Before I start let me say I’m a complete beginner with model boats, I have been building and flying planes and helis for a while. So what got me into this boat lark?

I have a toddler (~3years old) who we quite often take to the children’s play area in a local park; Broomfield Park here in London. On the way to the kids area there is a fairly well attended model boat club using what I believe to be a purpose built boating lake which dates from many years ago. He loves watching the little boats on the pond, seemingly more interested in them than my noisy planes! One day my wife suggested I build him a little boat, well how could I refuse!

I’m a great fan of vintage model aircraft, and while flipping through a ’70s vintage Keil Kraft catalogue I found a selection of boats from the Aerokit range, a bit of googling later lead me to the Vintage Model Boat Company, (who are no more, having been bought by SLEC). They produce laser cut kits of some of this range. Not being one to think things through completely before diving in! I soon found myself in possession of a Sea Nymph kit 🙂

So this is how I got here, the rough plan is to try and use a 7.2v buggy NiMH pack and a receiver out of a car I no longer use. The kit came with a 385 (I think?) motor and I have a spare 9g mini servo. So I’ll need a rudder, prop shaft, prop and ESC.

Being mostly a thing for my kid to play with I dont intend to go to town on detailing. Simple but nicely done is sort of what I’m aiming for!

This is a scan of the KK catalogue.

You can read through all the posts about the Sea Nymph build here.

I have been keen to have a ride on this new cable car ever since I first heard it was being built. Well today was the day, off  we went down to Docklands for a return trip on the cable car. It is brilliant, I loved it! I was amazed by how little it sways around despite the relatively high wind today. Also it is almost silent as it goes along so you get a lovely peaceful view of London from the air.

Like the London Eye it never stops, so you have to get on it whilst it is in motion, ok for those of us that can walk but was a bit of a challenge with the Phil & Teds buggy!  On the return trip they had to stop it while we were suspended in the middle of the river, as it came to a stop it swayed quite a lot which was a bit of a weird feeling 🙂

I shot a few bits of video which you can see below.

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About 10 months ago after many many flights on my 120 SR and feeling the need to move to a cyclic heli, I bought a Blade 450 3D . Being a newbie I didn’t know about levelling the smash plate, so the first time I spun it up she tipped over and scuffed the blades quite badly. The head speed was so much higher than the 120 it all scared me enough to leave it in its box for nearly a year.

So who knows why, but tonight I figured I ought to try it again. I forgot the training gear so just had to go for it. Well I’m pleased to report my first three flights on a cyclic heli went without any unplanned arrivals. It nearly got away from me while being overly confident ad trying a circuit but I caught in time. More hovering practice before circuits I think!

I’m writing a proposal today, which always makes me think of this scene from Yes, Minister. (Season 1, Episode 6):

There are four words you have to work into a proposal if you want it to be accepted:

• Quick
• Simple
• Popular
• Cheap

And equally there are four words to be included in a proposal if you want it thrown out:

• Complicated
• Lengthy
• Expensive
• Controversial

And if you want to make really sure the proposal is not excepted you must say the decision is courageous. I also find the word brave works wonders to a nervous project manager.

Bit of tidying up has occurred:

• I’ve added RC, FreeFlight and CL sub categories to Models->Aircraft and Electric, Nitro to Models->Cars.
• Also moved all the old models I no longer own to Historic->Model. And added a list to the bottom of the Historic index page.
• DB Mini Tyro - Moved the build out into a separate page. And added a table of specs at the top. I’m going to try and have a specs table for every model I build, it is useful meta data that I never remember to store anywhere else.
• Weasel - now has a specs table.
• Cambrian P51 - now has a specs table.

So there was a time when I’d rise on a Saturday a good while after that weekends episode of Home Truths had finished. Then something happened: Kids turned up.

This last weekend we de-camped to the Isle of Wight to have the kids christened on the Sunday, but also to give the toddler a treat and visit the steam railway for their ‘Day out with Thomas’ special on the Saturday.

The schedule was as follows:

• 07:00 - wake up, Toddler up, all of us in one room = all of us up
• 08:00 - everybody dressed, go for breakfast
• 08:45 - prepare to leave for Ryde
• 09:00 - leave (7 mile bomb down some country lanes)
• 09:20 - drop Jen off to browse some charity shops and get a picnic
• 09:30 - Tescos for petrol
• 09:40 - pick up Jen
• 09:45 - Pop into see the Sister in Law, leaving the youngest with her for the day
• 10:20 - Leave for Havenstreet (another 4 mile bomb down some lanes)
• 10:30 - meet friends and enjoy Thomas and steam trains
• some semi-relaxing
• 16:00 - Leave Havenstreet for Ryde
• 16:15 - Chill out at the Sister in Laws for a bit.
• 16:30 - Mother in Law rings she has arrived at the hotel, so its back to Newport to pick her up.
• 16:50 - Find the MIL, head back to Ryde.
• 17:15 - Arrive back at Sister in Laws’ place. Pick up wife and youngest, leaving toddler
• 17:30 - Arrive at restaurant (in Ryde) with Jen, Youngest, MIL and meet father, who thankfully made his own way there
• 19:16 - Dinner finished leave Ryde for Newport (fourth trip between the two towns today)
• 20:00 - Get youngest ready for bed and settled, move travel cot (and Youngest) to the MILs room
• 20:10 - Go out of hotel and find a pub, with Jen and NO KIDS!
• 22:30 - sleep. bit tired now.

Sunday was slightly less manic, but involved Church and no trains. Can’t have everything I suppose!

I think life is better with kids, but I’m a bit too tired to think properly right now.

For a while now I’ve been meaning to explore a way of protecting wings from damage whilst sat around my office and also in transit. The poor mini tyro had a Wot 4 aileron servo horn go through the wing covering, which was the last straw!

I had a bit of a google and found that a lot of the commercial wing bags seem to be bubble wrap with sort of tinfoil material sandwiched in.  Thanks to a few people on a friendly forum this lead me to a roll of material from Homebase which is offered as thin insulation. For use in tight spaces, behind radiators and the like. So off to the local DIY stores it is then! I struck out at Homebase but did stumble across this stuff at Wickes.

Out of the one 8 meter roll I’ve managed to make bags for: an Acro Wot, Wot 4, Cambrian P51 (25 sized funfighter) and of course, the mini Tyro.

I was warned gaffer tape didnt stick very well, so took the opportunity to grab a roll of what was sold as cloth tape.

I simply measure out two rectangles for the two sides of the wing, then joined them together by running tape along three edges. To strengthen the exposed edges at the open end I also wrapped tape over each side so there are no exposed edges.

Sliding in a wing with aileron servos sticking out requires a little care to ensure the horn or control rods don’t snag inside of the bag.

Total cost to protect the four wings was about 15 for the material and 5 for the tape which has loads left for next time.  For me an hour and 20 quid to protect four wings in storage and in transit is well worth it!

We were trying to get the entire set of these at the weekend so I had a bit of a hunt around for any sites listing the dotcodes for them, sadly I couldnt find anything so we took a punt. Out of the 9 we bought we ended up with 2 duplicates, although when I inspected the packets more closely at home I should have spotted them as duplicates. Oh well! Listed below are the dot codes for the ones we found:

Update

We just received the Boxer, so I’ve updated the image below to reflect that

Update 2 - 2012-0707

Thanks to James in the comments for pointing out the Hurdler is in fact a Gymnast.

Dot codes

Worth mentioning these are all looking at the back of the packs, the line down the middle represents the middle of the packet (where the colour change is).

1. Archery

2. Boxing

3. Gymnast

4. Judo

5. Tennis - Missing

6. Weight Lifting

7.Runner - Missing

8. Swimmer

9. Jockey

As you can see some are blank, I dont yet have those!

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I spotted this bargain while browsing some of the traders at Wings and Wheels on Saturday, it looks a bit similar to the Sukhoi, which admitedly I didnt get on very well with. However, it was only £40! My thinking was, if I didn’t like flying it as it is then given the enjoyment I recently had building the S-Pou and LiddleRod I could always butcher it for the electronics. I’d be lucky if I can even buy a AR6400 for £40, so I’m onto a winner either way!

It has its own page here, but not a lot of content as yet!