With reference to John Wheater's comments with dried up epoxy adhesive on last month's issue, I too had this experience many years ago with aged epoxy. There is an easy fix that I may have discovered (?) and that is to use your microwave oven to gently warm the plastic bottle of crystallized material. Be careful when you do this procedure as a heat related bursting of the epoxy bottle in your wife's microwave could result in a permanent banning from your humble residence. So, start with low power and 20 or 30 second bursts of power on and be sure that the unused bottle has been vented to the air by piercing the spout or clearing a previously opened bottle spout of all old material. Leave the cap off the the bottle, obviously. This is a trial and error type of procedure with repeated burst of low power and visual observation to see when the epoxy slug turns to warm liquid again. A slower procedure would be inserting the bottle in your hot tea water .until the transformation back to liquid occurs. I have used this transformed epoxy material many times in years past to build my
models with no apparent degrading of material joints that I observed!

A club member recently told me of a member who recently lost control of his model ....the other side of the A38 Motorway (U.K.!

Without knowing the precise details, this was probably due to model orientation at a distance.

I have a number of models with a large patch of DAYGLO pink or orange film on the centre section of the wing.

At distance, and in poor visibility, I can ALWAYS tell if the model is slanted towards me and / or approaching nose down and NOT nose high.

The dayglo is easily seen on some of my own models!!

Limbo Dancer ( Flies like a shed ! )

Mini-Phase ( Howls at speed and easily drops a wing ! )

Zagi ( Not much side area ! )

Tadpole ( Where is the damned thing anyway ! )

Many years ago, I built a Bulldog pattern aerobatic plane with stripes on the wing...the same design top and bottom!...it was very difficult to tell if it was slanted towards or away from you at a distance. My flying and aerobatic scores improved when I removed the stripes from the underside of the wing.

Finally, regarding radio ranges of transmitters, both 35 Mhz and 2.4 Ghz

The virtual 30 degree cone area off the top of the transmitter aerial is the area of poorest radio signal radiation.The ratio of signal reduction compared with the maximum signal off the sides of the aerial is in the order of 10 to 1 more or less depending upon local conditions.
( Damp ground and reflections from nearby vehicles and buildings)

This is a technical, tested and proven FACT, whatever the frequency in use !

So even with 2.4 Ghz transmitters with stubby antennas please don't point the end of the antenna at your plane, especially at a distance.
I have seen many flyers using the transmitter with the antenna folded flat along the top. This will work fine as long as the transmitter is pointed at the plane, BUT when the plane is oriented at one side or the other at a distance, at 90 degrees, you'll have the TOP, or worse, the folded BASE of the antenna pointed at your plane with a corresponding reduction in effective radio range and possible loss of receiver binding.

Think about it, and try a range check with the transmitter aerial pointed directly at the plane at about 200 yards (190 metres) distance, slowly lower the transmitter to within one foot ( 300mm ) of the ground with the aerial still pointed at the plane, this will attenuate the transmitted signal and save you walking too far.

How far do you get before the receiver loses lock ? Do you get an immediate return of control when the aerial is then oriented at 90 degrees to the plane ? It's as simple as that. No signal = No Control

Just seen Gordon Cook’s comment about superglue [this page, last month]. I get a similar reaction in that about a day after using it hay fever like symptoms occur. An anti-histamine tablet does seem to clear the problem.

I have only ever used superglue for modelling applications and first noticed the problem as what I thought was a persistent cold during a prolonged winter building period. These days I try to only work with the glue in a well ventilated area.

As a child I suffered badly with hay fever, but grew out of it. So perhaps I do have a degree of susceptibility remaining.

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