Firebirds Model Club News

Thank you to Geoff our safety officer for the following safety notices.

Just a couple of reminders this month.

1) FPV, Quads and aerial photography: Firstly, and most importantly, if you fly FPV it is MANDATORY that you enlist the help of another to act as watchman. Apart from being a legal requirement it makes good sense.

There are no specific club rules about where to fly quads, but please bear in mind a) that something small buzzing around relatively close in can be very distracting to other pilots and b) If others are in the air, hovering is not allowed over the strip unless all other pilots are ok about it. Ask first. If you wish to hover in order to get footage of models flying please do it at some distance and well away from the take-off, landing and flightpath of the other models. Bear in mind too that there are national regulations in place in respect or aerial photography. Please make sure you are aware of them. (I’m sure John Hoddinott will be able to point you in the right direction if you ask him nicely). There is some fantastic footage around taken from these machines and they are great fun, so we really don’t want to discourage or restrict their use unless absolutely necessary. Just be sensible, and try not to get in the way of fixed wing flyers.

2) The second reminder is that whatever you put in the air, it is your responsibility to ensure that it is airworthy. This is particularly pertinent with the ready built models that most of us fly nowadays. First thing I always check is the engine mount and wing fixing plates. Do they look up to the job? A bit of re-enforcing with epoxy or fibre glass is often appropriate. While we are at it, what about the servo mounts? Are these properly fixed? In 50 flights time the fuselage around the engine and in the tank bay will often become fuel soaked, so give it all a coat of proofer before you start assembly. How about the undercarriage mounting? It is much easier (and lighter!) to add some subtle re-enforcing now, before it breaks! If the control surfaces are already hinged, give them a good tug, and re-glue the hinges if necessary. If the canopy or cowl/battery hatch is removable, are you happy that the method of retaining them is ok? Again, much easier to do something about it now. Lastly, have a good look at the control horns, clevises and push rods; if in any doubt, change them. Things are a lot better now, but it has been known for Chinese manufacturers to alter the original plastic specification if they can find something cheaper!

That’s about it. If you take care at the building stage, the model will last a lot longer, be safer AND stay in one piece. Happy Flying!

Many thanks to Geoff our resident safety officer for supplying the following article.
Well finally the good weather seems to be here for a bit, and with it hopefully somewhat more of us at the strip, so this month just a few reminders.

1 FAILSAFES Please remember that setting the failsafe on your radio (if it has this facility & most now do) is not only advisable, it is a legal requirement. If you switch off your transmitter the minimum requirement is that the throttle goes to low. Check this at the beginning of each session. Not having this facility enabled can affect your insurance in the event of an accident. The situation with helis is a bit vague – check the BMFA website for guidance.

2 BATTERIES I find that after a year, the performance of NiMH cells drops off considerably. The first sign is that they appear to be charged quicker than normal (If you are using a fast charger). A lot of chargers are capable of cycling the battery and then giving a readout of capacity. If you can do this you will probably be shocked at how bad some batteries that are a few years old have become! Don’t risk it – change the flight pack!

Most electric set-ups include a BEC (Battery Eliminator Circuit) so the Receiver and Servos all work off the LiPo powering the motor. If that fails completely you are really stuffed as you won’t have any control at all! Anything larger than a foamy park flyer really ought to have a separate flight pack for the Receiver and servos so if the worst ever happened you’ll still be able to land under control. Fitting a separate battery means you need to cut the red wire from the speed controller; if you are not sure about this, ask someone!

3 NO FLY AREAS I recently had a rather embarrassing crash due to dis-orientation. In mitigation all I can say is that it was an autogyro, so a bit of a strange shape, but nevertheless I really should have been more careful! Now what surprised me was that I thought it came down relatively close in the next field over by the Scouts, but I was a bit horrified to find it no more than 25 metres from the boundary, and I guess 100 metres from their actual field! The moral is, distances can be deceptive in the air! Keep well clear of the Scouts’ field.

Well, there have been some good flying days over the past month with quite a lot of really rubbish ones too. Many thanks to Paul and Rob who supplied me with some great pictures.

Here’s a picture from one day that turned out beautifully calm and sunny but started with a bit of rain, hence the cover over my plane in the foreground and Pete scanning the skies for any further signs of precipitation.

Paul was working out the niggles with his recently acquired Ultimate Bipe.
Although the power was adequate, it wasn’t quite up to Paul standards. So maybe we’ll see some changes up front.

Here she is flying and you’ll notice that this shot is from above. It is a movie-still taken by one of Rob’s planes.

Rob managed to catch quite a few fleeting moments of other aircraft passing through his camera’s field of view.

…And here is Rob getting ready to start his WOT4, which he can usually manage with a quick back-flip of the spinner. This is a trick I first saw Russell do with one of my planes.

Alan just getting his Majestic Major ready for lift off. This is a lovely thing to fly and we had some great goes with it.

Sadly, it did end up in the tallest tree at poplars and required a local tree surgeon to rescue it.

This recovery cost was £50, so not cheap but usually better that losing the plane. Should you need this service yourself at some point, I took note of their contact details.

Ethan Ford: 07545 759773 (Mobile)
Email: ecftrees@gmail.com
Website: www.ecftrees.com

They are Romsey based but one of the employees lives near the Cricketers pub.

Here’s my Dewoitine coming in to land. I like flying this plane but it does have a vicious stall. It will enter a spin almost instantly and nearly caused the loss of the plane at one point.

The finished all-up-weight for mine was 4.9Kg (with battery). I suspect that a 4.5Kg AUW would make things much better. That said, mine does fly slowly, you just have to be very careful not to go too slow or when turning at low speed.

I did keep bending the original undercarriage because it was very soft metal. I now have new undercarriage made from 5mm piano wire instead of English cheddar.
I must thank John H. for helping me sort this out because he loaned me his wire bender which was simple to use and extremely effective.

Here’s a picture of the wire bender (the black coloured item). I believe john said it was inexpensive and I can tell you it works really well. 5mm piano wire is not normally easy to bend even after annealing.

I was so impressed that I decided I wanted one for myself. The larger and rather grotty looking copy I made is pictured below John’s one. The U shaped wire was a test piece I bent. Bending such a short piece would be very difficult with just a vice and pliers etc.

The wire is bent around the central 9.5mm post and may be coiled up the post until you run out of height. I made a test piece having multiple coils, like a trainer’s nose wheel, with ease.

Having flown quite a few times at Poplars over the past month, I can bear witness to the fact that both myself and others have commented on how great the strip is.

I don’t think Pat is keen for me to put him in the newsletter but I think it’s important to mention the effort that he, Dave and the other committee members put into keeping the place up together so we can fly.

Gentlemen, we salute you.