When I moved house last year, the old loft needed to be cleared of 32 years of accumulated stuff including of course a hoard of models that had had one too many crashes but at the time seemed too good to throw away and the thought was - who knows, one day I might get round to repairing them. They say you’ve got to be ruthless when a loft is to be cleared and so in short order it all went into the skip. Well I say ‘all’; in amongst the bits I found a tail plane and fin assembly plus a very broken mono wing, two ailerons and the rudiments of a wire undercarriage from a Flair Magnattila.
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- Written by: Andrew McWhirter
- Category: Projects
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Scrap Box Challenge
A Lockdown Project. Hopefully by the time this is published, ‘lockdowns’ will be a fading memory. In mid-2020 like a lot of us, I was stuck at home (we weren’t allowed out) and everywhere was shut, including our flying field (I was a member at Sevenoaks & District MAC then) and the model shops. To pass the time, I decided to build a plane from my box of spare and offcut balsa and plywood, plus other bits and pieces I’ve accumulated over the years.
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- Written by: Phillip Ford
- Category: Projects
- Hits: 1776
I recently acquired a Weston Hype 3D. It was brand new but with no box. I am not into 3D as such. No-one seemed to want it so I took it on as a general "muck about" plane and it would be a shame for it to go to the bin which it was destined to be. After doing some research for a manual or some kind of guide it appears that there is not much on the "Tube" for these things although there were a few items for the Mini Hype but scarcely anything for the 60+ inch version. I found a manual but it was for a later version as the one I was looking at did not have a battery hatch or EP conversion mount. Neither were any control wire guide tubes installed as per the manual. Oh No! What have I commited too?
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- Written by: Phillip Ford
- Category: Projects
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SIG Somethin’ EXTRA . 51 ½ inch span, SC52 2 stroke, 4 channels + flaps, finished with Oracover and Sola film. The box says ‘The design can be set up to fly as sedately as a trainer or switch to high rates and roll so quickly you can’t count them, perform violent snap rolls, enter upright or inverted spins with instant recovery confidence and while you’re at it, lay it on it’s side and knife edge into the next county’.
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- Written by: Andrew McWhirter
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The Ranger 1600 from Hobbyking is another plane from the milk bottle stables, ie; plastic fuselage and very similar stabiliser and tail fin to the Phoenix glider range. The big difference though is the plug in wings so no screw driver required. The Ranger is designed for much easier hand launching and virtually a mid-wing type plane. This model is very similar to the Bixler series except it now has a virtually indestructable fuselage! The front nose has a flat area with a small aperture for a camera if using it as FPV. It is quite capable of powered flight or used for slope soaring, your choice. The plane comes with pre-wired servo connections, 30 amp ESC and a unbranded 2212 1400Kv brushless outrunner and designed to run on 3 cell Lipos in the 1600 to 2200 maH range. These batteries will balance the model perfectly.
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- Written by: Phillip Ford
- Category: Projects
- Hits: 1960
