Sloping Off - December 2004
Chairman's Chatter
by Clive Spencer
6th August
Passed a nice afternoon with Trevor Hewson at Howard's. Flying was a little difficult due to a cross wind across the main runway. Although this was a little awkward it did serve to improve my approach & rudder control. My Extreme is now flying quite well and is a relaxing model to fly, especially on reduced rates. I also wanted to fly the Great Lakes biplane but on checking the controls the elevator servo decided to give up the ghost, so once again I did not manage to fly her. Trevor was flying his electric Mew Gull, which flies very well with surprising duration. With the advent of new battery technology and the availability of reasonably priced brushless motors, electric models are going from strength to strength, with very little difference in performance from their I/C counterparts. Actually Trevor had assembled the Gull, fitted the batteries & flown once whilst I was fuelling & starting my Extreme. When it was time to depart he was packed up and driving out whilst I was de-fuelling & wiping away the oily deposits associated with I/C model flying, an extra plus or the electric brigade.
Friday is the King's Park venue for me, having volunteered to be acting flight instructor on those evenings. Well someone has to do it? I went there even though nobody had rung me requesting instruction. The only person to turn up was Dave Philpotts who is one of the best fliers in our club and patently does not need lessons from anyone let alone me. Dave has designed & built many model aircraft over the years, many of his plans finding their way into the modelling press. Some being the Light-Fighter series of 40, 50 & 60-inch models, all great flyers. I also remember a 50" Spitfire with retracting undercarriage and a Bolton Paul P111 ducted fan delta jet. Dave is at present working on a new project, which we will hear more about in the near future, but I'll bet that it will be electric & absolutely dead scale.
The weather this August has been appalling with high winds & considerable rain. For we working types, limited to weekend & evening flying, this has been disastrous. In a desperate attempt to avoid total boredom I have begun some of the winter projects that I had lined up. The first of these was to convert a PC power unit for use as a 12-volt supply for my battery charger. I have had one of these salvaged from an old computer for some time, so for the price of a couple of wire wound power resisters I now have a nice 12-volt regulated mains power supply. If you would like to try this there is a very good article on the web at http://web2.murraystate.edu/andy.batts/ps/powersupply.htm.
Having converted the supply per the article and connecting the thing up to the mains it appeared to be completely dead. Now this baffled me as I had tested the unit before starting and it was working correctly. On inspecting the redundant wiring removed from the unit I found a brown wire connected directly to the orange 3.3volt supply. I have no idea what the brown wire is for but it obviously required this supply voltage, so I reconnected it and, Lo & Behold, the unit sprang to life. As this connection was not mentioned in the article I have E-mailed the author querying it but have yet to receive a reply.
3rd September
Having tracked down the elevator problem on my Great Lakes bi-plane to a dodgy plug on the servo, which was new, I might add, I again attempted to fly this model. Having started the motor it refused to run in the vertical position, which Jim Ruffell put down to a stuck clunk in the fuel tank. He turned out to be quite correct, so having fixed this, and with Trevor Hewson's help we finally got this little plane in the air. Surprisingly it flies quite well but still needs some trimming being too sensitive on the elevators, which may well be due to a slightly rearwards cg. So the love - hate relationship with this model continues.
One unfortunate result of all our bad weather this summer was the cancellation of the Rose Bowl thermal comp due to the field not being available. This was a great pity as this is one of our longstanding competitions. We did try to reschedule it without success, so it looks as if John Cheesman will have to polish it for another year. As he wins the comp most years he would probably have had to anyway.
24th September
Only fifteen people attended our first indoor evening session with a fairly even split between the heli addicts & plank flyers. This was a smaller group than normal so hopefully the attendance will pick up over the winter, as these meetings are not cheap to put on.
Well that finishes my rambling for now, so I wish all of you a good winter's building and hope to cross paths with you all soon.
