My name is Dave Whiston, I work and live in Portugal. Previously I worked in Mexico (hence the name) and prior to that 5½ years in Brazil and 3½ years in Spain.

Before I kick in this time, I want to share with you something which happened the other day at the field, (This is going to be hard to believe but it really did happen!!) This particular Sunday there were 6 of us flying, I was being a general pain trying to get a handle on my Funtanas 90, Michael was at home ( Failure to complete homework resulted in a grounding). We had been busy buzzing around for a couple of hours when up rolled 2 guys in a Vectra, they proceed to unload two trainer aircraft, and one slightly beat up the other pristine and obviously very new. These two chaps start rattling away in Porkandcheese (Portuguese) and I earwig that one guy “knows how to fly” and the other has just finished putting together a nice little Tiger trainer which will soon be off on its maiden flight. Obviously to limber up and prove to his mate that he actually can fly Our test pilot fuelled up and promptly launched his model in to the blue, this was pretty cool because the model swerved on take off and went between two guys who were on the flight line, Apologies accepted he proceeded to bunt wobble and stall around the circuit a couple of times, he then trimmed out the model and calmed down (so did we!!). His landing was more of an arrival than a touchdown but he seemed very chuffed with it. Model number 2 was fuel up and the glow clip connected, yours truly then stepped in and asked all the usual questions, a) Is it balanced? b) Is the engine run in? c) Have you checked the rates? d) Is everything secure inside e) Etc , etc Well my curiosity satisfied I stepped out of the firing line, and went into casual observer mode. Well the OS was given a flick and it burst into life first prod, not bad! The model was carried out to the runway and pointed in to the wind, our test pilot was keen to get it away because he whacked the throttle full open and in what seemed inches, it was up and away. Well he got it up to a really nice safe height and set the trims and even showed is mate the “look no hands , it flies itself”. He then put in a steady left hand turn to start a Left handed circuit, flew the leg and then turned left on to the down wind track and settled in , the model was now flying smooth and level, I had set up camp on the tailgate of the car with a cup of coffee and watched the model zooming along, it must have caught a good tail wind because it was knocking on nicely, he continued to fly the down wind leg and I thought in a minute he will turn but he didn’t, it went on and on and finally became a dot in the distance and then there was no dot !!. Now the owner was giving out test pilot serious verbal on the flight line, I tried to look as concerned as possible as the two walked passed me ( gazing intently over the top of my coffee cup in the direction the model went ( that was towards the coast and off to the good old USA). The other flyers came by to go over the inquest and try to be “helpful” having exhausted most of our usual questions we gave it the “did you charge the batteries?” “YES!” was the answer “all night” did you check the batteries after charging? YES!!! I switched on the radio and the little needle went up to the top of the meter”, and “what about the flight pack?????” “I TOLD YOU THE METER WENT ALL THE WAY TOO THE TOP!!!!” Unfortunately our friend did not understand that when you charged the transmitter the flight pack does not get charged automatically, ( you have too plug that in as well!!) unless you are off Star Trek and you know how to do the famous Vulcan battery power transfer mind meld ( episode 21) I know this is bad but I was laughing that hard I had to go and sit in the car so as not to offend.

Now I am sure that all of those exhibition type pilots cock up like the rest of us mere mortals. How many times have you gone through this one ? Driving to your favourite flying field with your latest creation safely stowed in the family motor, fuel, tools, starter etc have been carefully loaded. Model and radio have been on charge all night and the battery levels have been checked three times at least this morning !. The model has been carefully balanced to exactly where the manufacturer stated in the instruction manual. The engine was started in the garage just to make sure… On arrival at the field the model is carefully assembled , fuelled and radio checked all is ready. The engine fires up first flick ( now that is a first !!) a gentle taxi down the runway reveals nothing out of order so we taxi a little bit faster, and bugger me !! its off, too little engine so it's almost at the stall, the momentary shock now gone the engine is thrown to full, not smoothly shifted giving the engine a smooth transmission so the engine coughs, then thankfully recovers and recovers at full chat.. The model is still giving a good impersonation of a drunken crab as it staggers side to side whilst hanging on the prop. Through more luck than judgement the model clears the perimeter trees and continues to climb it seems to calm down a little but is way over sensitive on the controls. All the worry and preparation of the flight is now totally forgotten, the brief self congratulations for getting it under control are soon forgotten and replaced with one question…. How the bloody Hell am I going to get this thing back on the ground !!! Be honest how many of us have been here, and lets be honest even if the landing results in nothing more than a broken prop and a bent landing gear we consider our selves to have gotten off lightly.

This month I have been busy trying to get a few novices off the ground. I hate the way newcomers to hobby can get so demoralised that they quit the hobby before they even get to enjoy it. There seems to be here an aversion to giving people a go, I always have a buddy cable in my flight box and if the interested person looks “safe” I quite often let them have a go at twiddling the sticks. My work requires me to travel and stay away from home quite a lot and one of our team Sr Nuno de Silva had noticed I always ( during the evening) have my nose stuck in a model magazine. So recently he plucked up courage to ask if he could come with Mike and I for a spot of Sunday flying. Now the great thing about letting someone have a go is that it really speeds up your reactions, my old Albatross was getting into some pretty impossible attitudes from which I had to recover her, nothing to difficult as long as you are up at a safe altitude of about 3 mistakes in fact nothing your average Sunday flyer couldn’t handle. The day turned out to be a bit overcast but other than that great for flying. Nuno had 4 flights of 15 mins each and thoroughly enjoyed himself, if however he had tried to fly on his own, I think he would have trashed the model within less than 3 mins!!, but I have offered to continue with his flight training if he wants and hopefully we will have another convert to the hobby.

One of the things I have always been impressed with is the scale model scene, some of the aircraft which are going around the competition circuit can only be ( in my opinion) regarded as works of art. Recently I bumped into a certain Pat Ross at our flying field and discovered that he lived at the end of our road. Pat has years of modelling under his belt and has a wicked collection of model aircraft which can certainly turn your head. The effect this had on yours truly is that the Fiesler Storche project will now get under way at the earliest possible opportunity. Pats models have some wonderful scale detail and excellent paint jobs. My level of airbrush technique would probably fall into the category of “Grafitti artist” so I hope to learn a lot in the coming months. Because I want this to be a head turner, I have decided to go down a particular route. Firstly I have got hold of a kit version of the aircraft, its not as big as I want to build but will allow me to practise and learn the scale detail techniques. As you can see its well under way at this time, I am making a few changes here and there to try to make it a bit more scale like. The front end is a bit of a bugger. The kit is from Aveomodelli form Italy. Now anyone who fancies having a go at this aircraft and goes for this kit, make sure you have built a couple of kits first. This one is just a box of bits and some very badly translated notes, so if you are a first time builder this is going to be a very frustrating exercise. Once I have this up and running I will then move onto a bigger version using the plans from Bob Holdam. Then if lucky and I find someone to do it ??? I want to enlarge the plans sufficiently to give a model which will fly on a Zenoah 28cc engine ( well that is the plan) the problem is this will require the building of 3 aircraft, her in doors has threatened surgical action in the lower region if I obtain any more “ Bloody aeroplanes”! So I need to off load some aircraft somewhere !!

Remember previously I mentioned the Slow-poke, well here is how it turned out, Unfortunately as is the fashion with teenagers Michael lost interest not long after the photos were taken!! So yours truly had to finish the job off, I robbed the split canopy of a Funtanas 90 and cut it to fit, I am not sure what the covering is but I think it is some kind of poly with glue on it but it proved much easier to work with than monokote.

Back at the field again and I was surprised to find we have had an extension to the runway put in place, this means we now have full Portuguese federation cover on the site, as a result I went out and comprehensively pranged my Albatross, Pretty pathetic really, I had been happily been buzzing around when I decided to see how close I could land to the end of the strip. I actually got it pretty close maybe ½ meter but it was ½ a meter to short and I flopped her down in some loose but heavy grain sand which obliged by removing the undercarriage, ( Pilot error) my excuse was that I had hosted a BBQ the night before and we didn’t finish until 2.30am so I was tired.ember previously I mentioned the Slow-poke, well here is how it turned out, Met a couple of guys out to test fly this very nice Cessna Cardinal. Engine is a Saito 100 four stroke and the aircraft has working lights. The guys had a bit of difficulty getting a reliable idle out of the Saito so I donated a new plug and she was up and away ! She seemed a bit twitchy so I think she needs a bit of Exponential dialling in but we didn’t get to try this because our luckless pilot landed with the wind and she came in like an express train and suffered a bit of a tumble. Nothing too bad just a bent nose leg so she will be back out next week. I am currently flying my Ryan with a 120 4-stroke. It’s great; especially as I I had so much trouble with this model in Mexico. See you all next time …

Article by Dave Whiston from Portugal
For Bumpy Green Model Aerodrome
July 2005

Comment by Rod Munch on 20051201155451. Rating 5

Top stuff. An enjoyable read for a complete newbie like myself. Im pretty sure that I could get one of these things in the air - but landing it??

Comment by Beavis on 20051201155630. Rating 5

Have you checked ebay for a Vulcan battery power transfer mind meld kit?

VIEW / ADD Your Comments This is where you can leave your comments about the article itself or about the subject of the article. For example maybe its a review and you would like to tell people about the experience you have with this particular model. Name: Email Address (optional): Rating: 1 2 3 4 5 Excellent = 5 Comments: