A really cool little plane ,so decided to build it .
Using my usual materials of white,blue foam,carbon fiber,depron and news print.
I enlarged a peanut scale pencil drawing up to approx 1/6 scale which gives my around 37 in w/s.
A nice park flyer size.
Power is a turnigy 1050kv motor with a 18 amp esc on a 1300ma 3s battery.
3 x HXt900 servos on 2.4 radio. Aiming for a AUW of round 500 gms.We will see at the end.
build log here so as to follow if interested.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1606446

Here we are with the completed model.
Finally finished and ready to go to be displayed. Very happy with the results.
Approx 200 hrs of total scratch building ,working off of a small 3 view drawing , measurements from other full size aircraft that we own, the paint and graphics from our club archives of the plane we owned in the late 1960-70s .

Getting pretty excited now as the 140 nears completion
I did all the airbrush work yesterday and unmasked last hight and really happy with the results.
All the construction is back in some of my other blog entres.
Just need a couple of computor cut labels to put on and the project is complete.
Here is one pic as of yesterday after the masking was removed . more to follow later.

A flight of my Fournier RF4
Getting the feel for it now and it is flying well.
Had 6 more flights yesterday and to day.

Graeme's RF-4.mpg (4 min 15 sec)

Over the Xmas break both our sons came home for a visit and both bought their R/C Go karts with them.
Because we live in a nice quite cul de sac with good smooth tarmac we used this as our race track.
Each lap was about 150 meters long so where able to really make these karts sing along.
We now have them fine tuned and can take the big corner at full power with the kart only just hanging on for grip.
Of course we have had numerus spin outs and curb hitting which does a bit of damage to the karts.But with just enough spares was able to keep them going.
A very short video of a part of a race.

RC Go karts street racing (0 min 19 sec)

Have been wanting to have a go at forming my own canopies for a while now.
Having my latest build near on finished I really needed a canopy
Several years ago I started to build a vac box so now was the time to get my butt into gear and get it finished .Finally got to done and used it.
It had to be an easy build and not require any real expensive equipment.
The vaccum is delivered using a house hold vaccum cleaner.
The main frame is 12 mm custom board and 3mm board.
The plastic holder is 12 mm custom board and some 20x12mm stick timber.
Last night I pulled my first canopy and am very happy with the result.
There are a few wee mods I might do in any future pulls but as always most things are a learning curve.
The plastic was heated in the house hold oven ,while the vac frame was sitting on the door of the oven with a surport under it.
This way I didnt have very far to move the hot plastic in the frame,onto the former in the vac box.
While I was waiting for the plastic to heat up, the vaccum cleaner was running so the pull was there the minute the frames came together.

Just cant help it ..more building...here is my latest build. A 52 in 1370 mm Fournier RF 4.
Built off a RCM&E free plan from a few years ago that I had stashed away.
Original was all balsa and a cox dragon fly for power.
I have used depron,white and blue foam,news print and tissue paper, a bit of balsa and carbon rod.
Wings are hot wired white foam covered in news print with thinned down PVA glue. Then a squirt of white paint.
Cowl is blue foam covered in tissue with thinned glue. A squirt of white paint.
Fuse is depron with a few balsa formers as is the tail end depron with carbon spar and balsa tail post.
Power is a blue wonder 1700 kva,18 amp ESC,3 x HXT 900 servos,1300 3s lipo battery.
This has been built in between working on the PA 140. Very handy to have a small model on the go while glue etc is drying on the big builds.
Build log here. http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1537554

Have been working quitely away on the 140 and getting up to the finishing stages now.
Just need to finish the flaps and hinges ,put in all the cabin glazing and then start on the first of the under coats.
So far everything is shaping up very well and I am pleased with the results.

My wife and I had a small break in august with a trip to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. The Island is 3.5 hrs from new Zealand which is around 3500kms by air.
We spent 7 days there and the weather was just fantastic all the time. 29deg c during the day and 25 c at night. the water was about 25c most of the time so swimming and snorkeling was the main thing to do every day.
We did a glass bottom boat day trip which included a good time in the water snorkelling amounst the tropical fish and I mean heaps of them. If you just lay in the water with your gear on and looked down towards the bottom the fish would just swim all over your hands and body.An island lunch on the beach was later in the day with a good bit of entertainment by the crew.
A cultural night and dinner was really worth going to .
Most of our time was then spent just exploring the Island and mixing with the local population with was really good.
Would I go back again? most definately as it is a very good way to just have time out ,and we just loved the island way of life.

A small video of the lake and surrounding area at the float fly day. I used my Ultralight as the cam platform,and had to hand launch as no runway ,and land back onto the shingle beach area.
A really nice man made lake for the ARA vineyard and an ideal flying area.
This is the second year my wife and myself have been up to this flyin and the lake was just like this last year. NO wind,sunny and smooth,and a good bunch of guys.

Float flying day (4 min 26 sec)

My wife and I have just returned from a float fly in Blenhiem. 3.5 hrs trip from our home town.
What more could one ask for,the weather was just spot on ,no wind ,not a ripple in the lake and all day to burn up fuel and batteries.
Have done a couple of videos with my Ultralight and will load them on as time permitts....Continue Reading

The next scale model for my work place.
After the years of using super Cubs ,the PA 28-140 was the next progression to training aircraft within the club.
So number two model was to be one of the PA28-140 aircraft that the club owned. This is being built to the same scale as the Super cub of 1/6th. For me it is a nice handy size to build and there are lots of bits if needed that are within this scale size.
I had a small 3 view of the early model 140 so it was just a matter of drawing up to 1/6 to give scale outlines.
Construction this time was to be all white and blue foam,with the odd bit of balsa and ply where needed.
I have gone back to one of my older building techniques of covering the foam with news paper and tissue. This builds a very strong and light structure.[have built and flown many models using this building technique over the years]
The fuse was cut out of 15 seperate pieces,then all glued back together.Tail plane was cut out of three bits,each wing done in 3 bits.Fin and rudder all out of one piece.
Nose leg hand built as is the mains gear legs.
When all the covering is done a coat of sealer then undercoat.
Next all panel lines will then go on ,more undercoat then top colours.
There will be an interior with pilot and seats...More updates later.

Have been messing with the ultralight again..this time I made a fibregalss nose pod to try .Test flight went perfect no changes at all,flew as before.
It does look different in the air now and I like it.
Changed over to 2.4g TX and RX and that performed excellent as well.
This model is a very good aerial platform and mounted the cam on for the second flight.
The park has no landing strip so had to hand launch no problem, but the landing is a bit hard as the model stops very fast. perhaps a bit hard on the airframe.

Ultralight flight with nose pod fitted. (2 min 9 sec)

...Continue Reading

Yes I have this plane flying,not without a lot of problems at the begining.
All trimmed and flying very nicely now and have completed 19 flights as of today.
I had a few wing issues in the begining, but have now worked through them and got the problem solved.
Pretty happy now.
Next stage is to do some water flying.
All the testing has been hand launch and land on the grass.
Need to take my canoe down to the lake for the water flights as the water is to cold for a swim if needed to go after the plane .winter time here now.

Zero test flight video. lots of little bits made into one.

Test flight of my new Zero (2 min 51 sec)

A few still sequence action shots taken from the videos that my mate took of the test flight.
This is my first decent size war bird and am very inpressed with its flight performance.
Flys just alike a big trainer....Continue Reading

The big day for the Zero....well what can I say....the plane flew absolutely awsome.
A very small bit of down trim on the elevator just after take off and a very good rate of climb out.
The biggest surprise was on the take off roll,with a slow throttle advance the tail was up and flying with only about 1/4 throttle,and the plane tracked straight down the runway.
Flying... the plane is true and very stable and will slow down for a very scale like landing.It has no tenency at all to drop a wing which I am really pleased about.
I can see I am going to have a lot of good flying with this plane.
I had two really nice flights before it was to cold to fly again,so packed up and headed home with a huge smile on the dial.::
My mate did the video shots and we set the plane up in some really good turns and banks and low passes. Like 600 mm from the ground. so hope the videos come out good .. will post when he has them all edited.
One real happy chap here now,considering I started this aircraft 21 years ago.

Some time back a good mate of mine was interested in building a 1/6 size edge 540 T
He drew up some working drawings and asked if I could help with some construction ideas.When I looked at the drawings decided we should build two as I might just have one as well.
So I made up wing templates and did two sets of foam wings,made undercart molds and did two sets of fiberglass legs,and two sets of fiber spats.
He made up two fuse blocks.when I got mine I made up inner templates and cut all the inside out giving me a 10mm walled shell.
The plane will be all fiberglassed skinned. The wing joiner /spar is carbon fiber and fits into a ply box in the fuse and boxes in the wings.
My plane is to be powered by an OS 46 and 5 servos.
The other plane has been shelved and he on to other models, so I have carried on and finding the project very interesting. Basically design as I go along.
Pics show where I am up to and there is a bit of an update log on RC groups.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1405079

All painted now,did get put back a bit as I wanted the osprey flying first.
Have made an effort over the last couple of nights and done all the airbrush work on the driver.
Now needs a lot of use which it will get.

this day was nice and fine,sunny and near high tide.
Didnt leave a lot of beach for a run way,which can be seen at the end .Only a small lenght of solid sand.
Did a bit of flying over the water then out over the camp area with houses out at the camps end.
In all a good flight and happy with the results.

video from my RC ultralight trike (3 min 19 sec)