Welcome to LESLIE BAYNHAM, R BETHMAN, PATRIK DELIN, D B MACKAY, DEAN MCNEILL and SVEN PONTAN, who have all joined the mailing list since the last ModelFlight. 

Hello Reg!

I wish you luck with the new Citabria. Don't forget to lock the hinges on the rudders! After hinging the surfaces I used to drill a little hole through them and push down a toothpin (cocktail stick). Then they won't ever come loose. I have seen several disasters, due to loosened rudders in my model life!

I have a 100 cm (39") spanned Citabria, which flies very well and very fast with an Cox .020 in the nose.

It was built from a totally sooty kit, the only surviving item from a burnt down model shop! So the model has a very black story, even if it has snow white covering.

I was flying at the Tallbacka school today. Very nice to be indoors as the outdoor temperature was 12 degrees C below zero. As usual my Scorpion was a good floor racer, but refused to fly notwithstanding a new, more effective, motor and prop. I have to build a new longer wing to lessen the wingload from 19 grms per square decimeter to 13 grm.

Johan Bjurling had time to attend in spite of having new-born twins at home. He flew a nice prefabricated model named "Lupo" manufactured from moulded foam. It was similar to an oldish free-flying model, very slow-flying and manouverable. I will by one from him. It will cost about 80 UK pounds but includes an electric Multiplex motor. Then I'll at last fly!

Good luck with your aerobatic Citabria, but keep the controls going the right way!

Your friend

Tore

Thanks for the tip Tore, you're a pal!

Thank you for adding me to your list. . .   I was just doing my "morning mail routine" at work, and when I read an e-mail from Tore Loodin who wrote that your site was worth a visit I could not resist a quick glance.

Aero-modelling is entirely a time- and money-waster I do for fun :-) My workload has been so big that I had to make time outside work. Building and flying is excellent for keeping your mind focused outside work-related issues.

I hope to get back to you with a more complete e-mail and I hope I also can add to your site with some model-related articles. My main interests are small to medium electric flyers. Johan Bjurling is my "house-god" and my latest toy is a Hornet electric helicopter.

Best regards,

Patrik Delin

Hi Reg,

Bad day at the flying field -  general feeling is we need a frequency monitor. Can you inform me of any place we can buy one?

I couldn't find one anywhere, but Richard Crapp kindly directed me to this excellent multi-scanner from SM Services;  it's the SM37 and costs £159.95 - thanks for your help, Richard.

As far as the B-17 goes I have the elevators covered in fabric now, the rudder still needing covering. The retractable tail-wheel unit finally arrived so I have the unit mounted to a framework and next I mount the whole assembly to one of the bulkheads in the rear. Airlines are already hooked up to this, they just need to be properly tied together and routed through the fuselage. 

What remains to be done here is I need to cover the rudder, dope these surfaces, then permanently install them, make up linkage to connect the elevators and rudder to the servos, make and install a switch mount for everything, then I can strip plank the lower half of the fuselage and move on to the wing.

I got one of those digital "pencams" for Christmas and while it takes great close-up pictures, I need to figure out how to e-mail them out to you. This is pretty neat stuff here. I also continue to enjoy very much every issue of ModelFlight as always. I dare say I can't get enough of it! Its always a pleasure to see!

Great to hear from you, Steven, and I look forward to some pictures in due course. 

A note from BOB NICOL reflects the way it is all over the UK at the moment as a result of the outbreak of foot and mouth disease.

Hi Reg,

All flying has now stopped, both our power sites are closed till further notice and all our gliding sites are also closed. We have a venue for indoor flying for those that are interested in it. I am negotiating with Derbyshire CC to use one of the local sports fields; just a matter of waiting for an answer, in the meantime it's back to building and catch up on repairs..

Bob

I've heard similar stories from quite a few folk - my own club is currently 'grounded'; we use an army polo field and although it's a fair way from agricultural land, they obviously don't want the risk of the virus being brought on to the field. Pity the poor farmers, though - they're the ones who are really suffering.

This note from GORDON WHALLEY is typical of several I received from ModelFlighters after I sent an apology for innocently distributing a bogus virus warning.

Reg
No need for an apology for the virus warning, as far as I'm concerned I would rather get a dozen hoax warnings than miss one serious one.

Thanks for a great web site, always visit and who knows, I may one day have something to contribute. Keep up the good work.

Regards
Gordon Whalley 

Thanks, Gordon, and to all of you who were so understanding!

http://hem.passagen.se/lobju/max/frame.htm

Thanks for the update, Johan.

See also the site seeing page for news of Johan's new venture.

Hi Reg,

Do you know of a site where I can brush up on nylon covering techniques? I used to use it many years since and I wish to do so again as I am building a Ben Buckle Falcon. This design predates me by a year! Designed in 1937 it is a 96 inch span eliptical wing model. I believe (though the kit hasn't arrived yet) that the fuselage is also oval in shape and that is of course the most difficult shape to cover without creases. This is because the taper is compound. As I want to achieve as near a perfect finish as I may, nylon seems the best material to use as I do remember how very accommodating it was when covering these complex shapes.

I am going to power the aircraft with a Laser 70 as I am now totally hooked on 4 strokes and do wish to try one of these British engines.

geoffers@ntlworld.com 

Please contact Geoff if you can direct him to a source of information.

All I could find was a tip in the Flair catalogue that it helps to dampen nylon with water and place it over the back of a chair, or similar, to dry partially before applying with dope. Chris Hardie is using nylon on his Blohm und Voss (see models in the making) but his technique is not for open structures.

If anybody would like to write something up on nylon covering, I would be delighted to publish it here on ModelFlight.

Thanks for adding a link to the Heswall MAC on your site. Yes, I did take a look at #29 - thanks very much for your kind words in the write-up.

The March edition of our club newsletter went out last Friday, and I included a half-page item about the ModelFlight Web site - also mentioning that the HMAC was featured in the current edition - so I hope that any of our members who are on the Internet will have taken a look at the site by now . . .

Let's hope that the movement restrictions work and that there are no more cases once the initial batch works its way through the system.

Nice to know that things are still fairly normal in some parts . . . and thanks again for the link on your site, Andy. Here's hoping we might hear from one or two your members.  

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