A Story about Pre-Flight Checks

Had to take a break from building the P-51D - birthdays, family stuff and such. In the meantime, here's a little tale.

When flying radio control, I try to be diligent about pre-flight checks. However, a month or so ago, I came a cropper while flying the STARLITE (see photos).

Picture this: after changing the prop and replacing the battery with a more powerful plant, she was flying beautifully, save for a noisy (definitely broken) rudder servo. I replaced the servo, and while testing on the dining room table, was delighted that the rudder operated as quietly as the elevator. Charged her up and excitedly, went off to the field. Did my checks and launched from a throw. She climbed a bit then - spiral dived to the ground! I checked rudder centre trim setting, it seemed ok, so I launched again.

Painfully, she spiraled in once more, this time losing a leg and a suffering a bit of minor damage to the fuselage.

What to do? I checked alignment of all surfaces. Nothing except an ever so slight warp on the rudder. Surely the spiralling could not be from that? With the plane pointing ahead of me, I waggled the stick.

Then I saw it. The rudder was moving in the wrong sense! I had done my checks the first time with the plane pointing towards me (and without engaging my brain!). It took 5 seconds to reverse the new servo from the TX switch, after which she flew beautifully (although now with one leg - fine practice for holding off on landings!). When I first heard the story of the pilot who chucked his radio control glider off a ridge, only to realise he hadn't turned the receiver on and then watched it fly off into the distance out of sight, I used to wonder "how could that happen?". Now I understand! For me, repairs were cheap and easy but I hope the valuable lessons learned last forever:

- Always take care over pre-flight checks. Do them PROPERLY, especially when excited about the flight.

- Never assume that a replacement servo operates in the same direction as the previous one. Check it!

P-51D Mustang - Fuselage and tissue covering

For some strange reason, I chose to use normal domestic tissue instead of the usual (and better) Japanse Esaki. This was white stuff from the local newsagent shop, pre-shrunk with water. This is my first effort at colouring tissue. Here, I'm using some very old art charcoal that's been lying around at home for over 15 years! You can also use coloured chalk. Loads of colours and tints are possible.

Simply rub it on, then wipe about in circles with a soft tissue until it's evenly shaded. I did both sides. In the photo, a strip of the original white tissue is on the left and a gey coloured piece for the wing is on the right.

I am not an expert builder, but I enjoy it and do take pride in my work. Below, fuselage sides going down. I'm building both at the same time (this is NOT the same thing as the second one over the first!). Don't bother with cling film between them - you can separate with a razor blade afterwards.














Assembling box fuselages can be tricky and fiddly. Cardboard formers - lightly tacked in place with CA glue - are tremendously helpful. Generally, I use woodwork PVA for all balsa joints and avoid CA except for the places where it's really advantageous, like for the formers here. The photo below is just before the sides were "cracked" to bring the back ends together.




Another view of the fuselage assembly and card formers. They are from a pizza box.












Here are the wings glued up and setting at the correct dihedral angle. This newsagents shop tissue is nowhere near as easy to work with as Japanese Esaki. It does make a change to use a material with a different texture though. The grey colour is just what I wanted - simulating the metal of the full-size. I will have to lightly dope it, to fix the charcoal in the tissue. Note the slightly graded colouring on the fuselage side - the top is grey while the bottom is white. I wouldn't have the patience to build proper scale models, and chapeau to folks who do. Sports-scale is good fun though - it's like a nod and a wink to the original full-size shape.

P-51D Mustang - Sport Scale Rubber Model

The P-51D Mustang is a very popular model aeroplane subject - and for good reason. The sight and sound of one in flight is just as iconic and neck-tingling as the Spitfire. The P-51D is recognisable by its teardrop bubble canopy, fin gusset (although not every D model has one) and distinctive "kink" in the wing LE near the root.

www.mustangsmustangs.com is a superb resource for information on these amazing planes. They served in air forces all over the world.

For some time, I've been wanting to build Dick Baxter's 14.5" sport scale rubber power design, plans for which are available at SFA. You can see the relationship of this design to his Akro model. It's a fairly simple to build rubber model that can be flown outdoors or with care indoors. All you really need are some 1/16" square spars, a bit of 1/16 sheet and a 1/8 square spar. Clearly, he has tried to avoid tricky building and curves while at the same time, creating a fair impression of the full-size plane. It seems like a well thought out design.


I started off with the canopy. This is the first time I've ever tried to hot-stretch canopies out of discarded packaging plastic. It's great fun!

Airframe is fairly easy to build, though a bit fiddly. Here are the wings.

More pictures to follow.

Starlite 36" Radio Control

Site Changes Frequent visitors will note the slight change of style to this blog and the new title. I wanted to broaden the coverage and more accurately reflect my aeromodelling activities.

Flying the STARLITE After giving up on the 150mAh 9.6V NiMH battery and replacing it with a 400mAh 7.4V LiPo, the performance was transformed. She climbs better and keeps going much longer (25min).

These photos were taken by my 6 year old son. I'm quite proud of him and them. Evocative lighting, dew on the morning grass in the one above. Since the photos, I've added shiny aluminium foil windows to the cabin and day-glow orange stripes under the wing (directly beneath the black top wing stripes). Both are to assist visibility in flight. More pictures later perhaps.

Starlite, by Sig / Herr Engineering

So I've been dabbling with the "dark side" again. Yes, radio control, but at least it is a balsa and tissue model - 36" span and very "free flight like". I won't say any more, just show you some pictures instead. It's a lovely, beautifully laser-cut kit available from Sig/Herr direct. Exceptional value for money, especially wood bag and plan.

Do you remember your first ever model plane?

I do. I get the feeling that many (if not all) aeromodellers do too. Yes, the memories are hazy. I wonder how many of them in later years decide to build their first model again? For me it was a small 24" tow glider called the CROFTER by Ian Barrett published in Aeromodeller in 1973.

I built it during an after school club run by my teacher. Recently, I located and bought the plan for it. How weird to see it again? It's like that feeling of going back to your old school after many years - everything seems smaller and simpler than it did as a child.

I also remember the frustrations at the time, because no one explained how to trim and fly it properly. It is a simple design with Jedelsky style balsa sheet wings and 6mm balsa fuselage. Should I build (again) it or leave it for my son to cut his teeth on? Actually, it would be fun to strap it to a rocket motor! Now that's an interesting idea....

Andy Crisp's World of Free Flight Model Aircraft

If you've ever met Andy Crisp, you would know that infectious enthusiasm which he has for free flight. What a character! Now Andy has just published a new book. It's one of those instant download e-books and is available at the bargain price of £2.99 from http://www.instant-books.org/

I've bought it and the transaction was smooth. I received the book in a 47 page long pdf file. The book includes many plans and notes of gliders, hlg, clg, dlg, power and rubber. It's really great to see this book - it is not only a record of some of Andy's fabulous models but also a really encouraging e-book project from Instant Books.

I wish you every success!