Lysander in Flight
After the first maiden flight that did not go exactly to plan causing slight damage, the wheel spats needed a small repair.
My misjudged landing approach was short of the landing patch, resulting in a summersault in the long grass.
All repaired now see the much better successful flight below.
This is the full flight
and one poor landing
Westland Lysander
My Lysander
Westland Lysander I made a start on this model at the start of lockdown this year 2020 it has taken many hours to complete and now is almost ready for its first test flight,
The photos are just some of the many reference pictures I have taken during the build they do give an indication of the complexity involved in the building of this model.
I have based the model on V9367 in the Shuttleworth Collection at the moment i have not replicated the drop tank and ladder.
The details below are from the Shuttleworth Collection website:-
The Lysander was built to a specification calling for a rugged, short-take-off-and-landing (STOL) aircraft for low-level reconnaissance and observation issued in 1934. Westland designed and built a rugged high wing monoplane with fixed spatted undercarriage. It had an exceptional field of view for both pilot and observer, and was armed with two forward firing machine guns and a machine gun fired from the rear cockpit. The first prototype flew in 1936 and production aircraft entered service in 1938. The Lysander entered service with the RAF as an army co-operation aircraft, replacing Hawker Audaxes and Hectors during 1939. However during the Battle of France in 1940, the Lysander proved too vulnerable to survive modern warfare and suffered some terrible losses. After 1940 Lysanders were used by Coastal Command on search-and-rescue missions. Lysanders were also built under licence in Canada and these aircraft were often used as targets tugs at the overseas training bases. The role that the Lysander is best remembered for is as a 'spy taxi', picking up and dropping secret agents behind enemy lines. For these operations, the aircraft were painted black and fitted with a long-range fuel tank beneath the fuselage and a ladder fixed to the side of the aircraft to allow the agents to enter and exit quickly. The Collection's Lysander was built in Canada and was used by the RCAF as a target tug serialled 2355. It was bought after the war by Wes Agnew a farmer, former RCAF instructor and collector of aircraft. In 1971 it was purchased by Sir William Roberts for the Strathallan Collection in Scotland. It arrived in the UK in October 1971 and was registered G-AZWT, and work commenced on restoring it. However, it was not until December 1979 that G-AZWT flew again, painted as V9441 a Lysander operated by No.309 (Polish) Squadron. It was grounded in 1986 and was purchased in 1998 by the Shuttleworth Collection. It has been fully restored, repainted and fitted with dummy long range fuel tank and ladder to represent V9367 / MA-B an aircraft of 161 Squadron, flown by Pilot Officer Peter Vaughan-Fowler on operation Apollo during the winter of 1942. In it's all-black colours, it makes an unusual sight in the skies over Old Warden and is the last airworthy example of this historic type.
site Update
Another revamp of my website in progress, please stick with me while i bring it up to date with a style that is more suited to mobile devices, the old one was not very phone friendly.
it’s making the old grey matter work overtime but I’m getting there slowly, should be worth the effort in the end (i hope)
so far so good do you like the new header
Mel’s photos
A few photos of a some of my RC planes sent to me by my friend and fellow DMFC club member Melvyn Hillman, great photos Mel thanks.
More 2016 Holiday Photos
Just managed to get around to sorting our Holiday Photos out, thats me on the ship all “scrubbed” up and ready for diner. more holiday photos may be found Here.
Just a few of the many holiday photos of our 14 night Italian Mediterranean cruise on Royal Caribbean INDEPENDENCE OF THE SEAS 04 June 2016
2016 Holiday
Just returned with friends Brian and Kim from Southampton, we have had a fabulous 14 night Italian Mediterranean holiday cruise on “Independence of the seas”, this was our second time on this Royal Caribbean Ship,
4 years have passed since we were last onboard, we don’t intend leaving it that long again Royal Caribbean know how to provide a wonderful holiday experience,
Ports of call were Gibraltar, Nice (Villefranche) France, Rome (Civitavecchia) Italy, Florence/Pisa(Livorno) Italy. Provence (Toulon) France, Malaga,Spain, Lisbon,Portugal.
Our dining group photo taken on the last night
contact Me
Oops my apologies for any one trying to contact me through this website the problem is now sorted.
I performed a routine check yesterday and found that mail was not reaching me even though it appeared to be sending ok, once again my apologies if you were expecting a response from me,
Im not sure how long the problems existed as it’s a wile since i last checked for errors.
Save money on your phone
Just found this useful app see below for info could save you loads of money
Oxford graduate Matt King has invented an app you won’t believe you survived without until now. WeQ4U is his creation and – although the average person wastes 45 hours a year waiting on the phone – it has more benefits than merely avoiding endless loops of irritating hold music.
Simply put, it is what is claims to be. It will staying queuing on hold for you so you can spend your time doing something else. When you’re through to someone it will automatically dial back and connect you.
As well as saving you time, the app saves you money in two ways – firstly, you don’t waste minutes while the app is queuing for you and secondly it replaces price premium rate numbers with standard national-rate calls included in your monthly allowance.
If you find yourself on hold, you just need to tap 9* and the app will take over and end the call until it automatically redials once someone’s ready. The only time you pay for the call is while you are navigating through the call centre menus or actually talking to someone. It even reconnects you if the line drops.
You’re probably aware from our comparison table just how much some networks charge for typical call centre numbers starting with 08. Because WeQ4U works on an 03 number, the calls are charged at the lowest rate and if you have a monthly bundle, they’re always included.
Even if you don’t get stuck on hold, it’s smart to use the app for 08 numbers in order to avoid exorbitant the mobile rates.
Matt King actually tried to get a £150,000 investment on the TV show Dragons’ Den but unfortunately none of the Dragons quite managed to comprehend the concept and ended up arguing against the problem WeQ4U actually solves. Luckily for him, he’s now making much more than because the app allows him to identify the call centres with the biggest queues and then sell them his WeQ4U 4 Business commercial product.
This is some pretty fancy software with tons of analytics to save companies money by reducing abandoned calls by about 90%. And it makes enough to offer the app completely free as well as to cover all the call charges for you.
So really it’s a win-win situation and it’s so easy to use and to save money there’s no reason not to use it. Let’s just quickly show how it works in practice.
You can use the service on any phone and any network but this tutorial is to use the Android appto make things even easier. The first thing we need to do is to open the app. And then simply just go ahead and type in the phone number we want to call. You can see here there’s an option to automatically use the app each time you dial an 08 number to help you save money in case you accidentally dial it on your normal dialler.
Once you’ve typed in the number you just need to press Call. The app is going to switch over to the normal Android dialler and start calling. Once the call’s connected, if you find yourself on hold just to press 9* and the app will take over.
It will then play a message telling you what to do and will automatically hang up for you then bring the app back up again. Then it will stay on hold showing you how long you’ve been queuing for and you can just put it on the table and ignore it until you’ve reached the front of the queue.
Once you have an agent pick up the phone WeQ4U will dial out and reconnect you. All of this is automatic having to press anything.
So that was WeQ4U, probably the easiest way to cut down on your phone bill and save time and stress. What are your other must-have apps? Let us know and we might cover them in our next video.
To change or not to change
That was a question I asked my self way back in August do I change my internet service provider, simple question you may think and so did I what could go wrong, not a lot I foolishly thought just a quick matter of trolling around the net for a good looking deal.
After all I have changed my Gas and Electricity suppliers numerous times in the past with out an hitch, just give them all the details and let them do all the work in the background.
Its got to be the same for my Internet connection surely?, Wrong Wrong Wrong very much wrong after sifting through all the available deals one seamed to stand out from the crowed for me, thats the one I thought “go for it”
A quick phone call and its job done.
Ho no its not, its actually taken more like 20 long phone calls and hours and hours of listening to rubbish music why some poorly trained operative does their best to frustrate you even more.
Its taken from the 26 August to today 5 November to get my new connection, it’s totally unbelievable the trouble I’ve had to go through you would not believe, I’ve been passed from department to department, operative to operative, cut off, had the promise to start my connection numerous times, I’ve provided them with three mac codes.
All failed until today I now have a new connection albeit not what i originally ordered but I have a connection and can you believe its more expensive than my previous supplier.
I have the promise they will change me over to the original package I ordered back in August soon, mmmmmmm
Thats Life.
PS. No I’m not going to tell there name on here but can you guess? pm me if you must know lol
I’m still here
It's a long time since my last post on here, all down to a small loss of interest I suppose but as the days are now getting shorter and the nights longer, I do so hate the winter months with the thought of all the colder weather.
The summer time was spent doing my other interests namely model flying plus a small amount of light duty gardening, the garden as never looked so colourful with the flower beds in bloom all summer long.
RC model flying and building keeps the grey matter ticking over nicely, its one of those hobbies you never stop learning, thats a story for another winters day!