christchurch and district model flying club

Brian’s spitfire

I have been inspired by B. Leonard Wise and his attempt to fly a Spitfire. When I was at an Air show some time ago I succumbed and bought an ARTF box which contained a Spitfire. The price was low so I had a bargain. I will not say how much it cost in case this document falls into the wrong hands.

It was Jamara, semi-scale model

.

The Jamara Spitfire, from their Website

 I got it home opened the box to find that the instructions were in a foreign language. Now I speak English and Suffolk which has been enough to get me through a fairly long life. Education in Suffolk in my day.was perhaps not so advanced as in other places. I always understood that English people spoke English and foreign people spoke Foreign. So if you needed to speak to a foreigner you needed to learn Foreign., Some of you may still think this. Imagine my surprise when in my late 30s I discovered that there are many foreign languages and each country seemed to have one of its own.

Anyway I took the instructions to my Grandson then aged 14 who claimed to be learning Fremanish. He said he has to learn French, German and Spanish and they all get so confused so the subject gets called Fremanish. He looked at the instructions and pronounced them to be in German. The only thing I needed to know was where the Centre of Gravity was and with the help of his Dictionary we worked that out.

ARTF's are quite easy to put together even with German instructions, so I won't tell you about fitting the Wings and Tail all of which went on well. In case you cannot remember, the Wings are the large ones near the front and the Tail is at the back. I have seen model Spitfires flying and they all look much better with a retractable undercarriage, so I decided to fit one here. It took more time than the rest of the plane to fit it. I expect you know how they work. This was a mechanical one.

The wheels fold outward and they are on legs which go into a metal block. There is a wire going outward. When you pull it the Wheels go up when you push it they come down. Somehow they either stay up or down unless you pull or push the wire. The Servo has to be a strong one and this fits under the middle of the wing. .It has a wheel which turns through 180 degrees. I needed to fit a stiff wire which went from the servo, past the undercarriage and connected to the wire attached to the undercarriage. Then when the Servo was moved the wire would either push or pull the wheels up or down.

Very simple in theory but difficult to actually do. It has to be exactly right or the wheels will not quite go up or come down. Mine looked alright on the ground eventually, but in the air due to turbulence one would not stay up. So more .adjustments were needed. In the end they went up and stayed there and down and stayed there. The test would be when it was landed. Would the thump on the ground make the wheels go up and damage the plane?  Also the actual fitments into the wing was much more flimsy than I am used to, and they could easily tear out on landing, as at Beaulieu there is a strip of grass down the middle of the Runway and if you hit a horse or cow footprint it will tear the wheels out of the plane. (sounds like Stanpit – Ed).

So to the Flying. It is semi-scale which means that to me it looks like a Spitfire, maybe a bit stubby and not quite so sleek as I remembered. To the expert, the tail is too big and the wings are fatter than they should be. Who cares: beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I powered it with a 90 O.S. fourstroke, which sounded like a Merlin... Yes it did. Well a small Merlin. (A Kestrel? – Ed)

Because of my advanced age and retarded flying skills I asked my friend Ian Hammond to test fly it. It went very well. When I took it over it would loop and roll but at a dignified pace not like a fun flyer. It was a pleasure to fly. When it came time to land it I asked Ian to do that because most of my landings are good but occasionally the runway moves, or there appears a bump which throws the plane into the air again. No one else is clever enough to find these bumps. I turned the knob to bring down the wheels and down they came. Ian brought it in, in a flat descent and it landed well and joy of joys the wheels stayed down .It ran over the runway and all was well. Next time I took it off and flew it. It really is a pleasure to fly but I could not bring myself to land it. Ian said it was easy. But he always says that.

I have got one up on B Leonard Wise and actually flown a Spitfire. There is something about this plane, even a semi-scale one which has a touch of Magic about it. I certainly enjoyed flying it.

In fit of madness I have bought the D.H Comet Racer kit. 88 inch wingspan. I can just get it in the car provided the wife walks behind. Compressed Air retracts. My Goodness.. I shall have many happy hours putting it together and several worried minutes flying it.

Brian Wiseman Jan 2007

back to Contents

[Contents] [Chairman's Chatter] [Editorial] [Diary of a Flier] [Sealand Flies!] [Nietoperz] [Brian's Spitfire] [C&F 2007] [Seagull Arising] [Harry Spotter's] [St Louis Blues]