What's It all About ???

This page is all about the building and flying of radio controlled model aircraft. It's a highly diversified hobby that takes in as many skills as you like to use. Everything from electronics to carpentry, to painting, to drawing and designing with a little bit of metal work thrown in. Some builders even go into doing their own machining, pattern designing, fibre glassing, moulding and engine design. You can use electric motors, 2 stroke or 4 stroke internal combustion engines or even minature turbine (jet) engines for power. My own models use 2 and 4 stroke internal combustion engines and range in size from about a metre in wingspan to well over 3 metres from tip to tip!


Friday, November 30, 2012

Do You Ever Get Distracted??

 They tell me that model aircraft are only a hobby and you shouldn't let a hobby get in the way of life - yeah right - Bloody Life sometimes gets in the way of my Hobby! I recently took on the Secretary's job in my Model Club and pretty soon found myself also being the Newsletter Editor and then I was also 'nominated' to assume the position of Webmaster. Now my club is a small one and every member wants to fly - but club responsibility?? They run a bloody mile. I know that this is a common problem with many clubs but it is particularly acute in mine. Small membership, some members pre-occupied with business and family matters and all they want to do is grab a model and go flying on Sundays - more responsibility? NOT LIKELY.

Now - I'm retired - I have reasonable computer skills - and I'm available - yeah - I know - I should have ducked while I could. But - old age brings slower reaction times and suddenly I was the only one left standing. So as the Club had NO Newsletter AND no Website you can see my problem - it wasn't so much taking over as starting off - a whole different ball game.

Now - I'm not complaining - as I said - I'm an old fart and have the time and the skills to do the job BUT it does distract from time at the building board - you cannot code a website and build a quarter scale model WWI Biplane with 210 ribs and all that rigging at the same time!

I now find myself with 9 projects that are behind schedule, another five that have sort of drifted to the back of the hanger and a complete mess in the workshop. On top of that I'm rebuilding two wrecks - yeah - I did rush out to the field and didn't top up the batteries - and only one model in flying condition.

SO - I have now been forced to reschedule the building list in order to bring some order to the chaos; The bigger projects - that is the Lancaster, The Mosquito and the Texan to Wirraway conversion have now been moved to there own 'Bigger Project' list - in other words I'm having to put them aside for the moment to do the repairs and finish off some of the smaller models if I want to go flying in the forseeable future. In the next day or so I'll post up a project list so those those who may be following specific builds will have an idea what is happening. Oh - on top of all that I've just had my 70th birthday. - Bloody Hell - I'm now three score and ten, which might add to the belief that only the good die young!!

Merry Christmas - or what ever you call it where ever you are -

Cheers
Grumpy 42