Ornithopter

The weather has been bad lately so I thought I'd try something different. It's a FREE BIRD II ornithopter. Flys OK in the lounge room but the space is too restricted. I gave it a few flights outdoors at 6:00am one morning before the wind got up. Only used 40 to 50 turns and got about 10 seconds flight time. Weight is 0.2 ounce. The covering is Solarfilm LITESPAN.

Had a quiet Christmas Day today so I built this before lunch. Tried it in the lounge room. Wow! It flys FAST.  It's a MINI GYMELLO RP. I got the plan from Hip Pocket Aeronautics. Weighs 0.8 ounce. I used a Hobby King prop assembly and Undercarriage  that I had on hand so that made construction easier. Litespan covering.

Box Car Chief

Just completed my Box Car Chief.  Weight is 2lb 2.1oz.  OS MAX III .29 

Oops! I forgot the pin striping on the starboard tailplane.

                                                   

Cheshire Cat

This one from Owen Cameron. 

Let's see the completed model when it's finished, Owen.

Hi John

Just when you thought nothing was happening! My youngest son Damien came to me wanting to gain his modelling badge for scouts, so away we go again and he has started to produce a Cheshire Cat. (That's a cheshire kitten that's grown up). Its 26.5" span and will be powered by an OS10 FSR.

The completed model, weighing 13.5 ozs.  Nice job.

Flying Tiger

Not to be left out, Bob McKenzie sent in these photos of his recently rebuilt Flying Tiger. The wing is from the original. Bob modified the fuselage from it's original shape as shown in pic.3.

A shot of Bob's original Flying Tiger. 

Zilch - X

Alan Beggs submitted these photos of his latest build - a Zilch -X.

Electric Twin

Jim greenwood sent me these photos via email.

John

Herewith photos of twin. Was a Miss Kell modified as a twin. Uses two Turnigy G15 motors. Radio assist to give throttle control. Hope to fly Next Sunday weather permitting.

Regards

Jim

Ringmaster Fly-a thon 2014

2014 Ringmaster Fly-a-thon results.

2589 flights, 419 Pilots. A new record.

(Edited 10-10-14. Final figures)

2013's total was 2252 flights.

John Lamont kindly sent me the following photos taken at the Knox Model Aircraft Club on Sunday.

The KMAC Ringmaster line-up.

X-Wing Ringmaster

X-Wing Ringmaster

Steve Vallve

-----o00o----

Well, I did my bit for the Ringmaster 2014 International Fly-a-thon. Completed 18 flights on Saturday but had lots of engine troubles so I went home and made a new, smaller tank, cleaned out the needle valve and recharged the batteries.
Sunday  was windy - 20 knots gusting to 25. The engine would not run consistently and I found the plastic backplate on the OS .15 LA was loose and sucking air. So back home again, pulled the engine out and put some gasket goo on the backplate. The engine now ran a bit better so I removed the muffler pressure feed and then it settled down nicely for the remaining 21 flights.
Every landing was pretty hard due to the wind and finally the undercarriage fell off so I had to stop at flight  43.
I'm happy with that. Last year I did 30 flights so  I beat that by 13. I used a take-off stooge for all my flights as  I was flying alone with no one to act as pit crew.  I think I was the only one in Tasmania to enter the Fly-a-thon. Now, it's time to go to bed for three or four days to recover.

These are snapshots taken from a video camera mounted
on my control handle. The video didn't turn out too good.

You can just make out the stooge release line in this shot.

It's not obvious in these shots but the poor old Ringmaster
copped a lot of buffeting from the wind. It was the roughest
weather I have flown in.

The results for the guys in Townsville are as follows:

Bob McKenzie,  19 flights

Alan Beggs,  4 flights

Doug O'Keefe, 5 flights

Ian Hague,  6 flights

for a total of 34 flights.

I dunno! The things you see when you haven't got a gun........

Bob McKenzie with his Ringmaster after his 19th flight. Damage
was caused by a bouncy landing in the high wind.

Rocky Rally 2014

The Rocky Rally was held at Rockhampton, North Queensland on the weekend of 20-21st of   September. The rally was a combined Control Line and R/C event. The weather was kind to the C/L guys on the Saturday but Sunday was a washout for the R/Cers. Jim Greenwood of Townsville took these photos of the C/L models. Some more of Jim's photos can be seen in John Lamont's October 2014  edition of  Australian Model News.

Ian Gealy's MAX BEE, F2B model, electric powered.

Don Keyssecker's WIND WONDER, F2B model, Stalker .61

THUNDERBIRD by  Reg Towell, powered by Fox .35

Yatsenko YAK 55, Retro .60 by Frank Battam

Brian Harris's LARK with Merco .35

Another couple of Brian Harris. ALL AMERICANS powered
by OS .29

A couple of profiles with OS Max .15's by Trevor Fenning

Dave Helmrich's SMOOTHIE with OS .40 power.

Aeroflyte AVENGER -  OS .40 by Dave Helmrich

Dave Helmrich's PEACEMAKER. PAW 2.5cc diesel

Still another from Dave. A Keil Kraft PHANTOM with a
1.5cc Taipan diesel.

A VOODOO (?) combat wing by Mike Rankin with an AP
Hornet .15 for power.

Mike Rankin's NOBLER powered by an OS .46 LA

David Georgeson Memorial Trophies.

FAI C/L World Champs 2014

For some great photos of the World Champs click here:  https://www.facebook.com/clwch2014

A.R.F.A. Senator

While we are on the subject of rubber power, here is Alan Beggs' first attempt. He chose the half size Senator from the free plan in Aeromodeller Jan/Feb 2013.