Anyway, today was the first clear day, so a bit of fuel and it’s away !

This is the first time I’ve flown a control line plane for about twenty years, so it’s a bit erratic The other problems were the garden was a bit small so the lines are too short and the fuel pickup didn’t seem to be working very well, hence the stuttering.

I’m kind of glad I crashed in the end, as I was getting dizzy. Longer lines next time.

It’s totally bizarre that I can’t buy locally and any French online companies that do mail order supplies for modelling/Cox parts are twice the price and take twice as long to arrive. Mad.

Typically, it’s blowing a gale outside, so no test flights. But I can test the motor.

The Cox engines I have came from EBay, and did not have the integral fuel tank, so I’ve had to fashion a motor mount of some L-bar aluminum with a slot cut for the air and fuel intakes.

Very annoyingly, I did not bother to order any 5×3 propellers or small tanks at the same time. I expected to source them locally, but I’ve been to every model shop within an hour of here and nothing.

So, ordered online, and just waiting on the postman for the props and fuel tanks.

I had to make the bellcrank from some spare plastic. The leadout wires are from some fishing tackle with little clips on the end.

The leadout guide was made from some spare plywood and epoxied into a slot in the foam wing.

Next job – painting.

The edges of the platter and leading edge of the fin I squashed with a knife handle and filled with glue. The paper went a bit rippled, so maybe next time I won’t bother.

Just fixed on the fin and started the elevator. Slightly different to the original plans I used a couple of small plastic hinges, cut a slot in the foam and glued them in place with wood glue and a retaining cocktail stick.

The elevator edge which joins to the body I added a 45^o chamfer top and bottom to prevent fouling.

Yes I did wipe the excess glue off

I stumbled across these plans and instructions for building the Osbourne Platter. After a quick purchase of an engine on E-Bay I bought some foam board a bit of plywood and started.

The glue needs to dry overnight, so I’ll let you know how I get on over the next few days.

I had sailing lessons as a kid and did a bit of yacht sailing about 10 years ago, which was great fun, but nothing more recent. Debbie has recently been sailing at a local club and completed a weeks training course and really enjoyed it.

So we both thought, why not !

Rigging it and the first time out might be a bit chaotic and exciting for the wrong reasons, but it’s only an old cheap boat for a bit of a laugh, so splice the mainbrace and off we go shipmates.

I started going to Le Mans in 1986 watching every race until ‘93, from the dominance of the Porsche 962 through the Jaguar and Mercedes victories to the Mazda and Peugeot. Before the new pit complex was built I remember being able to sit on the roof of the old pits and look down into the pit-lane. Watching the cars at night hit 240mph on the Mulsanne straight from the Armco before the chicanes were added was pretty special.

Surprisingly not a lot has changed. The atmosphere is still great, the campsite toilets still terrible and some extra viewing at the Porsche Curves. The most notable change was the catering. In ‘the old days’ the catering behind the pit grandstands was a motley collection of ‘mom and pop’ burger/sausage and fries grill stands. Often the chef was surly, unshaven, dressed in a very grubby ‘white’ apron with a roll-up cigarette hanging out of his mouth whilst cooking.

Now the catering has gone all a bit corporate, with standard fare, standard prices and no soul. I kind of missed the unhygienic stands of the past.

The new system, Auto Entrepreneur, (lautoentrepreneur.fr in French) is more like a self-employed system where you pay charges based on turnover. More information in English is available at startbusinessinfrance.com.

One article that caught my eye was 120,000 registered so far which I think highlights the fact that people want to work for themselves but couldn’t in the past. In the top five professions using AE are computer programmers – which suits me fine.

In Brief, from startbusinessinfrance.com

The Auto Entrepeneur system is a pay-as-you earn system that offers an easy registration process and the ability to pay your social charges and income tax based on a fixed rate of your turnover. The purpose of the auto-entrepreneur scheme is to make starting a small business simpler and less financially demanding in the early years. It is also a low risk option to testing your market because if you do not sell anything, you do not pay any social charges.

Auto-entrepreneurs are not allowed to be VAT registered and have a yearly turnover limit of 32,000€ for services and 80,000€ for trade. Social charges represent 18.3% of turnover for professions libérales, 21.3% of the turnover for services and 12% for trade. Income tax will add an extra 2.2%, 1.7% and 1% respectively.

We now have three chickens, and more eggs than it’s possible to eat. The chicken hut was built from scrap floorboards and building materials at no cost. Basic but the chickens seem happy and are laying eggs.

The garden has had a bit of work done. Some fencing around the boundary and Debs planted loads of hedge cuttings from an old bush in the garden. I would say about 80% have taken so once the hedge sprouts a bit more the garden won’t look so barren.

I treated myself to a new desktop computer. It was built from bits I got mail-order and, like to old PC, is running Linux. The old Linux box has been moved to the lounge and using MythTV has morphed into a home entertainment system. I’m glad I put all the ethernet cabling in when I renovated as I can now stream satellite TV from the DVB-S card in the new office PC to the box in the lounge connected to the TV. Several Terrabytes of storage means I can record TV ‘just in case’ on several channels at once.

Finished a few very minor bits of work around the house, but the lounge is still raw plasterboard ! I think I got so tired after moving in I relaxed and never quite got out of the habit!

Hopefully, I’ll try a make a few more updates in future, but I guess a bit less focused on renovation.