|
|
From the Editor - April 2022
Here in British Columbia, the weather has more or less settled into the usual early Spring pattern - lots of rain interspersed with a few clear periods. Temperatures are a bit above average, leaving us with the continuing worry of a low mountain snow-pack which has significant implications for our summer water supply and the well-being of our fish resources. The madness that has marked 2022 up to this point has continued in March. Sadly, this madness has spread to all levels of society and has leapt across International boundaries. On the same day that my home province of British Columbia recorded an all-time high 24-hour covid death count, the government lifted all covid-related restrictions. Go figure ………and it’s not too hard to do $o. Despite the lifting of these restrictions, the “Freedumb Truck Convoy” anarchy has continued, with several such convoys converging on our capital city of Victoria and vowing to occupy the area until ………… what?!? They aren’t saying - their pet peeve has evaporated, and now they don’t appear to know themselves. They evidently just want to protest, without knowing what they’re protesting about. No doubt they’ll come up with something………..
For now, I’m doing my best to carry on even in the face of these deeply troubling developments, although I confess to finding it to be a growing challenge. It really does help to know that there’s still a continued interest in Whatever the true figures, it's clear that despite the now-endemic Covid-19 situation and the accompanying societal dysfunction, a significant number of folks are clearly remaining very much engaged with our hobby. Further confirmation comes from the fact that the mail box has remained quite active. I heard from quite a few of you during March, including (in no particular order) Olli-Matti Karhunen, Luis Petersen, Tim Dannels, Gordon Beeby, David Burke, Ken Croft, Peter Valicek, Tahn Stowe, Dean Clarke, Luke Roy, Chris Boll, Ed Holly, Maris Dislers, Andrew Boddington, Chris Ottewell, Dave Zwolak, Amadeus Kurz, Kelley Crozier, Bill Schmidt, Larry Davidson, Bill Wells, Alex Phin, Alan Strutt, Eric Greeson, Dave Hill, Russell Williamson, Ates Gurkan, Stuart Robinson, Dan Rhinehart, Bob Beaumont and Neill McRae. Apologies to anyone whom I may have inadvertently missed in the crowd, and apologies also to anyone whose message(s) went unanswered - things do slip through the cracks, especially when I’m distracted! The blog site has continued to justify its existence by contributing a small but steady flow of relevant traffic - thanks for that.
I’ve been contacted already by a few individuals asking if I have certain minor components such as Woodruff keys and needle valves. Sadly, what I have is mostly major components - the smallest components that I have are piston rings and cylinder heads. As soon as time permits, I intend to go through the stash and develop a listing of what I do have. A link to this list will then be added to my separate page on “Engine Parts Available”. The list will include all of the parts that I have. In the meantime, please be patient - I will get to it! Just a matter of finding the time to do so …………. Now a point of clarification. I try to keep my telephone number pretty scarce in order to avoid spending time which I don’t have in long phone calls. Despite this, my number is “out there” in some quarters. Consequently, from time to time I get calls from fellow enthusiasts wanting to bend my ear regarding one of my articles or a particular pet engine, or just wanting to talk about engines in general. Once an enthusiastic caller gets going, my experience has been that such calls can consume hours (literally!).
For this reason, I have to ask my valued readers for their indulgence in not contacting me by phone except by prior arrangement and/or on matters which will not take long to deal with. It’s been my experience that engaging in a phone call with a fellow enthusiast tends to take far longer than reading an email. Worse yet, the phone call does not create a written record of what was said, leaving me with no reference material other than whatever rough notes I’m able to jot down during the call. I understand that a very few people don’t have email. In such a case, a letter is greatly preferable to a phone call, because it constitutes a written record to which I can refer at any subsequent time. I’d really appreciate everyone’s cooperation on this. Thanks!! I thought that this month I’d draw attention to a couple of extremely useful resources available to those of us who take an interest in the history of model engines and aeromodelling in general. Many of you are doubtless already familiar with these websites, but I felt it to be worthwhile to make sure that all of you are in a position to take advantage. We’re all greatly indebted to the individuals who have worked so hard to make these sites available. I’ve added both of them to my “Publications” listing.
The other site of interest is Sceptre Flight, which is owned and maintained by Brian Hampton of Adelaide, South Australia. This invaluable resource contains scans of just about every model engine test that has ever been published in “Aeromodeller”, “Model Aircraft” and “Model Airplane News” plus a few others. My articles frequently include links to tests which are available here. A quite indispensable resource - thanks, Brian! Returning to my own site, last month’s lead article on the various Elfin 149 PB replicas having their origins in Australia turned into a bit of an embarrassment for me! My good mate Maris Dislers contacted me following the initial publication to make me aware of a substantial amount of relevant information that I had either overlooked or been unaware of. The extent of this information was such that I had to take the I’ve actually had parallel experiences with other articles in the past, although this was perhaps the most extreme example to date. Clearly, I’d far rather avoid such issues arising in the first place than have to deal with them after the fact. This is the main reason why I always serve a month’s notice of my intention to publish an article on a given subject - to allow anyone having relevant information to share it with me beforehand. If you see that I’m planning to cover a subject on which you have relevant information of which I may be unaware, please share it with me right away - don’t wait until the article appears!!
It turned out that this was a complete and orignal example of the initial variant of the first FROG glow-plug model, as tested by Lawrence Sparey for the August 1949 issue of “Aeromodeller”. Sparey’s test was conducted using FROG Red Glow fuel, which had little or no nitro. Since I’d always been curious regarding the response of the 160 to a healthy shot of nitro, I ran my own test using a I was delighted to hear from Finnish reader Olli-Matti Karhunen. In addition to telling me how much he enjoys this website, Olli-Matti also sent along some images of a superb replica of the Monsun Standard diesel from Denmark, together with some details on how he went about creating this outstanding piece of model engineering. It's a genuine pleasure to have such a craftsman among my readership!
For next month, I plan something a little different - The all-new article relates directly to the above topic, since it will consist of an in-depth review and test of the factory glow-plug conversion of I think that about does it for this edition. All being well, I'll be back to you with another edition on or about May 1st, 2022. Meanwhile, please accept my best wishes for continuing the process of learning to live with the now-endemic Covid threat and the accompanying societal dysfunction to get the best of what life has to offer under present circumstances. Take care and stay well - don’t support the anarchist “freedumb” crowd, minimize your contact with the covidiots, get vaccinated to the max, continue to exercise discretion and trust your own informed opinions rather than those of the covidolts and the democrappers. Their focus is entirely on themselves, not on you - ignore them, make up your own mind based on authoritative current information and act accordingly! It’s your future and that of your kids and grandkids .……….don’t let others decide it for you and for them! Cheers, Adrian Duncan British Columbia, Canada ___________________________________ Note regarding material to be found on this site - unless specifically otherwise noted, all images and text which appear on this site are my own work, and I hereby assert my right to be recognized as the originator of this material. For the record, this material is made freely available to all upon two firm conditions:
Adrian C. Duncan British Columbia, Canada |
April Fools’ Day again, and this year there are plenty of those about! Unfortunately, unlike the guy at the left, many of them pose a very real threat to the ongoing well-being both of ourselves and our societies, placing their folly in a very different category from the traditional April Fools merriment. 
The clear implication is that contrary to the statements of their “leaders”, these Freedumb Convoys have never been about covid restrictions, which were being lifted anyway and are now gone - all along, they’ve been about the imposition of anarchy by a small minority upon a democratic society. These people and their supporters are doing a great impression of being nothing more than ignorant, spoiled and selfish adolescent products of the “entitlement” generation who are just unhappy that life hasn’t treated them as well as they think they deserve and are throwing a childish temper tantrum in consequence. Bring up a kid in a permissive “no is never the answer” environment in a society that emphasizes “rights” above responsibilities instead of placing them on an equal footing, and this is what you get. Real life’s not like that, and never was ……… 
It remains to be seen how the Ukrainian situation will affect things in the long term. The human cost has already been devastating, making our hobby-related concerns pale into insignificance. Alex Phin tells me that he was only able to secure delivery of 79 examples of the lovely little 0.255 cc SAM 25 diesel out of the 200 that he ordered and paid for. I was one of the fortunate few to receive an example - thanks, Alex! The rest are now viewed as “casualties of war”. We can only hope that this doesn’t turn out to be the last-ever Redfin model to go on sale. Far more importantly, we must hope for a better future for the people of Ukraine - one in which they are left free to determine their own destiny. 
model engines among my valued readers - that’s what keeps me going! Apart from a steady stream of very supportive reader comments, the site usage stats for March 2022 show that the steady increase in the level of interest which I've reported over the past few months has continued unabated. In fact, the numbers have increased to the point where I'm having trouble believing them and have asked my IT guys to look into it to check that a glitch hasn't crept into my stats reporting system. I hope to have an update for the next issue. 
I mentioned last month that a few years back I had taken over custody of a large stash of components for the famous British 
Now I enjoy talking about engines as much as the next guy, and I really am interested in what you may have to say. However, you simply wouldn’t believe how time-consuming keeping this website up and growing in addition to dealing with the rest of my life can be!! I have to do everything possible to manage my time, including leaving room for some downtime to preserve my sanity!
The first of these sites is 
article down temporarily and spend a few days doing some major re-writing. Among other things, there was a published test that I’d completely overlooked as well as an Australian Elfin 149 replica - the Comet 150 - of which I hadn’t previously been aware. Maris also shared some of his own very informative test results. It's all been sorted, and the article is back up for perusal.
I’m always happy to take advantage of opportunities to expand the coverage of my existing articles. Just such an opportunity came my way recently when I was fortunate enough to acquire a nice example of an early FROG 160 glow-plug model from a friend of mine living nearby. He was a fellow club-mate of mine whom I’d known for years but hadn’t realized that he had a few old classic engines hidden up his sleeve!
fuel containing 15% nitro. The results were very positive, to the extent that I’d have to classify the FROG 160 as a somewhat under-appreciated engine based on Sparey’s report. I’ve added my test report to the main article on the 
Turning now to this month’s lead article, we head over to la belle France for the first time in a while to look at a near-legendary racing engine from that country which is so rare that some have doubted its actual existence! This is the 
In keeping with what has by now become a bit of a pattern, I’m also able to present yet another MEN transfer article in the shape of the full story of Luke Roy, Bill Husted and the legendary 
| |