Welcome to The Long Eaton and District Model Aircraft Club
LONG EATON MODEL AERO CLUB
The origins of the club date back to 1947 and was formed by a small group of enthusiasts building and flying free flight models, free flight and control line being pretty much the only thing available at the time.
The current club is based to the South West of Nottingham and members are involved in most aspects of RC flying with a small number involved in free flight and control line. Our current flying site is available every day of the year and has 2 well maintained grass runways, numerous work tables and starting tables for ic flyers. Club meetings are held on the first Friday of each month from 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm. It is usual to plan a formal activity for these evenings although the main objective is to have a natter and put the world to rights. We meet at Sawley Church Hall. The club offers training to all new members at no cost, this ranges from “Buddy Lead” training for novice flyers to formal instruction to BMFA “A” Certificate standard, the club has a number of instructors and an examiner.
John Wright.
LEMAC Chairman
LEMAC Club Night Activities
2nd February 2024 – Model Building Demo
Photographs
24th February 2024 – Warren Lane Flying Field – Main Runway
Projects
9th March 2024 – Airspeed Courier Project built by John Wright
The Airspeed Courier was designed in the early 1930’s it was the first British aircraft to be fitted with a retractable undercarriage with the exception of a 1922 Bristol racer, it was designed around a requirement for a high speed (relative in the day) freight carrier which could be reconfigured to carry 6 passengers. The maximum speed was 163 mph with wheels retracted, this dropped to 126 mph with the wheels down. Due to the economic difficulties of the time only 16 were built.
The Model
Why build it. I am a big fan of aircraft from this era and this one is quite unusual and rarely modeled. In the past I had built the Mohawk Pinto (same era) by Phil Kent, I flew it for a fair while before the inevitable happened, the wing however was undamaged so I kept it for a future project. I picked up a May 2011 copy of RCM&E which featured the Airspeed Courier complete with a free plan. Looking at the wing shape it was pretty much a perfect match for the Pinto wing although a fair bit smaller. By scaling up the plan by a factor of 1.43 I arrived at a span of 80”, the same as the Pinto wing, the root cord was also correct. I redrew the plan to suit, changing the fuselage structure as necessary and modifying the wing for the retracts. The model weighs in at 8 pounds which is not to bad for an 80” span, it is electric powered using a Overlander Thumper 900 watt motor, I have yet to check the power output on the watt meter but am hoping for about 800 watts. I will keep you posted regarding first flights.
John Wright.
10th April 2024 – Tiger Moth Built by Barry Parkinson
It has a 70 inch Wingspan and built from the Gordon Whitehead plan designed for electric power. The motor I am using is a Turnigy C5065-320 running on a 6s 5000 battery and swinging a 17×10 prop. All up weight is just over 10lb. The project took me just over two years to build, the first time I tried to fly it was on our field and damaged the undercarriage a bit so that’s why the flying photo was at Buckminster at the Midland Area Open Day which was in July 2022. So far it has had limited flight time so I am still getting used to it especially cross wind take-offs and landings which either it or I don’t really like (Full size Tigers have limits on cross winds as well). The masks for the lettering and the waterslide transfer on the fin are from Flightline Graphics. The full size Tiger in the photo is based at Egginton operated by Vintage Flying which I was able to get good details of and which I actually had a flight in.
