors was a vendor of what I could only describe as "hippy crap". Bead necklaces, string handbags etc. I turned my nose up and walked past as I'm prone to do, however my missus never passes up a chance for a bargain or unusual item. She call me back and pointed out amongst a large of collection of spare parts for drug smoking implements, some perfect looking little aluminium cones.
These have turned out to be ideal, being drilled to fit globes available from Dick Smith, and exactly the right size for my needs. I pondered for a while as to how to fit them into the leading edge of the wing. I eventually used a spare cone as a router by gluing sandpaper to its outer and fitting a threaded rod through it’s centre as a guide rod. I then used an electric drill to bore the cone into the leading edge.
Fortunately, I had provided a channel in the foam behind the leading edge to pass wiring through. The final plan is to polish the cone to a high finish, fit the globes and then fit the cones into the leading edge. Once wired and tested I'll cover the light installation with heat moulded plastic covers which will hopefully exclude the tarnishing effect of the atmosphere on the polished cones.
So there you go. You never know where you're find all sorts of stuff. By including you loved ones in your searches, you will help make them feel part of the process as well and that is important as aeromodelling is a very difficult hobby to justify to friends and family as it tends to be very absorbing for the participants, but exclusive of others..
Best Wishes
Tim Bailye 08) 90913714 (email timbailye@hotmail.com)
Club Web Site kalnet.com.au/gam