Sunday the twentieth of February saw the running of the first .46 class combat, with a suprising result. Peter de Groot took home the prize, accruing only fifty points, crashing out on the start of the second heat, and not being able to complete the other two heats. This came about as both Trevor Parnell and myself accrued too many safety penalty points, as we were both forced over the safety line during a couple of manoeuvres by a moderate breeze blowing directly towards us from the field.

Apart from Peter's take off bingle, causing minor damage, and a few heavy landings, we survived intact to fight again. Trevor and myself scored a few cuts, boosting our confidence for future conflicts.

Next months combat should include two more entrants. This should make it a whole lot more challenging for us and more a spectacle for our onlookers.

My new combat engine, an OS46LA, kindly given to me by my supportive partner Naomi seems to delivering the goods. The new steel rear needle bracket (available separately for retrofitting, to older LA motors, but only as a complete deal) is vast improvement on the old plastic version. The LA motor does not appear to have a great deal of top end speed, due to its plain bearing design, but it has the torque needed for manoeuvring which is probably 99% of my combat needs.

It is with great regret that I announce the demise of Mike Proud's superb 1/4 scale Pitts Special. Mike was in the final stages of sorting out the smoke system and trim fine tuning when he lost control and the aircraft went in very hard. Mike has the condolences of every member in the club, as this model was the undoubtably the finest model flying in the Goldfields and was just on the verge becoming our star regular attraction.

The same day was and expensive one for us, as Gary Adams also lost his ARF (aerobatic Model, G-200 ) due to a mysterious loss of control and Grant Andrews also damaged his ARF Spacewalker. Grant has fortunately been able to repair his model and is persisting with a cantankerous inverted motor that is giving him all sorts of grief.

Any loud booms heard from the vicinity of the Goldfields can be attributed directly to John Bates who will exceed the sound barrier any day now, with his .91 powered Delta. John has been entertaining us with suicidal dives from great heights culminating in dust raising low passes.

Trever Parnell briefly debuted a new Steerman 150 OSFS bi-plane recently. At the time this article was written a short hop had revealed a C of G a little too far back. However, when this minor problem is sorted this model, beautifully built by Steve Sturtz, will be a credit to the club, and should provide Trevor with a great deal of flying pleasure.

Regular readers may be wondering what I have on the building bench at the moment. The Britten Norman Tri-lander has not been retired, but is merely waiting for less turbulent weather to return to the fields. I have been slowed considerably of late by my commitment to establishing combat as a draw card and money earner for our club, however, in the last weeks I have dragged out a long term project for some more attention and have made good progress in recent days. My latest attempt at scratch built madness is a two metre .40 powered Caribou transport.

A few factors swayed me towards its suitability as a model worthy of a few hundred hours of my sanity. One of course its rarity. I have never seen one modelled, which is no great surprise as it is seriously butt ugly, looking like a cross between the Hunch Back of Notre Dame and the Incredible Hulk. The other is its disproportionately large rudder and elevator area. The rudder area in particular has to be a bonus for a twin engined model in the event of an engine failure.

Another attraction for me is the full sized aircraft's remarkable record with the Australian Air Force. Usually overshadowed by it's big brother, the Hercules, the Caribou has performed superbly in its STOL role in fields afar as Vietnam, Timor and P.N.G.

One down side of its design is its inverted gull wing, which is tricky to replicate structurally, a hurdle which I am tackling at present.

I am using a totally different technique to form up the fuselage to that used on the Tri-lander. Basically I had the 3 view drawings blown up to the appropriate scale, then used the vertical and horizontal outlines to make up plywood profiles of the fuselage. I then used the front view to mark out a former profile. Being in the main a long uniformly shaped box, only a single former profile was needed. I then went berserk with a hole saw of various sizes and lightened the profiles as much as possible. I then placed the vertical fuselage profile flat on the bench and glued on the longitudinal ply profiles and formers after cutting them and trimming where necessary, to keep within the overall profile of the model.

After cutting blocks of white foam to fit between the formers firmly, I then used my hot wire to cut them to shape, removing them and roughly cut out the excess inner foam, leaving a 15 mm foam shell that was then glued back into position.

Being unable to use the hot wire on the rear section of the fuselage, I tack glued blocks of foam into position and then shaped them by hand using different grades of sanding blocks. The fin was formed from solid balsa in two halves to the desired shape, then hollowed using a 125 mm grinder.

Hopefully at this stage, you can visualise half a Caribou on the bench. This was then turned over and the vertical and longitudinal formers glued in position to finish the full 3D shape of the model. The control snakes were then positioned for the elevator and rudder, the other half of the fin glued on and then the process of fitting and cutting the remaining foam blocks continued with. Any areas that I'll need for access to the radio gear has, at this stage, been shaped, but not fixed as I have yet to decide on hatch requirements. The elevators and rudder have been shaped from solid balsa then attacked mercilessly with the hole saws and trusty Dremel to leave lightweight shells behind.

I have made a start on the dreaded wing, but it is early days at this stage, so I will keep you posted on my progress.

Final finish of the fuselage has not been decided on, at this stage. I am leaning towards the PVA and brown paper route in preference to fibreglass, but am aware that this finish would not be suitable for the wing, so I may end up with a combination on the finished project.

If anybody is thinking of using the profile method, I would recommend using lite ply for all areas behind the C of G, especially on models such as the Caribou. With such a long tail moment, it has proved very difficult to keep the weight down in the tail area without radical measures. Lite-ply would make this an easy task and still provide more than adequate strength.

For photos of the Caribou under construction check out the GAM web site. (give us a break Tim… I have not even finished the roll of film yet … give us a couple of weeks-- web-bunny)

Tim Bailye PR GAM Ph 90913714

Web site kalnet.com.au/gam