Cheshire Falcons
Model Flying Club
Much of our Summer flying is supervised
by the 'udder' residents.
On Sunday 28th Sept '08, Ray took his Zero to the Scale fly-In at Osbournby in Lincs,
a 3 hour drive each way, but "worth every minute of the journey" he reports.
Ray likes his Corsairs but often surprises us with new models.
And he certainly surprised us with his new fifth scale
Corsair which
has a real presence in the air.
Here is Ray with his beautiful 1/4scale 104" span Chipmunk powered by a Zenoah 38 petrol engine
and for realism, can you beat his 81" Zero with a 50cc Brison petrol engine up front,
flown by Ray at the Lleyn MAC Scale Warbird weekend in March'08.
Ray will travel miles to reach a warbirds fly-in.
He has flown recently at both Scampton and Barkston Heath and has now got a taste for Tarmac takeoffs.
He quickly discovered that our muddy cow patch of a strip does nothing for his retracts!
He poses here with his Corsair and his Bud Nosen P-51 Mustang.
In the foreground you can see his just completed 85" wingspan/one fifth scale , P47 Thunderbolt powered by a 64cc Fugi unit.
Ray gets a hand from Ken in launching his PT19,( nice little model-the plane of course) but only cos it's more fun that way!
Thats what the Falcons are all about!
Ray and John flew their 'largish' Cub variants together this week,
very slow and scale like as they did a formation flypast.
This large model
Skyraider has a 5 cylinder, radial, 4Stroke glow motor and is from the Hangar of the late Ray Slack,
who designed and built the engine.
A little fettling at the strip followed by a perfect flight.. well maybe a minor retract problem!
The Saga of Darth Vader...Pilot Extrordinaire!
The Maiden flight in March of Phil's new World Models Groovy 3D.
The new OS 4stroke is partly run in, range checks
and control rates all confirmed. Ken assists as Phil gives it a last burst of throttle
and Darth Vader grips the controls as she starts her run!
Helped by quite a lot of elevator the model almost reluctantly clambers into the air but on rotation just clips the longer grass.
As you can see below the 3D elevators have a 'counterbalance' tip, forward of the elevator hinges.
On takeoff the drooping LE of the Port elevator had hooked some long grass which had ripped the whole elevator from its moorings.
Once in the air the extent of the damage was hidden by the fin, so Phil, thinking he had
simply lost a tail wheel,
assumed that this model just needed more trimming than most!!
Our Pilot somehow managed to complete a crazy sort of circuit, made a surprisingly gentle 'flared' landing using the
half elevator remaining
and his model lived to fly another day!
Phew!.......Well done Darth
And the lesson learned?
With this model use minimum elevator for takeoff and stick to the mown strip!
This looks like a regular ARTF bipe, straight off Webbie's shelves, but no......
Joe wrote off all but the tail feathers of his Ultimate 40 ( he says it was'nt his fault...! )
On a whim, from those few bits Joe designed and built the handsome 40" span bipe you see above, driven by an RMX 40.
He calls it 'The Phoenix' cos it rose from the ashes of an Ultimate and it flies well.
'Phoenix Too' was Joe's next project, and a handsome 81" span monoplane it turned out to be.
The grunt is from a converted 26cc Homelite strimmer engine
and if she flies as well as she looks, we think Joe may be onto a winner.
Back in the 1980s Mal Brewer had made his name as a scratch/scale builder,
this is his beautiful 'Toucan', a 63" span ' amphibian powered by 2xOS25 two strokes
with which he won several RC floatplane competitions.
Fancy building one?
RCME will sell you the plan renamed 'Aquarius' in their RC Sport Floatplane category.
So when Mal returned to the hobby after 8 years of 'doing other things'
Chris Foss was one designer he trusted, the handsome ARTF WOT trainer was his first choice.
.Everone likes to get involved in
fettleing a new model for is maiden flight!
The flight was 100% successful with no major trimming problems, a fistful of aerobatics and a featherlight landing.
Mal reported that to his mind the snakes in his ARTF left a bit to be desired and were therefore replaced with neatly soldered Bowden cables.
When we visited The Terra Nova School during the 'Summer', Mal brought along his new
Graupner Taxi CUP II, but though we urged him to commit to his maiden flight,
he wisely preferred to do a final range check & trim at our own familiar strip.
We always like to record successful maiden flights, so here you can see:-
Clearance for takeoff trimming completed and Mel's Taxi on finals for the first time.
