avro shackleton mk111

well i have had to cut the phenolic tubes in the fuselage in half and then glue an angled ply brace under them to set the angle correctly.
when they have all set again, the plan is to box the tubes in and then use some carbon fibre tube to act as an internal stiffener, then the wings will be bolted to the fuselage to add more strength.

but i have lost heart with the build at the moment as it has been a struggle to get parts sorted, plus i have been trying to sell some stuff to raise the funds needed for the motors and retracts before i can get the next stage of the build sorted.

if some of the plans i have festering work out for me, i hope to have enough money to get cracking again in october with the aim of finishing the build this year.
tony.

All we can say then Tony is: "Best of luck with your festering plans!" :lol: :lol:

Tony,
From last night's chat, the dihedral is 2 degrees, have you gone full span with that, or are the spars positioned such that the centre span has no dihedral, as from what I can see of some of the plans in various places, the wing between the inner nacelles has zero dihedral, and if the inner nacelle is at 2 degrees, it's possibly going to cause pain with the landing gear not then being vertical.
Cheers

Steve

sorry Steve i miss understood what you were asking.
on my model there was an error in cutting the wing ribs, meaning that the centre section of the wing had 2 degrees of anhedral, the solution was to angle the wing to take it out and bring it back to normal.
you won't need to do it as the revised ribs have been cut right and will keep the centre section flat while the tips will have the right dihedral.

Tony,
Thanks, that's excellent news then, in that it saves me lots of strife, and will only need the correct box in the centre section to hold the spars at the right angle. Might need to check with Dylan that the ribs I have are correct, but it won't be an issue as such, if they are wrong, I can get them added to the nacelle sets, as I haven't got them or the tail feathers yet..

Was looking at the shackleton video in the cafe section just now, 18 in the air over Buck House one time, I suspect that took more than a little overtime to get so many in the air together, from comments I've seen about snags and the like, they were maintenance intensive.

We need to start thinking about how we're going to do the modelling equivalent of the BBMF this summer with the Lancasters, multiple Growlers in the air together will be a sight worth seeing, especially if we can work out how to do some pyrotechnic magic, which will be easier than it used to, as 2.4 radios can have more than one receiver bound to them at the same time, so a channel dedicated to firing pyro devices on the ground as the dropped dummy bomb lands should look good . As long as the dummy is reasonably close, to coin the old phrase, "you can fool some of the people................" Three channels, One to select the right device in the aircraft, one to activate the release, and one to fire the right device on the ground, relatively easy compared to some things.

Won't be happening this year, that's for sure, but as for 2015, who knows. Maybe the Modelchat fly in next year.....

Cheers

Steve

Tony,

Been looking into the landing gear issues, and came across this page which has some very helpful pictures of the landing gear structure and layout

www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/t...148th-windows/page-4

Hope it helps when the time is right.

Cheers

Steve

If you can find that video I posted of the Shackletons, there is a close-up of the landing gear being extended and retracted, with the craft 'on the blocks', so you can see how it works.

found it - www.modelchat.org.uk/forum/thecafe/106-t...gh?start=10725#60566

Tony,

I bookmarked this site a few months ago, but it didn't work for me a few days ago, so I didn't post the link, I've just checked again now, and it's back again, and it might make things a lot easier and cheaper if the size is right, depending on overall costings. I don't know if that means it's shut down out of hours, or if it was just a short term glitch in the web somewhere, but if it's back, and they are available, then it's worth talking about in the wider audience of this thread.

www.contragearbox.com/home

I'd be interested in your thoughts on it, both in relation to the power it can transmit, and the size, my impression is that if we could use 4 motors rather than 4 contra motors, which would also then only mean 4 ESC's rather than 8, and less wiring etc to worry about. The contra motors are also not widely available, whereas as I understand it, these gearboxes can and will work with pretty much any standard outrunner, which has to be a useful option, given how cheap "standard" outrunners are compared to the contra motors.

Cheers

Steve

Steve
Looked at the above, at $169 (£100) + customs,VAT & postage each I think the HK contra motors with ESCs would be cheaper.

The HK contra motors are not cheap, and more worrying, they have just gone out of stock, which would make me nervous that they might be not selling well, so being quietly dropped from the range, which would be unhelpful. I've been watching them for a while, and the stock levels have not been high for a while. The problem with HK is that they're not likely to be forthcoming on their future stocking policy, which could be a significant factor for the future of the model, if we can't be sure that the motor will continue to be available, that's a major issue. The same is true for the gearbox, but from the drawings on the site, it will be easier to find a company to make a similar device than finding another company to make a dual core outrunner., the design concept of the box is remarkably simple, although not completely visible in the drawings and part schedule that's on the site.
The HK dual core motors are $120 or so, which is a LOT more than a single spindle outrunner, and the extra cost of the ESC has to be added, so the differential is not as massive as it first appears to be, and using a gearbox opens up a lot of other motor options in terms of power and speed, which may be helpful.

It's worth a look in terms of the longer term possibilities, which is why I've put it into the frame.

Cheers

Steve

Tony,

You have seen this, but in case some of the other people following the thread didn't,

www.modelchat.org.uk/forum/fixed-wing-el...-as-we-know-it#61092

Post No 7, there's a picture in there of a contra system that would be CHEAP & EASY to replicate. Yes, I know it's a lot smaller than we need, but hey, it's an alternative that may be worth looking at.

Cheers

Steve

Folks,

I am writing this in sadness rather than anger, but I now need to let the membership here know what has transpired over the last 12 months.

As most of you will know, for a number of complex reasons, Tony stopped work on the Shackleton that he was building in cooperation with Dylan Reynolds at Lasercraft.

What wasn't mentioned at the time was that I was supposed to also be building one, with a friend who used to work on the full size aircraft.

Unfortunately, my plans are now also going to have to be abandoned, as despite months of e-mail exchanges, and mediation from a third party, I have been completely unable to get the remaining parts for our aircraft from Dylan, and the current position is that he has not responded to a mail asking for movement.

I am left with the situation where in good faith, I paid a fair price for a kit of ribs, which was at that time incomplete. I have been completely unable to get the missing parts, and still don't have usable drawings to enable us to assemble what we do have.

As far as I am concerned, Dylan's conduct in this has been dishonourable and unprofessional, and as a result, I want to warn the membership here to be very careful about future dealings with Lasercraft, as Dylan has significantly failed to deal with what should have been simple issues in a sensible timescale.

This is not about money, I have made it more than clear on a number of occasions that I am prepared to pay for the missing items, it's about a completely broken relationship that is clearly now beyond mending.

I must point out that this post was sent to me by Steve to ascertain that no forum rules were broken.

After checking I can categorically state that no rules have been broken

Garry

Tony's model was returned to Dylan, ( I did get involved at that time in discussions with a view to buying it from Tony), and there's been zero progress on it since that time, which is now nearly 12 months ago. There were some issues, related to wind dihedral, but they were not insurmountable.

I've ended up with no tail ribs, (which should have been identical to the ones that were produced for Tony) and a number of critical wing ribs in the nacelle areas not supplied, and no drawings that give me the correct build dimensions for the wings. That's going to make it a LOT harder for us to put it together..

I will find a way to use what I have to make a Shackleton, if for no other reason than I want to make it happen with the friend who used to work on the full size machines in the RAF a long time ago. It will now have to be without any involvement or acknowledgement of Lasercraft going forward, as Dylan clearly doesn't want to engage with me any more..

I am aware that Dylan has had problems with his external work environment, and been under pressure with a new job, but I wasn't looking for him to provide anything for free, there was always an understanding that the outstanding ribs would be paid for, but it's proved impossible to get things back on track, when you wait over a month for an E-mail that was promised within a week, you know that things have gone badly wrong.

We will make it happen, if nothing else, there are old plans on line for a 60" control line version that can be scaled, and I have a printer that can cope with that here, but it will for sure make it more difficult to produce this model, and with how far Tony had got, the bits I needed should not have been an issue to produce.

Such is life, but I am very sure that I want make sure that no one else in this community is burnt by Dylan's failures, he has failed us very badly with this project, so it's important for me to make sure that no one else is caught in the same way.

It would be appreciated if this thread could be left for just Steve and Dylan to post on as this is a matter that only 3 peeps know the full story, and unfortunately one of them is me

Garry