Hugh’s plane got blown downwind and caught a load of turbulence at the edge of the maize field and he sensibly ditched it. Fortunately no damage done except some minor scratches. We really struggled to find the plane buried in the crops and it was only an occasional beep from the speed controller that helped us home in on it’s location.

Being smart, I decided to not go down wind and keep my plane nice and close, but completely messed up the landing and somehow managed to land tail first, snapping the rear of the fuselage.

A bit of glue and both are airworthy again.

As the saying goes, ‘There are old pilots and bold pilots, but no old and bold pilots’.  We were both too bold !

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.