I thought that we could do with an update on what is going on with CL speed in 2021, but would we have enough to report on? By the time I had collected all of the news together I was staggered at the amount of activity. So lets kick off.
Aeromodeller
The February 2021 issue of Aeromodeller has the first of two articles by Dick Hart on pulse jet speed, we understand that the March 2021 issue has a feature on the very fast Swiss F2G electric speed models and we are pretty certain that the second part of the Dick Hart series on pulse jet speed will be featured in the April 2021 issue, this part of the article has a fully detailed plan for building both Sport Jet and Fast Jet versions of Dick Harts Blue Thunder model.
I don’t think we have seen this intensity of CL speed coverage in Aeromodeller for many years, long may it continue.
New Sport Jet Competitors.
We have been very pleased to see new competitors in Sport Jet last year, Ollie Witt is a great RC pilot who flew CL whilst at school (not that long ago) he took to Sport Jet like the proverbial duck to water in 2020. Ollie is an aeronautical design engineer working in the UAV business. One of Ollies colleges Michael Toyer is taking up Sport Jet in 2021 and they have pooled resources to build themselves a batch of Blue Thunder Sport Jet models.
These guys are young and are working in a very forward thinking company, Michael needed to learn 3D CAD as part of his career enhancement and the company allowed him to practise and ‘upskill’ in company time by creating a 3D model of the Blue Thunder. Logically once that model was completed Ollie and Michael decided to CNC machine the wings to section (not just plan form profile) using the companies CNC machines.
Blue Thunder 3D solid model.
The guys use a CNC Step High Z router made in Germany and programming and g code for the machine is done with BobCAM within Solidworks
CNC sectioned Basswood Blue Thunder wing.
It is great to see these new competitors bringing their skills and ideas from their work place into CL speed, we would expect to see other interesting developments from this team.
PCPJ Spinners
One of the items that has been more difficult to obtain in recent years has been decent aluminium spinners, PCPJ Dick Hart have secured decent supply levels of ‘Made in USA’ spinners, take look in the for sale section at Dick Harts items for more details.
Composite Weatherman fuselages
Ian Rustler and his long term friend Jimbo Hammond decided to do a composite Weatherman fuselage a little while back, Jim lives in Taiwan and produces many composite RC gliders but still retains a grass roots interest in competition CL modelling and hence the Weatherman project came into being.
Unfortunately for personal reasons Jim will not be able to fulfil the forward orders for these fuselages but he has generously allowed me (Bazzer) to produce the fuselages and distribute as required, when the moulds get here from Taiwan I will mould one fuselage to Jim’s specification, more details to follow.
In the workshops
A quick update on a few other things that are going on in Open speed.
OS 60’s prepared by Dick Hart.
Dick is a former US Nats champion in 65 Speed, he has applied his normal commitment to an OS 60 programme in the UK, Dick has commissioned new 60 size piston sleeve sets from the Ukraine, manufactured by someone recommended by Alex Osovik from Profi, the same contractor has also produced new connecting rods for these engines. Dick has then commissioned within the UK new exhaust stubs in two different sizes and matching mini pipes.
Initial bench testing has been very encouraging with the new piston sleeve sets matching Dicks best bench RPM figures pretty well straight off the bat !!
Jets under construction
Baz has had a few Jet models under construction for a little while now, here we see 2 x Blue Thunder Sport Jets and one Fast jet having the outer wings attached at the Pylon Line workshops, note the use of an engineers surface table (could have easily been done on a piece of granite kitchen worktop). The Fast Jet is for Dick Hart (does he need any more models!) but this will have a Baz paint job and some trick machined fittings, one of the Sport jets is for Baz’s personal consumption and the other is for an undisclosed recipient.
FEA of bellcrank mounts
A bit of simple FEA engineering on one part of a Sport jet bellcrank mount, very reassuring to know that it had massive reserves of strength.
Covid 19 and flying
We remain pretty confident that competition flying will resume soon, lets hope for sometime in May, we expect to run an Open speed meeting very soon after government restrictions permit this to go ahead GET BUILDING AND PREPARING.
That is all for now, more soon.