Twin Cities Model Aero Club

Above TCMAC members hard at work.

Prior to the recent Nationals, it was decided that something had to be done to improve the access road into our flying field. The plastic matting had deteriorated to an extent that it had to be replaced. To compound the problem the surface under the mat had also eroded over the years and was full of pot holes.

I picked up a quarter scale and a third scale Balsa USA Piper Cub kits from a garage sale last month and have been keenly building away ever since.

I really didn’t think that I had the patients for scale building, but now I’ve started, I kind of have the ‘bug’ for it. I am putting the quarter scale, 2.5m span, together first as a practice run for the “BIG” 3.5m span third scale! The quarter kit had the plans but no instructions, so I’ve been nutting it out myself ever since. The third scale has no plans or instructions, so I will draw up my own plans and enter it in the masters class. With some valuable guidance from Dave Balfour, I am trying to stay as true to scale as possible. David has an incredible eye for detail and how to replicate it, usually with an easyish method. (It still requires a LOT of patience.) I took out ‘F2′ and replaced the structure with the scale cabin bars under the dash. This leaves the space where the pilots legs and rudder pedals go. Dave was concerned with the strength of the main ‘box’ section in the nose and the attachment of the ‘box’ on the side walls with ‘F2′ removed. To fix this, some alloy rod was twitch in with wire and epoxy, and two alloy plate ‘posts’ for the side wall mounting points. Dave’s happy now. Scaling a Cub is a nice easy intro because they were incredibly simple aircraft. e.g. the scale joystick set only took one hour because it is a very simple mechanism. I have managed to find some excellent pictures from the internet, the most detailed are ’screen shots’ from Flight Simulators. From these, and some basic blueprint pictures, I have managed to replicate the real cub quite accurately. Engines are both 2 cylinder 4 Cycle glow motors, a 1.20 for the 1/4 and a 3.00 for the 1/3. regards and Happy flying

Tony Ball

Barry is well under way with his new creation, this time it is a scale model of the British, War One fighter, the SE5A. Barry is building his aircraft from the Dave Platt designed Top Flight kit.

This is a very old kit, that Barry acquired. There is an equally old four stroke engine, with exposed rockers going to power the aircraft.

Barry has gone to some trouble to weather the model with the help of the boys at the Albury Hobby Centre.

Hi All,

I am happy to report a V. Successful test flight of the Rafale. I had always thought the landing would be challenging due to the canard / delta design, hadn’t thought about mundane things like taking off & flying. Liftoff was smooth / No roll correction required. Needed 4 bangs of up trim. Took off on full throw elevator & switched to full rate aileron after a minute or two. Landing approach after 5 1/2 mins from the east, quite remarkable sink rate, needed 60% power to maintain height with the nose high approach, then bled the power off & smoothly touched down. C of G was correct as per Aviation design, but I will slowly move it rearwards & also check a web program to calculate it, it seems too far fwd, but, it worked I didn’t shake / rattle / roll at all. Phew……..now when I have a nana nap, I won’t wake within 2 mins with a high pulse rate, visualising the landing approach of the Rafale. Thanks to Kevin Dodd, MAAA sec who is a HM & GT Inspector, for the signing off.

Regards Graeme