Finally maidened the KK Phantom tonight. Had about 5 flights in total, of which I flew 2. Sadly towards the end of the second flight I got a bit dizzy and, well, it didnt end well 🙂

I’ve updated the page for it with details of the damage. I’ll try and repair it!

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.

The OS 81 four stroke turned up a couple of weeks ago, I promptly ordered a new prop and a prop nut for it, then it was mounted on my test bench and run up. As you can see in the video below, it runs just fine! I put a couple of tanks through it, which it handled without any complaints. Now its mounted in the front of the Acro Wot, which I’m close to finishing.

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!