Jon bought the airframe 2nd hand, it had previously been registered through the LMA scheme at 21.5kg, but he wanted to try to get it under 20kg as lighter always flies better and it avoided the complication of going through the LMA inspection scheme. A friend who also has one, suggested Jon does a mod to move the engine forward from it’s standard position behind the centre of gravity, to in line with it, moving it forward around 300mm.
This turned out to be a lot of work, but resulted in removing over 500g of lead from the nose to get it balanced. Final finished weight was now 19.8kg. Following the test flights on the 31st August in the film Jon decided to add another 100g of lead as it was a little too tail heavy, so the model is now at 19.9kg.
L39 Albatros from Fey Bao 1:5 scale, beautifully painted and weathered from the factory, custom number 79 as the owner's birth year :-) He has done modifications to gear doors so they close after gear down for the super scale look. JR servos all round, Jeti Radio System with dual receivers redundancy, speed, fuel, pressure , voltage and mAh Jeti sensors for real time telemetry in flight, Power Box smoke system, Jeti 5400mAh batteries running all servos, Jet Tronics valves on gear , doors , front battery hatch, air brakes and wheel brakes, Jet Tronics sequencer and don't forget the Mighty Evo Jet 180 Jet engine, FTC bubble trap, Festo fittings all round and Uni Lights pro lighting system that gives the model outstanding scale presence. This baby took him a little over a year to put together and he did take his time to make sure everything is perfect.
During the COVID-19 1st lock down I eventually got motivated to build a copy of Wolfgang Matt's Rubin. This is the model that he won the European Championships with in 1992 and 1994. A few clicks of aileron trim and a bit more elevator trim was needed. There was a strong cross wind so it was difficult to slow it down for landing. Maidened May 2020 at WimborneMAC field.
Previously test flown successfully and in this video the owner, Simon gets a chance on the sticks assisted by Jon our top test pilot. This the 80 inch wingspan version from Seagull models. Powered by an OS 40cc four stroke petrol engine, 10 servos. The model comes with split flaps and retracts with oleo legs. This is Simon's pride and joy! This version has invasion stripes so is much later than the speech by Winston Churchill in 1940 featured at the beginning of this video. Back then they would've had just camoflage.
Simon says:
In 1979 attempted to build a Mick Reeves kit Spitfire. Failed to finish it and along with an original Chris Foss Wot4 kit that he had built and 4 channel Futaba radio set sold up and gave up the hobby. Much later on......
New member Phil Mackie of Wimborne MAC flew his BVM BobCat at our Cashmoor field for the first time on the 18th January 2020. Although quite cold there was a great blue sky with high light cloud to fly across. He had an excellent flight and made an excellent landing after a trial landing approach.
Turbine Power is a JetCat 160. Goes like a scalded cat! At cruise power the engine is very quiet and the plane flies very stable.