Am I an Idiot - or just a glutton for punishment??

Damn it - I've done it again - ANOTHER model I just have to build. I have a simulator and one of the models I've always had fun with is the Clancy Aviation Lazy Bee. Soooo - when a plan turned up on eBay of course I just had to have it! The Plan is for the BIG Lazy Bee - 40 power, 72 inch wing span with a 21 inch cord and - unlike the smaller model, this one has ailerons - 3 large sheets of plans! Hmmm - thought I - interesting!  So onto the internet to see what information I could find - and - of course - heaps of it. I found a  website -


http://lazybee.welcomes-you.com/


- and of course I'm immediately in contact with a whole world of Lazy Bee enthusiasts. The biggest Lazy Bee is absolutely HUGE - the biggest I've found so far is 18 foot wingspan!!!! I think I'm going to be content with the 72 inch version but who knows what madness will overtake me. Check out the website - there are Lazy Bee's of all shapes, sizes and colours - some with floats - some used as camera platforms and if there is a use for the model some one has tried it!! Now - all I have to do - once again - is re-arrange my building schedule DAMN IT! I just have to fit it into this winters building schedule.


And yes - there will be a building thread on this blog - stay tuned!

This Week's Progress - June 17th to June 23rd.

Well I did promise to update this blog on a weekly basis during our winter  - So here is what progress I've made this week - and yeah - I know this will be a day late in some time zones so the smart arse at the back of the room can go sit down!!!


I've cut out and assembled the Telemaster mainplane up to the point where I ran out of balsa of the right size. So the leading and trailing edges will have to wait till I get to the local hobby shop. The structure uses all balsa ribs and spars with multiple stringers ( 3 ) on the top of each wing panel. Some builders prefer to dispense with these stringers and D Box the wing. I'm building my example strictly off the plan with the exception that I am fitting flaps & ailerons instead of just the full span ailerons. For those who might be interested there are progress photos on the Telemaster page.


The rest of the week has been spent building a small trainer model for a friend and repairing some gravel rash on a couple of my own models. Other than that I'm sorting out the 3 building projects that I've started on and I'm trying to work out how to get the builds to compliment each other rather than get in the way.

NEXT WEEK :- 

I'll start posting photos of my "tri build" and hopefully, I'll also have the next lot of Telemaster photo's as well.

Winter is here!

Well - winter has well and truly settled in down here. The flying field is starting to resemble a lake and only the really crazy and the desperate venture outside. So now there are no more excuses and the building board has been dusted off and checked for square and warps. That means three projects are now spread across it's length and breadth - well yeah -  it is a fair size board. I've finally got the ribs finished for the Senior Telemaster, The Lancaster mainplane will shortly start coming together and the Lanzo Bomber plan has been pinned down. I've even started to look suspiciously at a few of my repair and restore projects and I've started to work on rebuilding the Harvard cockpit area.
I'll try to get the occasional days flying in but that is a "dodge the weather" operation. Tasmania is  famous(?) for it's 4 seasons in an hour weather changes!
Now that the building fog has descended on me I will update this blog on a weekly basis, so if you are interested check back every Saturday to see what else I've screwed up!


Cheers

June 2012 Update

 I just gotta get this under Control!!!


The start of a new financial year is as good as anytime to do a complete review of where my building program is at! I have this habit of getting all enthused and starting a lot of different builds at the same time, especially as from time to time my health lets me down and I retreat into the building cave. So - as I do every so often It's time to take the razor to the build list - Some models will be moved to the back of the hangar and some projects will be moved forward. There might even be one or two that will be given away or end up in the rubbish bin.


Yeah well - it's confession time so here's the list of what I have that flies: -
The Kyosho Trainer - A classic learn to fly High wing with 40 power
The Powerhouse, - My favourite Old Timer
Red Ned - Bliss - a powered glider - take it up - throttle back and fly!
The Float Plane, - This is one I restored - 60 power and floats.


Then there are those models that HAVE flown but met with unfortunate landings (read dumb pilot): -
The Harvard - Doing a rebuild and upgrade on this - Scale - working everything - radial engine
The Phoenix - I keep crashing it - and it keeps getting rebuilt!


And here's the list of what is yet to fly - and the current stage of build: -
1.The Senior Telemaster - Fuselage finished - wings on the board - covering to come - Enya 60X power
 2. The Lancaster, - Long term project - fuselage almost done - some redesigning involved
3. The Fournier RF4. - Fuselage finished - wings on the board - covering to come - ASP 30 4 stroke for power
4. The Mosquito PRXVI - the other long term project - early stages
5. The Lanzo Bomber - just started
6.  The CAC P51D - just started - my hot project  - Super Tigre 90 power
7. The Aero Commander Shrike - This one has been sitting in the back of the hangar - just moved up in the list
8. The WWI Monoplane - my own design - sitting at the back of the hangar
9. The Wittman Tailwind - Nothing happening - sitting at the back of the hangar
10. The Cassut Racer - Nothing happening - sitting at the back of the hangar


11.The 2 Blue Box Pilots - Not really a build - one to go in the P51 - the other in the Harvard


And finally the model plans that are lurking in the back ground begging me to start building: -
A PBY5 Catalina
A Senior Playboy
A Beaufighter
An SR71
A Curtis P40
A Neiuport Type 12
An Albatross D5a
A DH2e
A Douglas DC3
A SE5a
There are other plans in my collection - at one stage I had intentions of building them all - BUT - unfortunately I'm not going to live to be 204!

Yeah - I know - I'm as crazy as a hatter in a sock factory - tell me something I don't know!!!

Phoenix - it rises from the crashes!!

Old models never die - they just crash and get rebuilt! I don't really know what this model started life as - It's one of the models I rescued from the ceiling of a hobby shop. I brought it home - fitted some servos and a motor and crashed it after a couple of flights - the bloody ground jumped up again.  Not a lot of damage the first time - just some gravel rash and a bent up beyond recovery under carriage.  So I cleaned up the gravel rash, fitted an aluminium undercarriage I had lying in the box doing nothing and took it out again.  Result - the ground again?? - nah - a bloody tree jumped out in front of me when I was flying inverted.  This time the result was a little more painful - Soooo - rebuild #3.  Half a dozen flights and - this time the aileron servo went on strike - in the middle of a roll - I MUST remember the 3 crashed high rule.

Photo of what I brought home in the first place

And - what happened the last time - if you want to know more the latest rebuild now has it's own page.

Taylor Field, Brighton, Tasmania

This field has been used by clubs in the past but has laid mostly idle for the past ten years or so! The only use has been as an Ultralight landing field - Yep - it's that big! A mate and I recently contacted the property owner and he indicated he was still  happy for the field to be used for radio controlled model flying. Another member has also spoken to one of the Ultralight people and they are quite happy to share the field with us. 

Net result the club is now being reactivated by members of  the Tasmanian Aero-modelling Academy Inc. and members and guests are invited to turn up for some flying. We are in the early stages of getting things sorted yet but we hope to hold an open day in a few months.

A word of explanation here - there have been a number of claims from ex members of clubs that are now defunct and two groups in particular claim to have been the controlling club in the past. One such group is a gliding club but it seems that the field they are referring to is/was located at Tea Tree which is about 6 miles (10 Km) away. 

Taylor Field is located on Elderslie Road about 3 Km west of Brighton.

I've attached a couple of photos of the field (one aerial shot from a members model) which might jog a few memories.

And a couple of members giving it a  try

Quad copter

Our Stan

Pusher Props & Other Peculiarities

There are some model aircraft supplies that I find difficult to source. Have you ever tried to find an 12 x 6 wooden PUSHER prop that wont defy all attempts to balance it? Or a crankcase for an ENYA CX11 that is in good condition? Or a set of decent plans for a (insert your own choice).


This particular annoyance is common across the hobby, particularly for those of us who collect and/or restore old nitro engines. The process of building a highly detailed scale model can also run foul of this problem.


For the engine collector/restorer the problem is replacement parts, many of the engines of interest to collectors are more than fifty years old and most manufacturers, if they still exist,  find it uneconomical to continue to supply parts for superseded motors. The nett result is that if you want something simple like a needle valve assembly or other carburettor part none are available. So some of us are forced to pursue the manly art of doing our own machining and making parts from scratch. Of course there are some components that defy all attempts to machine a decent facsimile of the original whether it is due to the limitations of the restorer,  his/her equipment or the shear bloody mindedness of the original designer. The next step in the pursuit of accurate facsimiles of original parts is to take up the mysterious alchemical art of casting bits. Lost wax casting and other equally exotic methodologies come to mind. Of course this brings it's own problems. In the quest for authenticity  we might seek to cast a replica crankcase from the same metal alloy as the original only to find that the bloody thing was made from the boiled down remains of the Ark of the Covenant or something approaching Unobtanium.


The scale model builder has problems of a different nature but equally frustrating. Because we are all odd bods we have to make our next scale project a museum quality replica of a single prototype that was flown only once in 1910. This is undoubtedly complicated by the fact that the fabled flight was actually conducted ten miles inland on a desert island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Said Island has of course now disappeared beneath the surface of that vast volume of water. The only three view we have had to work on is a faded and blurred photocopy from the only existing copy of the Mugwump Island Daily. We just HAVE to know the true diameter of the hand made brass priming pump that is hidden under the cowl. Ten years research in obscure aviation magazines that are written in either Russian or Chinese and can be accessed only after secret hand shakes and a long list of passwords result in two different magazines (the only reference found) producing two completely different descriptions of said component. The potentially contest winning project is relegated to the rear of the shed with all the other "One day I'll get it done" piles of balsa and ply for the termites to treat as desert.


I know of one dedicated scratch builder who, confronted with such a puzzle, dissolved into tears and went out and bought an ARF War bird with E*L*CTR*C power. Such is the horrible fate of some master craftsmen.