Hobby stuff

[Burgerman]

This is a relatively cheap battery powered (electric ducted fan) moulded foam model plane.
With the fan unit and battery removed, and a tiny gas turbine installed...

I am in the process of ordering one to do the same as it flies like its on rails.

Just a lump of foam! And a turbine jet. That I already own.


youtu.be/-zQDb3O97hw

[Burgerman]

For your amusement, I have a hobby sized turbine. But I also have a military "gas turbine starter" that used to live on board a Phantom F4 Jet as a mix between a Turbine starter and an APU.

I converted it to a turbojet. Its crazy loud and eats a gallon (5 litres) of jet fuel in around 1 minute and a half.

This is a plessy Dynamics Solent Gas Turbine (jet starter).
I t was bolted to a Rolls Royce Spey jet engine in a Phantom F4. It went missing while the engine was in the service bay at WoodalL Spa.
Strange as it seems they use a small jet enging (if you call around 100 horsepower small) to start the main engine.

[martin007]

That turbine seems to be valuable...

[Burgerman]

No idea. It was quite valuable to the pilot. Cant start the engine without it.

[martin007]

Is it owned by the RAF?

[Burgerman]

Well it was...

[martin007]

Have you bought it or found it?

[Burgerman]

No...

[martin007]

Are you planning to do something with it?

[Burgerman]

I was. But my volunteer escaped.

[martin007]

[JohnnyUK]

I t was bolted to a Rolls Royce Spey jet engine in a Phantom F4. It went missing while the engine was in the service bay at WoodalL Spa.

I worked at RAF Woodhall Spa around 1990 in the Weapons Bay at the end of the road, what where you doing in the Engine Bay? We used to store our war reserve F4 Wing Pylons in the Warehouse opposite Engine Bay, probably the same building your Starter was in. I was there for 2 years it was a laugh a minute, we used to make Molotov Cocktails and throw them in the Bloodhound launch buildings for fun ... I was the Corporal in charge

[Burgerman]

What was I doing in there? Aquiring a Plessy Dynamics Gas Turbine starter from a RR Spey...
So you werent FULLY in charge!

You probably dont recognise it now, all the T2 turbine and gearbox and its exhaust/ housing removed. Starter and fueling auto mechanical stuff removed to turn it into a turbojet. Do you think the RAF would approve?

[Burgerman]

Heres how they used to look.

Before the saw. Lathe. And hammer... I knew that there was a turbojet engine hiding inside there.

[JohnnyUK]

So you werent FULLY in charge!

Yes I was but only in the Weapons Bay, we were the Armourers and the 'other end' were Propulsion trade.

Do you think the RAF would approve?

Yes of course they would. Indeed you deserve some recognition for saving it, they chucked the rest of our lovely F4's in the skip. As a matter of interest what does it weigh and what thrust will it develop?

[Burgerman]

Not sure what it weight was. But all alloy so quite light. Thrust, about 155lb from memory. But horrendously loud. Its power to weight wasnt as good as hobby type jets. And I swapped it a few years ago to an enthusiast for a brand new in box hobby jet. MW54 which I still have...

But I want a really small 12lb thrust https://aerobatx.co.uk/shop/kingtech-K45G4-turbine
Its a tiny 62mm and light. Fits in foamies like the one I linked above. And that particular foam jet has a conversion kit to make it a plug and play jet!

[JohnnyUK]

The Plessey turbine is a beast, maybe too big for an RC jet? That K45 looks great but it's a big investment, turbine's have always been too expensive for me to play with. I guess it would suit lots of foamies with 70-90mm EDF's in them

You like gliders how about this? .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFV2V4U ... tbobborap1

[Burgerman]

Yes love it. That guy flies exactly like me. Seriously. Right now I have almost no planes. Sold off. I only have an unbuilt (soon) foam pusher trainer an esky eyas... Its a toy.

I have no place I can easily get to at the moment so only flying from parks and barratts...

So currently looking for a sub 250g FPV wing to fly out over the town. And a thermal floaty glider that Ican also FPV with.

I may get another turbine, my hobby one is too big for park flying! So thats why I was looking at the one in the link. Its tiny. And dop it into a few foamy chinesium planes.

So many rules and restrictions now. So its impossible to comply. So..

[JohnnyUK]

I wish I had the ability to fly like that, take my hat off to you if you can. I've decided to keep a few small planes and rejoin Strubby, I'll sell the rest. Andrew Ellison has recently joined too, he's an accomplished turbine glider man who can fly really well ... you know of him?

That K45 is surely too valuable to put in a cheap foam airframe especially if you fly it like you'll pull the wings off. I agree about all the ridiculous regs which all clubs demand nowadays, it's ruined a hobby that has had a great safety record for over 100 years just so Amazon can nick the airspace

I don't know about sub 250gr FPV wings but how about this for a cheap FPV platform that ticks the glider box too? I've had 2, they're shit for most things but float well and have a good mount point for camera ... most of all they're dirt cheap

https://hobbyking.com/en_us/h-king-bixl ... r-arf.html

[Burgerman]

Those are cheap but they glide like a drain cover.

Fly it like I stole it is something I did for 30 years. Pulse jet deltas, competitive pylon racing, wildly overpowered planes etc and I like low... I have done complete high speed flights where I never got above the horizon. Or stopped rolling. Spent a lot of time flying craxy stuff! I think that all the stuff that makes clubs and committees freak out is the fun part! I scared a lot of people. Can count the number of crashes due to thumb problems on one hand. I was good at what I did! Every time a new model appeared I was the one that was handed the Tx...

Now its all "experts" that are clueless idiots, that never designed or even built a plane, and buy everything over the counter ready built. When I was flying a lot it was a skill, to turn up with a plane you built, you designed, as you launched it upside down on its test flight! Yes I did that. Its confidence! Never had anything with a throttle, refused to carry a servo. Crankase pressure, plastic bags instead of clunk tanks so the dont cough in a dive, and wings like razor blades! Now I am happy just flying foam! I like slow thermal gliders, rudder/elevator. With 2 or 3 hour long flights.

But how can you fly anything fast? Most of my things would go on a low pass from 3 feet high to 500 foot in a few seconds. And thats already too high for the rules. Thermal gliders at 12 feet span can be 2000 feet or more at times easily. You needed bincoculars. How can you do that now?

All destroyed sadly.

[Burgerman]

>>>I don't know about sub 250gr FPV wings

The rules for sub 250g mean you can fly a plane or a quadcopter like my DJI Mini pro 4, over people, towns, etc. I can legally take of in my garden and fly over the town cenre.

Same with a 250g plane.
So anyplace with some grass to land.

E.G.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqhGy4UvTVA BUILD TEST.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVkoggqyVA8

[JohnnyUK]

Now its all "experts" that are clueless idiots, that never designed or even built a plane, and buy everything over the counter ready built. When I was flying a lot it was a skill, to turn up with a plane you built, you designed

It's all about electronics now, gone are the days when you needed a full range of workshop skills, an APC Plans Handbook and the raw materials a build would often takes months. I designed my own wings for CL combat but everything else was from plans, there weren't any RTF mass produced foam models on sale. Like most things I didn't go as far or as crazy as you did/do.

I've never seen a ZOHD before what a curious craft that is and dirt cheap. It's too small for me to enjoy LOS as my eyesight aint great (cataracts), then I saw the ZOHD Talon GT Rebel which looks longer range and has great climb rate. Got me round to thinking that now I've got that tiny WAV you encouraged me to buy I'm selling up the big (ish) models in favour of a Riot and couple of small gliders. I've never had any interest in FPV but these ZOHD things open up a new world of possibilities if you're prepared to fly illegally. I need to research more for realistic ranges and the cost of a FPV and HD camera installation but it's piqued my interest for something to continue my aeromodelling interests with ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDmfXqQ ... ArxangelRC

I appreciate you want to stay sub 250gr but what flight time/range can you expect? Is that what you want to use for your new Tx? Why not go over 250gr, pay the CAA £9 and make a long range FPV to fly under the Humber Bridge or worse? Or is that too close to the water to maintain a radio signal? I suppose I need to fully understand the restrictions and penalties before having a go, no interest in flying FPV at a club. Do you need a Commercial CAA licence if you want free FPV flight with only sensitive areas being restricted, similar to a light aircraft .. or is that a no go?

[Burgerman]

I appreciate you want to stay sub 250gr but what flight time/range can you expect? Is that what you want to use for your new Tx? Why not go over 250gr, pay the CAA £9 and make a long range FPV to fly under the Humber Bridge or worse?

I did all that yers ago.
I still could. I dont like licenses, rules, and all the safety nazis etc.
I intend to fly bigger stuff, just descretely.

Or is that too close to the water to maintain a radio signal?

With my new gear I could fly 2 inches above the water, under the bridge from cleethorpes beach.
50 to 100km line of sight range. And it actually increases over water. Reflections etc.
So a small or large FPV plane can do that easily. In any case I would use a ZHOD return to home flight controller. The worst that would happen is it will fly home! My digital HD goggles, and camera on the plane have 4 to 8 miles range, no break up or old style flickering etc.

I suppose I need to fully understand the restrictions and penalties before having a go, no interest in flying FPV at a club. Do you need a Commercial CAA licence if you want free FPV flight with only sensitive areas being restricted, similar to a light aircraft .. or is that a no go?

JohnnyUK

If yu want to be "legal" then that means nothing out of line of sight, and you must have a guy next to you with no FPV that can watch the model... It also means no more than 400 feet. And no dodgy high output FCC radios or FPV gear...

UK means 25mW (I use 1000mW lora high sensitivity system) for control.
It means 25mW for FPV and I use digital 2000mW.
As for licences, CAA permisions, rules and the like, then no idea. I dont have any "official" qualifications. But can fly rings around those that do.

So I will be kiss.

[Burgerman]

Have you tried flying FPV?

[JohnnyUK]

No I've never flown FPV in real life, I used to enjoy playing on Phoenix sim in FPV mode but always got lost. I've got MS Flight Sim so presume it's the same as that but more expensive when crashing, it can't be that hard if you can use SAFE mode to bring it home.

Thanks for the interesting comparisons between what's legal and what's possible, your new system is absolutely incredible ... military grade stuff by the looks of it.

It would seem the FPV goggles are your main thing to limit range, what range do you reckon you'll have with that ZHOD Dart considering LIPO's and all?

If I have a go at FPV couldn't continue to use my obsolete Hitec Aurora 9X and would I need to invest in modern radio gear/telemetry. I'm trying to get a ballpark idea of what it would cost me to fly a ZHOD with new radio system plus FPV set up. Just a thought at the moment, it would be fun but probably too expensive and too risky as I'd want to fly 'discreetly'. Problem nowadays is that the nutters in charge may perceive 'discreet flying of drone' as a terrorist threat and punish severely as they do for saying hurty words on social media. I'm not interested in flying FPV sub 400ft and employing a spotter as per CAA diktat. The UK is finished ... freedom has been taken away from us proles, increasingly oppressive rules make it impossible to have an adventure without getting branded a criminal

[Burgerman]

I dont have a dart yet. Right now I only have the unbuilt ESKY EYAS and a pulse jet delta on ceiling! And an old radian pro.

Looking at buying a tiny Zhod DRIFT with a flight controller. FPV and 20 min flights. And can be 250g with care?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-WGRJ21udM be great with FPV although ths one is tail heavy. Hes too dumb to know.
Or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3yC7sU6KOk
or this guy with better setup gets 62 min flights.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G36pnsSmy4k

You could fly to the humber bridge from barratts, rec ground. And under it. Radio range not an issue. FPV range? Digital DJI I use maybe OK. But I have been further, high up (400 feet).

ADDED...
Just looked on google maps. 20 miles. No the goggles wont allow that! The radio should. But maybe dodgy low down. Thought is was about 4 miles.

[JohnnyUK]

What's the pulse jet delta for? I wanted to make a Braun 3ft pulse jet for school 'O' level but they wouldn't let me on the grounds they were illegal. I've seen them many times at the Nats and seem to recall you were into them, presumably for CL rather than RC?

Hope the Drift works for you, I preferred the Dart as it had more internal space albeit as aerodynamic as a bin lid. I like the virtually bomb proof design of the Dart, it looks better for crashing whereas the Drift's a bit spindly.

Looks like the FPV thing isn't viable for me as it would be a big investment and the chances of getting prosecuted are increasing as those stupid politicians tighten their grip on us. You didn't give me a ball park figure for setting up to do FPV, I'm struggling to see a use for it don't fancy LOS on those tiny ZHOD wings. Interesting though I'd like to try FPV but only if I'm permitted to go exploring and I'm not.

How do you fly discreetly if you don't know what defences they have to catch rule breakers? What's the chances of the authorities tracking someone down if they fly FPV beyond LOS? How do they catch you? I recall that RC modeller a few years ago who got arrested after the hoax Gatwick drone threats (that evaporated soon after the new CAA regs were implemented) and wondered if they tracked him down with scanners or found his name from a local club, they just needed a scapegoat. I believe police lost case in Court and he got compensated for unlawful arrest.

It's impressive that the technology is already out there but the regs don't allow its use in UK. How can you buy your latest Tx when it's ratings don't comply with UK law? I don't suppose companies like DJI can offer that grade of rc tech for UK sale?

[Burgerman]

What's the pulse jet delta for? I wanted to make a Braun 3ft pulse jet for school 'O' level but they wouldn't let me on the grounds they were illegal. I've seen them many times at the Nats and seem to recall you were into them, presumably for CL rather than RC?

They were never "illegal" whatever that means. Just loud.
The ones at the nats are tiny little things that make about 4lb thrust.
Mines 12 to 13lb and fearsomely loud.
Whats it for? Scareing club committee members.
Mine uses a fuel pump, and two 1 litre saline bags in the wings.

Hope the Drift works for you, I preferred the Dart as it had more internal space albeit as aerodynamic as a bin lid. I like the virtually bomb proof design of the Dart, it looks better for crashing whereas the Drift's a bit spindly.

I never crashed a plane in years. Why worry about crashing? The drift floats, needs little power and can fly for 60 mins on lithium ion. See last vid above. Its also stable and smooth, so long distance stuff, easy!

Looks like the FPV thing isn't viable for me as it would be a big investment and the chances of getting prosecuted are increasing as those stupid politicians tighten their grip on us. You didn't give me a ball park figure for setting up to do FPV, I'm struggling to see a use for it don't fancy LOS on those tiny ZHOD wings. Interesting though I'd like to try FPV but only if I'm permitted to go exploring and I'm not.

How much? From free with a gallon of petrol. To how much do you have? Like everything it all depends.

How do you fly discreetly if you don't know what defences they have to catch rule breakers? What's the chances of the authorities tracking someone down if they fly FPV beyond LOS? How do they catch you?

Right now they dont arrest people for buglaries, rape, gang rapes, or anything else. If they do, you get let off with a sud=spended sentence and a slapped wrist anyway. They are releasing murderers and rapists and terrorists from prisons because they have no places. And you think they can be bothered to try and understand drone laws, and find detection methods, or whatever? You are living on another planet.

I recall that RC modeller a few years ago who got arrested after the hoax Gatwick drone threats (that evaporated soon after the new CAA regs were implemented) and wondered if they tracked him down with scanners or found his name from a local club, they just needed a scapegoat. I believe police lost case in Court and he got compensated for unlawful arrest.

The only onesI know of that got in any trouble were those out to cause problems. Like the heathrow ones. Or that were posting their flights on youtube...

It's impressive that the technology is already out there but the regs don't allow its use in UK. How can you buy your latest Tx when it's ratings don't comply with UK law? I don't suppose companies like DJI can offer that grade of rc tech for UK sale?

I can and did buy 180mph superrbikes. I can buy a knife. I can buy all sorts of things that can be USED illegally. Its not the job of FrSKY to police the planet.
Different laws and rules in different areas of the world.

So they have different firmwares.
I can install the EU firmware. But we LEFT that right? It complies and is weak...
I can install the FCC firmware, that allows the US and world limits and frequencies.
I can install FLEX firmware. It allows my to choose on the menu. Going to the US? Choose FCC. France? EU/LBT. Etc.

[Burgerman]

And its not just about range.
If you have a system that CAN go 50 to 100km
(read the spec of this receiver carefully for an example) https://www.hobbyrc.co.uk/frsky-td-r10- ... d-receiver

Then that has huge advantages during the typical 1km line of sight flights too. It means that your 300mph £20k jet has as good a link, a great signal, even when its a dot on the horizon. So you wont find a dead area or a bit of interference.
Then having both 2.4ghz LoRa (long range) as well as a 900mhz LoRa link at the same time also means that you are immune to a sudden burst of interference because the other band takes over.

Its really about a super rock solid safe link. Even over an area like a city as your runway may be next to one.

That is acomplished with a super high sensitivity receiver. It doesent need the higher poweer.
So in the UK thats 100mW on 2.4. And 25mW on the 900 band. Those give you 10s of kilometers already. So setting these to 200, and 1000mW on top just means rather good range! Legality?

[Burgerman]

A TD receiver....


Features:

- Simultaneous working dual-band TD mode
- Triple antenna design for multi-directional coverage
- Black Box function
- Built-in voltage sensor
- 4ms Race Mode with Telemetry
- Long control range (up to 50KM – 100KM)
- Over-The-Air (OTA) FW update
- Supply current range（every single port）
- Instantaneous current:5A
- Continuous current:3A
10 Configurable Channel Ports
- CP1: PWM / SBUS Out / FBUS / S.Port / SBUS In
- CP2-10: PWM / SBUS Out / FBUS / S.Port

Specifications:

- Frequency: 2.4GHz & 900MHz
- Dimension: 46.5*26.3*14.7mm (L*W*H)
- Weight: 16.6g
- Operating Voltage: 3.5-10v DC
- Operating Current: ≤180mA@5V
- Compatibility: Tandem series transmitter & TD protocol capable RF module
- Triple 2.4G/900M Antenna
- 2* External 2.4G antenna (IPEX1)
- 1* External 900M antenna (IPEX1)