You are invited to our fun fly on Saturday 24th March 2001 at Parklands Leisure Centre Oadby, South Leicester  £7 per flier/family. Fliers of machine over 10g must be insured (£1 coin weighs 9.5g) Remote control fliers can fly at anytime but their machines must weigh less than 85g and be of scale appearance - so no stick planes please, .
tables and chairs provided, fishing pole too.

                      FliteHook will be coming along this month but leaving at 10 pm

When I was a lad indoor models where either Penny planes, Piper Cubs or M10’s
All made from stick and tissue. If we are being honest they did not fly too well - under powered and lots of wing dropping resulting in broken spars and leading edges.
In those days we encouraged new indoor fliers to build bouncy foam Jigglets.
These days it is a pleasure to see so many nicely trimmed stick and tissue jobs skimming the beams. Lincoln has some excellent flight from his little green cabin job and even Bernard the "Depron kid", has recently made four S & T rubber power models, all of them good fliers.
Next month Model Flyer magazine will have a super little Co2 biplane plan from David Deadman.

At last weeks successful Cambridge indoor fun fly (Impington) we saw the latest rocket powered out door machines from Norfolk's three blue foam carvers - all stick and tissue.
Richard has an excellent Comet airliner in BOAC blue and white and also a partly made Me 262.
It is inevitable that these expert rocket men would go to multi engine machines. Peter Smart had an airliner (A320?) which will use two rocket motors - what a sight! If we have some summer weather get over to Olde Warden and see these machines in action.
Peter Smart has an excellent new four motor rubber power Constellation airliner, what a beauty. He had a couple of flights at Cambridge, lots of power, looks really nice with those characteristic  storky undies.
It seems Bernard and Andrew are building as a team, several planes between them, mainly made by Bernard from stick and tissue. The rubber powered Wind Indictor is a reliable flier along with the Depron electric sports sea plane and a stick and tissue Co2 cabin job.
John Clayton looked thoroughly bored with his Groove Jet  (in the current issue of Model Fly) as it went round and round and round .... an easy peasy project for a man who has mastered 6” Corsairs, 9” span B25 twins -  who remembers his sensational silver Super Sabre ?
Bernard has made another F/F Bernelli twin motor airliner with unique lifting body fuselage using KP00 motors.

New ! Yes another step forward for the indoors boys. Mark has successfully flown a rubber powered model that is controlled by the rudder using the infra red system but this time running from a capacitor. This saves weigh, cost and is quick and fun to use.  The hall at Cambridge is a four badminton courts size and the plane was easily flown in rectangular patterns around the edge. The little capacitor powers the system for about four minutes but the power of the rudder drops off after the first minute, which is OK as a rubber power plane flies for about one minute anyway. The model used is a modified version of the Tango and used 85 thou. rubber and the middle size Ikara prop. This combination proved a little too powerful so even on only 650 turns the plane would hit the steelwork if it was not kept in a tight turn. At our own event on Saturday it will be fitted with less powerful rubber and we should get longer flights. The combination of a cheap system and the ability to fly in a small hall would seem to make the system ideal for schools and colleges as you can only fly one plane at a time, so just have one Tx.
The complete control system weighs just 2.5g and consists of the capacitor, a microchip and one sensor with an actuator made from a powerful mini magnet and 150 Ohm coil of fine wire.
A big advantage of the capacitor is that you don't need a switch, just solder all the connections.
To fly the plane just wind it up, add prop, charge up the capacitor from one cell for 10 seconds, then two cells for another 10 seconds and then finally 15 seconds on three cells. Quick, simple and cheap. The capacitor, one sensor, receiver chip cost £10 while you can buy a 150 Ohm coil and magnet for £5.00. Ideal for schools and collages as they all have a hall and you only need one transmitter. Mark is looking to put the system in fast style models like mini jets, racing aircraft or Pitts Special and maybe try some aerobatic stuff too as rubber power has a huge power to weight ratio and an extra actuator for the elevator would weigh about 1g extra. Simon is talking about putting one in his AN2

Infra red set ...
Hello Alain in France, he has one of our Depron, two cell, two channel, 25g machines and has just made a new Citibria using a GS1 Combo receiver/voltage booster, it weighs in at about 23g, sounds about right.
Mike Watters has made a nice vintage GB racer from stick and tissue at about 20" span with Co2 motor and IR control system.
Good to see Dr Chris down from Lancs. at our last event. His two-cell profile Jigglet with two channels IR control as a big hit - tight turns, ROG, and a slow flyer too. The one cell version did not have the oomph to climb but flew horizontally for a respectable period. Graham has sorted out his problems by changing the layout and wiring of his emitters on his IR transmitter. Now his two cell “Depron one” with D/D KP00 and two channels skims the beams and does nice figure of eights too. He is working on a new machine, which I think is a low wing racer.
Paul in Detroit is fitting a capacitor powered rudder only IR control system to his award winning Me 109 No Cal stick and tissue design, an ideal size of plane for the new rudder control system.

Flight Hook are coming up to our indoor fun fly on Saturday so bring some cash along, they are leaving at 10 pm as they are going to Hawaii for a three week holiday the following day (I wish)

Both Dr Chris and Graham have made circuit boards for mounting the voltage booster and three channel infra red Rx including speed controller. The new package has been named the combo.
Dr Chris’s CF1 (£30 complete) is a bigger board but very thin. The voltage booster is at one end so it could be separated from the Rx if you want to. Graham’s GS1 (£25 complete) is really small and neat. We have only been able to produce twenty Combo units in total as there is a world-wide shortage of parts used to make it, so if you are interested in a Combo, you better be
You will also need an actuator which they also produce, either 200 Ohm coil for two cell 25g models or 150 Ohm (Graham £5 Dr Chris £7) for rubber power or Co2 powered models with the capacitor powered Rx.
Graham is looking into designing a radio control system which will be teeny weeny .

FMA Direct in the USA are starting production of their infra red transmitter which will use the same case as a R/C transmitter. The Tx and a servo based Rx will be on sale mid summer and cost about £60.
Mark is drawing up the patterns and plans for a sub 25g Depron sports model for use with the Combo Rx, two 50 mA Ni Cds and KP00 direct drive ....

We must change the web site server again at the end of this month so we might not be able to send an emails for a while - while we sort the mess out !

Derick Hardman (Mr Solarfilm) has some new covering out called 'So Lite' it's £2 for a 50"x13" roll 17microns and 20g/m2. It's adhesive backed so no messing with the Balsaloc and lighter than 'Lite Span' There are scale colours ie buff, dark green, yellow.

Speaking of our web site, it has been a big success judging by the hit counter. We have recorded 42,000 hits in total, averaging 60 each day !

Other than that it's been a quiet month.