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 Chairman at Jurby with his Grob |
Club
Each Member of the committee has his own pegboard, to ensure that a peg board will be available , at Jurby or on the Jurby Extension .
The flying field at Archallagan is to be rented again and a pegboard will be installed on the field for the summer season.
Please bring your own pegs, with your name and frequency written on it , to the flying field.
Slope soaring on Sunday morning's is proposed and I will be giving details in the Flypaper.
The secretary needs to have your frequency and will be asking you to let him know what frequency you are operating at the present time, reply by email or post.
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Brian King
> Out and About models of merit seen out and about.
Ron Hook's beautiful Blackburn seen here on it's maiden flight at Jurby Tony Charnock's Electric Powered Venom and Fizzer at JurbyPhotos courtesy of Tony Charnock
Will it bounce?
Having seen several EPP foam kits advertised and indeed flown I decided to take the plunge as I wanted a model I could fly for fun in most conditions without costing an arm and a leg. I have also admired PSS models, so while at Woodvale I saw a Phoenix Models BAE Hawk that seemed to fill the bill, and the price seemed very reasonable at just under £50.
The building was to be a new experience to me, totally different from other models I have built. The instructions were good and I followed them more or less to the letter. The foam is easily rubbed down from its square shape to a round form with a good coarse sandpaper in the first instance, going to finer when almost et the required shape. The rounded shape has to be judged by eye as there are no templates but I found it OK. Impact adhesive is needed for most of the work whish involves sticking wood to the foam inside the fuselage sections and as wing strengtheners. I got the spray on adhesive quoted from the local carpet shop, but I think the normal impact adhesive would have done just as well with a spreading plastic card.
I found putting the sticky tape on quite tricky because it is so easy for it to stick to itself and wrinkle if not careful. The overlap does not show up to any extent, I did consider butt joining the tape to get a perfectly smooth finish but apparently it might lose a bit of strength, although I am not so sure.
Covering the fuselage with the tape was tricky because it was so easy to accidentally stick it on the wrong place before you are ready. I did the bottom in one piece first—that was easy. Then I came up the sides, not to bad but you have to use shorter portions as you get near the top. Getting round the tail plane was also tricky but by putting one strip below the elevator then the next one above did the trick although I had to cut the pieces to shape slightly and to cut off the excess. Having taped the fuselage and wings I fitted the tail plane as directed.
The next job was covering. I used Solarfilm all over as directed and it worked OK.
The tail plane was a different story. It does state in the instructions that Solarfilm can be used, but as no heat can be applied. [it bends the Correx] The directions say to put carpet impact adhesive on the solarfilm. I found it very difficult to get it on without getting creases as once it touches it sticks and you cannot get it tight flat. Mine has several small lumps and bumps which look unsightly close up but at 10 feet you cannot see them so it is not the end of the world. The instructions do offer an alternative which I followed for the fin. Get some self-stick material and plonk that on carefully and it was much better and less messy! I would do all the tail-plane like that next time. I read another alternative in the magazine after, and that was to build the tailfin and elevator in normal balsa and cover it with normal heat-shrink.
The normal heat shrink Solarfilm works well on top of the tape and heat can be applied to get rid of wrinkles and tidy up wing tips and nose. I made up some silver Solar film for the cockpit canopy, cutting it to shape before applying in 3 pieces.
Having fitted the servos etc and banding on the wing, it was time to find the c.of g.. Using the stated point I only needed a small piece of lead up front to get it right.
Luckily I only had to wait a few days for the right wind [the joy of being retired]
I got Ernie to launch the model at the 33rd in a moderate wind and away she went like bird. Although not quite for beginners, it was certainly easy to fly. It looped well and rolled quite quickly, even without a lot of forward speed. Coming in to land was a doddle as it could be slowed right up a couple of feet above the ground and then just dropped into the heather. It looks really good speeding past close up and several cars stopped by the roadside to watch this classic jet.
Overall verdict—Excellent flyer and value for money!
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