Peanut Scale

Here are some photos of Owen Cameron's first attempt at Peanut Scale. The kit was picked up at a deceased estate sale recently. Owen and I have great respect for those modellers of peanut scale, what with all those fragile, fiddly bits. Patience and a soft touch is certainly needed.

Bambi

Here is my first attempt at rubber power - an Aeroflyte Bambi. Please excuse the wrinkles in the covering, I haven't used tissue since about 1965. A couple of test glides have been promising. A proper test flight  will be done soon. A copy of the plan is on Hip Pocket Aeronautics, but beware, it is not the correct size. My copy came out too large. I have drawn a new CAD plan but it is not quite finished yet.

Notice the 1/16" incidence trim  packing under
the leading edge.

All Australian Day

John Lamont sent me these photos he took of Peter Koch's Aeroflyte collection.

Peter is president of the Knox MAC. Photo taken at their recent All Australian Day.

Nice collection....

Left to right - Valiant, Avenger, Typhoon, Vulcan and Taipan Trainer.

Here's some more photos of the Knox All Australian Day  held in July.

All Australian by Alan Mathieson-Harrison

Geoff Pentland Tempest Mk V by Bob Allison.

Gordon Burford Wombat by John Halliwell.

Hearn's Hobbies Cadet by Doug Grinham

Hearn's Hobbies Demon by Dave Lacey.

Hearn's Hobbies Frisky by Neil Wake.

Hearn's Hobbies Skylark by Bob Allison.

Hearn's Hobbies Super Skylark by  Peter Byrne.

Jim Saftig Super Zilch by  Robin Heirn.

Les Heap Cyclone by  Dave Lacey.

Les Organ Vulcan by Dave Lacey.

All Australian Day line-up.

Knox M.A.C. field.

Announcing the 7th Annual Worldwide Ringmaster

Fly-A-Thon!!

October 4th  & 5th, 2014

Dear fellow model airplane flier,

Because you participated in or may be interested in our Annual Worldwide Ringmaster Fly-A-Thons, I am sending you this e-mail is to alert you about the upcoming 7th Annual Ringmaster Worldwide Fly-A-Thon. We at the Brotherhood of the Ring sincerely hope that you will help us set a new record number of Ringmaster flights!!                                                   
As you may know the Fly-A-Thon is sponsored by the Brotherhood of the Ring, a forum devoted primarily to the wonderful old time Ringmaster control line model airplanes.

 http://www.brotherhoodofthering.info . 

If you are not a member of the Brotherhood of the Ring Forum, I urge you to take the time to register at the above link and check out the world of information and the friendly fellow control line modelers you will find there.
The Fly-A-Thon is a non-competitive event to honor the plane that many of us older USA modelers flew back in the 50s, 60s 70s and 80s.

Simply stated, we want to see how many Ringmaster flights can be recorded over a single weekend, the first weekend in October (10/4-5/2014). Last year we recorded 2334 flights (a new record) in number of  different countries worldwide. The simple rules are stated below and I want to direct particular attention to the last paragraph. Recruiting new people to join control line model airplane hobby is an important aspect of this event!

We hope you will join us this year and have fun flying your Ringmasters along with fellow modelers around the World.!! 

Regards,

John Cralley AMA 52183 (for the Brotherhood of the Ring)
 

Copies files for a Flyer for the event (Adobe PDF and MS Word doc files) are attached to this e-mail. If you flew with us last year please feel free to forward this e-mail to your fellow fliers from last year’s Fly-A-Thon and PLEASE see if you can recruit some new participants for this year. Also feel free to print the flier and distribute it to your local hobby shop and anyone that might be interested.

If you did not fly in last year’s Fly-A-Thon, we hope you will be able to join us this year. As stated above the Flyer has the simple rules for you to follow in order to participate.

 

If English is not your 1st language you have permission to translate the Flyer file into your own language to share with other modelers!
 

Below is a summary of the rules:

On October 4 & 5, we challenge you to fly any one or more of the many Ringmasters, old or new, and report your flights to:      flyathon2014@yahoo.com

Deadline for reporting is 12:00 noon Eastern Daylight time (USA)
 Tuesday October 7, 2014
Location: Wherever you are!
Please report how many different Ringmasters flew, how many total

Ringmaster flights were made and the location of these flights.

You may also report how many different pilots flew, how many Ringmasters were flown at the same time and what type of Ringmasters were flown.

Also, if you get someone new to solo on a Ringmaster, that flight will count as 2 flights! Let us know how many new solo flights we have too! If this will help promote new flyers by flying the same plane so many of us started with, this would be a bonus!

If you would like copies of PDF files for regular S-1 or 1/2A Ringmaster plans, send a request to the e-mail below!

Direct any questions to: fflyathon2014@yahoo.com

This is all about celebrating Control Line modeling!!!!

Shed Heater

 Hi John

I think you need a new section on the blog for other projects. The furnace should probably go in there as well.

Here are some photos of my waste oil heater total cost of around $100. it burns hotter than the fires of hell. Credit is due to Sloth Industries as Jason built the first and showed me how good it worked. I believe he will send some photos of his. They are easy to build and now its built costs $0.00 to run, just waste oil from any service station or any oil for that matter. Most places cant wait to get rid of it.

?What to do next?

Regards Owen

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not much plane wise has been happening here at Sloth industries or at OTech engineering for a while.

However....

I have managed to make another FAI Armageddon flying wing to replace the damaged one, with all our upgrades. 

In the mean time i have managed to build myself, after some time studying youtube, a waste oil burner for the shed.

The heater costs to run are FREE, FREE, FREE

I have found a workshop that has plenty of engine oil that i can have for FREE. I have a 44 gallon drum out the back of the shed that feeds oil through the wall into the heater. approx 200hrs of FREE heat.

The shed gets that hot I have to open the door to let some FREE heat out.

It uses about 1-1.5 litres an hour and cost me $150.00 to make and install.

It's made of a Falcon brake disc, stuffed hot water cylinder, stainless wok bowl from the kitchen, and a pyrex dish for a view of the fire (If you can see the flame it makes it hotter.) some of the bits come from the salvo shop ($6.00)

Most of the cost is from the 5 inch pipe out the flue and the 6 inch adaptor, had to buy some copper pipe, fittings, tap, hoses, adaptors and roof boot thing. Had the lengths of flue laying around and a chinaman hat too.

It has a designer door handle (OTech supplied).

So even though not much plane building has been going on, there is plenty of other to make the building process more enjoyable and very possibly lasting longer into the night.

If anybody else feels inspired to build one (I know of one already) go to this website and build                                                                                        www.love2diy.com

Cheers

Jason

Flapper

Arthur Hume's rebuilt "Flapper" was test flown yesterday. It started life as an Aeroflyte Typhoon but earned the name "Flapper" because the wings "flapped" on one of its early flights.

Expertly repaired by Arthur (you can hardly see where it was damaged), it now has a new life as a racer, it seems.  Powered by an OS .15 LA, it has not been timed yet but looks to go faster than any of the Rat racers in Townsville. The look on the pilot's face gives you some idea of how fast it goes.
It's good to see Arthur's painting skills improving.

Avenger

Alan Beggs recently decided to give his 15 year old Aeroflyte Avenger a final flight before retiring it. It was originally built by Neil Wincen (deceased) and has had a hard life.

The engine bearers are so fuel soaked and soft Alan reckons if you squeezed the bearers hard enough you would reclaim enough fuel for another flight. And the model is so heavy he was considering getting a Large Model Inspection before flying it. He told me he had to use 12 gauge fencing wire for control lines.

                                                      At least it gets to retire in one piece.

Four Square

Alan Beggs sent in these pics of his just recently finished 1955 vintage model, the FOUR SQUARE, designed by Tony Farnan. It's powered by a Burford Glow Chief .29.  Test flight next weekend, hopefully.

Alan has test flown his 4 Square and is very pleased with it, although its a bit fast. At 1.75 lbs it "floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee".
He put it through some maneouvres but blink and you would miss them. As it is, it would make a great vintage combat model but needs to be slowed down considerably to be a stunt model.

FOX 29-R

I got this email from Peter Somers in Perth, Western Australia. I thought it might be of general interest.


Hi Guys,

    We all had some questions on the ancestry of this Fox which I found on eBay. None of us have seen the solid cylinder head, for instance, and whether it should be sand cast or not is another question. 

At least it does have the twin glow-plug set up, which we all know about on this type, and the solid head shows the same casting marks as the backplate, showing that the head appears to be a genuine piece.

I looked it up for myself in Anderson's MECOA Blue Book. Turns out one George Moir built T-R specials for Fox in 1950 ( Fox 29R )which looked conventional in a sand cast case, with a thick head and ported crankshaft etc. Moir became an employee when Fox Mfg. moved to Arkansas in 1955 and worked with another fella named Payton (?) on the .29's.

He soon turned out the first of the racing 29-R nasties in 1956, and this motor is one of those. Sand cast case, FOX 29-R on the bypass housing and the Legendary "Bath Tub" intake. 

In the following year this production was taken over by and within the Fox Works, and the cylinder head was now finned. This is the motor we first saw I believe, in the  "Aeromodeller" Engine Tests. What a blast..!

Before long Fox had found the twin plugs caused overheating, so recalled the 2-plug heads both solid and finned, for replacement by a finned 1-plug head, although this was not of course compulsory.

So here we have a near 60 year-old relic of the past with an even more interesting history than I imagined. How many would be left out there with the solid head, one can only guess but it would be very few.

The pics which were on eBay are attached below. I must have got it as a bargain since few know what it is; but the Blue Book quotes + - $300 US.

- 

Best Regards, 

from Peter Somers.....

"I still know nothing, but I've learned it all from experts"...

Veco Squaw - Modified

Lyal Cameron's modified Veco Squaw. Powered by an 

ASP .21.

Modification #1 - Bubble canopy instead of  open cockpit.

Modification #2 - Side mount engine instead of inverted.

Looks good.