Tag Archives: BMFA

Safety Rules

Posted on by

Flying a model plane is not an easy thing to do… much harder than driving a car.  How long does it take to pass a driving test?

It must be understood that probably none of our team (not even me 🙁 ) will get a chance to ever fly the real model as the real model can only be flown under the supervision of a British Model Flying Association (BMFA) instructor.

Under no circumstances will any members of the Mosaic Clubhouse be allowed to power on the plane without the presence of someone the BMFA would regard as of “trusted experience”.

The engine is about 450W of power… about as a much as this

Any tests during the building process requiring powering the receiver will be done without a propeller fitted on the engine.

The only time a propeller will be fitted on the engine will be in presence of a BMFA member.

THE MODEL WILL ONLY BE PERMITTED TO FLY UNDER SUPERVISION OF A BMFA INSTRUCTOR.

Even though members of the Mosaic Clubhouse won’t be able to fly the actual model, we’ll make every effort to put together a version we can fly on a simulator (X-plane free is limited to 10min flying… the competition is 10min 🙂 )  If we do well on the simulation, there is always a chance we’ll be able to convince a BMFA instructor we could have the commands for a few minutes 🙂

After speaking with Terry Eato (Club Support Officer BMFA) I have no doubt we will have, that day, a pilot to fly the plane at it’s best.  To honour all those people paid with a smile, who are so candidly offering their help, we’ll have to build the nicest and smoothest plane to fly that day!

Thanks you for reading this 🙂

AIRCRAFT CONFIGURATION

Posted on by

E.3    AIRCRAFT CONFIGURATION
E3.1    Only fixed wing designs will be permitted to enter the competition. The maximum total wingspan is to be 1500mm.
E3.2    Propulsion unit is to consist of one E-flight Power 10 motor and one E- flight 40A speed controller (available at cost direct from the BMFA office). The battery must be a 3 cell Lithium Polymer with a capacity not to exceed 2500 mAH, the pack must have the manufacturers label with the capacity shown. A separate battery may be used to power the aircraft’s radio receiver. No modification to the motor is permitted.
E3.3    Only one flight battery may be used per flying round.
E3.4    A propeller spinner or rounded safety nut must be fitted on forward facing motors.

Budget

Posted on by

The budget we have to start with is of £746.
With this we have to build at least one plane… and I think it would be a good idea to actually build two!
I think we should build a prototype before we start building the one that will fly on the actual competition day.

Power

First we should buy two engines + controllers from the BMFA.

  • Eflight 40amp speed controller £32.19 (rrp £72.00)
  • Eflight Power 10 motor £22.07 (rrp £49.00)
  • total: £54.28  (+ shipping?)
  • Order to be sent to <admin [at] bmfa.org> addressed to Julie Cole.
  • Props: 9×6 ??

Batteries

  • 2x 2500 3S Lipo

Building materials

Foam

I’ll look at good deals to by some EPP foam blocks. still needing to math out the volume and quality needed.

Balsa

Glue

  • Epoxy (slow + fast)
  • uhu foam glue

Carbon

  • 8x 10mm x 1m carbon tubes

Radio equipment

Servos

note: could be we can have a few standard size servos from the Thamesmead Model Club

Stefano Peria

Posted on by

I met Antony in Ruskin Park flying one of his planes, I got chatting with him and it gave me the idea of starting a model building and flying club. I heard of a project called Make Me Smile Again through The Maudsley Hospital they were offering up to £750 for projects that could promote improve mental health through doing something fun and different, Antony told me about the BMFA competition and I thought it was a great challenge and I applied for the Make Me Smile Again project and told them what we wanted to do and the gave us the funding 🙂