Hangar Talk – April 2026

At last some flying activity at the field and plenty of work done on the strip.

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Club Day – Saturday April 18

Due to the work being carried out on the strip, it was decided to postpone the scheduled Club Day on April 11, until the following Saturday. The early weather forecast was for light winds (9kph) in the morning and continuing into the afternoon. I arrived at around 10:15 and the winds were a bit variable, with the occasional light gust coming through. There were 12 in attendance – Alan J, George & Kerry, Greg R, Mark H, Max W, Meilin H, Mick G, Richard C, Vince B and our newest member, Bertie Doble with his Mum Sophie.

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I mentioned in the last HT that Bertie was assisted by our newest instructor in Bob L, as Bob was not there today and Max had not yet turned up. Step in Vince B. Vince was a great help to Bertie, firstly Vince spent some time sorting out Bertie’s model. The radio was on Mode 2 but all our instructors are Mode 1. Being an unfamiliar radio, it took a little time to change the Mode on the radio. The radio had a sprung nosegear and this proved problematic on the grass, so Vince opted for a hand launch. The model flew quite well but being small and lightweight, it was not ideally suited for the conditions. A second flight and Bertie spent more time on the sticks. Unfortunately, he got in a little trouble and handed the radio back to Vince, but it was too low for Vince to recover it. A bit of damage resulted but nothing that couldn’t be fixed.

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Meilin brought along her new model, a Sky Raider. Not in the standard tricycle undercarriage but now as a taildragger (modified by Vince). As Meilin’s chief test pilot, Vince flew the model, and in typical Vince fashion, he was not content with flying this “trainer” model as it was designed to do, he had it screaming up the strip, a few metres off the ground INVERTED! As Max said, Vince is quite happy to ring out anyone else’s plane on its maiden flight. Of course the model couldn’t be in better hands, as Vince is a very capable pilot, no matter what the model. Meilin’s only concern was that she wanted it back in one piece as she was very proud of the covering of the model, which is the only part of building she enjoys. I think we can all agree, Meilin has done a great job with the covering – love the dragon!

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Not to be outdone, Mick brought one of his new models, a FMS “Maule”. This is a semi scale electric model, with the following specifications:

• Wingspan 1500mm
• Overall Length 1100mm
• Flying Weight 1871g
• Motor Size 3541 KV1050
• ESC 40A
• Servo 9g x 7
• Prop Size 11×7
• Recommended Battery 11.1v or 14.8v 2200 -3300mah

It’s amazing the scale detail that can be included with the foam models. At a “stand-off” scale view, you’d be hard pressed to see this as a foam model, such is the detail; wing vortices, rivets all round, antennas, lighting, and a pilot. The cynics might say, being electric “it’s missing the sound!”. A sound card could be added to remove that debate. Mick mentioned this is the first time he has flown at a club day for quite a while (and many more to come Mick!) Mick said the model flew quite well, but he felt the 2200mAh battery had insufficient capacity as it only gave him around 3½ minutes of flight time, so he has some 3000mAh batteries on order.

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A welcome return to the field was Mark H, our resident professional photographer. Mark was again busy with his camera and can you believe it, took over 800 shots on the day. Mark said he would go home and sort out the best ones to post on the club’s Facebook page. Sorting through 800 shots? I’d need more than a few hours to do that. Here is a compilation of some of the shots Mark took that with his permission, I have downloaded from FB. (I’ve included a few I took, including one of the man himself, Mark – who is usually hiding behind the lens).

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And here is a short video of some flying on the day (It was hard to keep up with Vince’s Corsair as it streaked across the skies!)

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Flying Strip

UPDATE: Mick collected my spreader and spiked harrows on March 28, and at around 10:30 we headed off to the strip to run the harrows over the ground to loosen the surface in preparation for sowing the seed. Ron kindly let us use his 4 wheel motorbike for the task, and this made the job so much easier. Next the hopper was attached to the mower and 40kgs of grass seed was spread, followed by DAP fertiliser, provided by Ron. Then we ran over the strip with a gate that I use for levelling the surface where soil has been spread. Once done, we ran the irrigation for 90 minutes to bed the seed in. Max also attended for a few hours to see if he could assist. Thanks Max. We finished at around 6:30pm – what a day!
The newly sown grass seed is doing the job, filling in all the gaps between the drill rows etc. The next step was Ron running over all the irrigated area with the 20 tonne roller. He did this on April 16 and the result was promising! Club Day on April 18, would be when members would see for themselves. The questions then came before Club Day. Meilin sent me a text on Vince’s behalf asking if the strip –
Hi George, was just wondering if you had any info on the condition of the strip, not for me, Vince is worried about his retracts, I’ll convince him to take a fixed undercarriage, if it’s gonna be possibly a bit rough for him 😊

This is a very valid question, and no doubt one that has crossed the minds of a few members. Not willing to give any guarantees, I replied –

Hi MeiLin,
It is still a work in progress but we have resowed and fertilised all the gaps in the grass a couple of weeks ago. When we did that, we ran some harrows over the strip to try and break up the “ridges”. The strip was mowed on Tuesday, Ron put the heavy roller on yesterday afternoon and Mick mowed again today. In Mick’s words “The rolling has made an improvement on our irrigated area. Looks the best it has for a long time” We are not finished of course. Once the new grass has established, Ron will bring some sandy loam and roll again to further level the strip and we will roll again. We are confident that we are on the right track, with the irrigated area being our focus for improvement and levelling. Having said all that, I think it is best that Vince checks it out and makes his own mind up. If we are not up to scratch yet, we will get there soon, we just need the new grass to get established before the next phase. I hope Vince understands we are working as quickly as we can. Something we couldn’t do until we had the irrigation.
Cheers,

Vince arrived on Club Day and said he was very impressed with the progress on the strip and said it was “Excellent”. Phew!!

The committee is confident that, when completed, we should have the best flying strip and surrounds in the State.

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Mick Green’s Sopwith Land Clerget Tractor

Mick has provided some more progressive photos of the build of his Sopwith Land Clerget Tractor, previously reported in the October and March HT. Mick has hand fabricated all this and the quality of his workmanship is excellent. In these days of ARF’s, foamies etc. (and there is nothing wrong with those), it is still nice to see the original craftsmanship still exists. Well done Mick!

Click the < or > to scroll through the images.

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Models for Sale

Dave and Chris still have a couple of models for sale – check them out here

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From the Archives

I thought some of our newer members and some old ones too, might like to look back on the club history, so I am including links to copies of our paper newsletter, “Prop Torque”. Starting off this month with May 2001. At the end of the newsletter, you can see how many competitions we once ran every month.

June2001

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From the World Wide Web

Another tip from the web, this time on throttle usage. This is mainly targeted at the newer pilots but others may benefit too.

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Well that’s it for another month. Hopefully you found it interesting. 😊 A reminder too that the 2026 AGM, will be held at the clubhouse on Saturday, June 20 at 10:30am. The usual BBQ will follow. Flying is permitted on the day, but preferably before or after the AGM. The AGM will go ahead, regardless of the weather. There

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Don’t Forget – Put a Spark in your life and fly electric!
George