It’s still officially spring in England but it hasn’t felt like it. I was away for about half of the month so I missed some of the action but I’m told that for the first ten days of my holiday it was freezing cold, and it rained every day in England. But just before I returned the country was hit by a heatwave that saw record high temperatures for over a week!
All the rain made the buttercups grow more than the grass but the usual suspects got stuck in, and in the photo above 1066 was trying to look as if he was working hard.
The Popham Model Show was held over the weekend of 9th/10th May with the forecast predicting the best weather on the Saturday, the day I went away, so sadly I missed the it. 
But several PAM members made the trip and by all accounts it was a great show with non-stop flying displays of fixed-wing aircraft, gliders, helicopters, and FPV (First Person View) drones. Highlights included excellent flights from pilots like Adam Broomhead with a half-scale Bucker Jungmeister and Dave Franks flying a 1/5th scale turbine F-16.
Alongside the flying displays the main marquee featured ground demonstrations and “have-a-go” activities with RC drift cars, tiny whoops (drones), military vehicles, boats, and scale tanks. Chas and Dougal Entendre sent me a few photos of the event and when I asked Dougal if he’d bought anything I was expecting great things, a twin motored EDF Su-57 perhaps, or a 1/3rd scale Pitts Special complete with onboard smoke system?
But no, all he bought was a DPR chuck glider! Never mind, maybe next year…
Well, thinking of the Chuck Glider Competition, as Dougal obviously is, I’ve just checked with PAM Comp Sec Dwayne Pipe who has confirmed the comp will take place at Buriton Recreation Ground on Wednesday 15th July at 7.30pm. If the weather is bad it will move to the following Wednesday, the 22nd. It’s always a fun evening, be there or be square!
To redeem himself Dougal sent me some photos of a new toy he’s purchased, but from AliExpress, not Popham. His report starts with some sad news: My first bit of news for May is the sad demise of my venerable Sportjet, after 12 years of loyal service. It was already looking tatty after numerous repairs, so I was taking more and more chances with it (coming inverted through the trees etc). In the end it was a simple landing goof on my part which knocked the nose off, having clipped the long grass and cartwheeled onto the patch. Inspection back at base revealed that the battery housing was broken, the nose cone was fairly well splintered, and an earlier repair on the wing mount had given way.
Plus I had a brand new plane waiting for the receiver, so the equipment was duly stripped out, and the foam consigned to the bin.
The new one is a Freewing Flightline Velocity, sourced as a PNP from AliExpress. It takes a 4s 1800-2600 pack, and given how small it is (1M span), I’m hoping it’ll go quite fast!
Assembly entailed two screws to hold the tail on, four screws to hold the wing on, and two screws to hold the battery mount in place. To make it a bit more like real modelling I then had to glue the plastic skid onto the fuselage and wing with the EPO glue provided.
Installing the receiver and getting the Tx set up took longer than the rest of the build.
I’m already getting apprehensive about the first flight. If my experience with the Rare Bear is anything to go by, it’ll need an underarm launch and about two thirds throttle to avoid torque problems. We’ll just have to chuck it and see.
Thanks for that Dougal. I think it will be much easier to get away from a hand launch than the Rare Bear, I’d be happy to give it an underarm launch, what could possibly go wrong..?
Towards the end of May we were very pleased to be joined by two prospective new members, Dom and his grandson Tom. Tom is thirteen and has already been flying a little gyro stabilised foamie model but having recently purchased a P-51 Mustang they decided to seek some help and advice before flying it. They first came along on Sunday 24th (when I was enjoying a 14-hour flight delay to get back home!) and brought the Mustang along to be checked over by experienced modellers. Dougal and 1066 gave it the once over and found there was way too much aileron movement, but not having any knowledge of the transmitter, they couldn’t figure out how to save the settings so were unable to test fly it. 
Dom and Tom returned the following Wednesday having reduced the aileron movements on the Mustang, and they also brought along Tom’s small foamie, a QIDI-560 Maule M7. 
The Maule is 510mm wingspan, weighs just under 100gms, and flies on a single cell 500mAh lipo battery. It has the usual controls, ailerons, elevator, rudder, and throttle, and has a switchable gyro. Woody loves it as it also has lights! It was a bit breezy for such a small, light model but Tom had no trouble flying it at all, I think we were all surprised at how good he was! He had several flights and landed safely back on the patch every time.
The Mustang is one from Arrows Hobby and this is from their website: The Arrows Hobby P-51 Mustang 850mm PNP with Vector Stabilisation System captures the character of the legendary WWII fighter with crisp scale detailing, from riveted panels and machine guns to exhaust stacks, drop tanks and cockpit detail. A glue-free assembly approach makes getting airborne quick and tidy, while the pre-installed 30A ESC and 2212 1300KV power system offer the vertical performance and classic warbird manoeuvres enthusiasts expect. With 4-channel control, a high-lift wing section and LED navigation lights, this compact EPO warbird is built for confident, spirited flying. Experience Level: Intermediate / Advanced. Age Recommendation: 14+. Sounds like a perfect trainer for a 13-year-old beginner…not! I checked it over and thought the aileron movement was probably still a bit too aggressive but it should be OK to fly. The wheels are quite small and there are lots of buttercups growing on the patch at the moment which stopped the Mustang taking-off so 1066 gave it an underarm hand launch and it flew away beautifully. 
It was definitely a bit twitchy on aileron but otherwise perfect, just needing a couple of clicks of up trim adding. After a few minutes checking it out I asked Tom if he wanted a go, fully expecting him to instantly over-control and me having to snatch back the transmitter but no, he flew it well! He did slightly over-control a bit at first but soon settled down, the only problem was me having to tell him to keep it high enough for me to save it if he got it wrong. But he didn’t get it wrong and after a few more minutes he asked me to land it. I think all those present agreed that Tom is very quickly going to become a great pilot!
As many of you will know, Dwayne Pipe is an avid builder and is happy building new models using either traditional balsa construction or various types of foam. Over many years as a PAM member he has built dozens of models, some from plans but also lots that he has designed himself. I might be wrong but I don’t remember Dwayne having any off the shelf models. This month he’s been good enough to share some of his secrets of success: Not many flyers build their own planes anymore, so they may be unfamiliar with the skills that previous generations had to learn when deciding where the centre of gravity was on their new aircraft, or which KV motor to use with what prop size etc.
Even these days you may need to know these things if you buy a second-hand plane with no motor or prop. You may feel your existing plane is underpowered and do you increase the prop size and if so, how will that effect the current rating of the ESC.?
Due to the wonders of the internet, all these problems can be solved. There are several free programs available on the internet to calculate these parameters, but the ones I use are WEBOCALC for deciding motor size, battery voltage, prop size, current pulled and wing loading.
For working out the optimum centre of gravity for your plane I use the imaginatively named AIRCRAFT CENTER OF GRAVITY CALCULATOR.
Both can be found on your search engine of choice, and I have found them to be reliable.
Thanks for that Dwayne, that’s useful stuff for all of us.
Another proper modeller who always seems to build his from scratch is Catapult King, so I was rather surprised to hear that he’d arrived at the patch with a plug and play EDF jet. 
Things became clearer when Catapult explained that the Arrows Hobby Viper came from his nephew who had bought the model second-hand and then given it to him as a birthday present. Hmm… I have one nephew; I wonder if he reads Patch News?! Captain Slow sent me some photos but wasn’t able to take any video but no doubt I’ll be able to shoot some for the next Patch News. Several of us own Arrows Hobby models and they all seem to be of good quality and fly well with no problems, so there were no concerns with the Viper. 
Dougal did the initial trimming and found that, as expected, it flew nicely and he was quickly able to pass the transmitter over to Catapult for him to enjoy.
In May we were pleased to welcome Norwegian Nick back to the field after an absence of several months. He brought along an electric glider and an Archie that he’d built from a plan that was originally published in May 1972 in the Radio Modeller magazine. Nick built his Archie a few years ago but has only flown it once before, a couple of years ago.
It was designed by Peter Holland and the plan is available as a free download from Outerzone who say this about Archie: For the average to skilful pilot Archie is a perfect relaxer for a lazy afternoon in the sunshine, as the bee’s drone and the wispy clouds drift lazily across the sky. Although it is relatively slow flying, it is far from loath to perform simple manoeuvres, such as loops, rolls, inverted flying and similar aerobatics, but it will not spin easily because the stall is almost non-existent, which is as it should be, so that it can be ‘held off’ for those satisfying three pointers, or touch and go’s. Also, if you fancy a brief chat to your next-door pilot, Archie will fly itself around quite happily for a circuit or so, yet send a control and it will respond. In other words, then, a model to have fun with. What, however, if you are not a practised pilot? Well Archie is still for you, because it is a trainer which is not outgrown as soon as one has mastered the rudiments of flying. We do not recommend Archie as a trainer to someone who is going it absolutely alone from scratch – not because it is not as docile as other trainers, but because, if one does make an error, as all beginners do, then being a biplane there is more of it to break! 
However, for the tyro who has the help of someone who, as a minimum, knows how to take-off and land, Archie can be recommended as a happy choice to ease your way into solo flying…” As it is a forty-four year old design it was of course designed to have an IC engine but as we only allow electric Nick has made his electric powered and has fitted an OS 5020-490 motor, a Hobbywing 80A speed controller, and a four cell lipo pack. The OS website says the motor is equivalent to a .55-64cu.in 2 stroke or a .72cu.in 4 stroke but the plan says to use a .35-.49cu.in motor so Nick’s Archie has more than enough power!
It flew around nicely on about third throttle and seemed to fly well although Nick said it was too twitchy on elevator and perhaps the C of G needs to be a bit further forward.
May wasn’t the best month for Woody as early in the month he totalled his foamie Eurofighter Typhoon when he lost orientation. It’s loss is a great shame, it was a nice flier.
Then, at the end of the month, he joined the illustrious ranks of the tree dwellers when he landed his XFLY Tasman very gently in the top of Dougal’s Dogwood! The Tasman looked to be undamaged but the problem was how to retrieve it without wrecking it.
Almost immediately Windshy took the decision to climb the tree and he was soon able to give the branches it was wedged into a good shake. He couldn’t quite reach the plane, the branches were too thin to take his weight, but he managed to get it to fall lower down. It’s not easy to see but Windshy is in both of the photos, you’ll need to zoom in to see him! 
With the use of a fence post the rest of us (me, Woody, 1066, and Norwegian Nick) eventually managed to get the Tasman back on the ground, although by then the tail was damaged, nothing that can’t be repaired fairly easily though. I think Windshy deserves a nicer nickname after his excellent tree climbing efforts, and he’s got more used to flying on windier days now anyway. How about Terrytree? Suggestions please but keep them clean!
STOP PRESS: On the last day of the month John Warren performed a copycat landing in Dougal’s Dogwood with his XFLY Tasman, maybe it needs to be renamed Tasman Tree! This time Windshy wasn’t around but newbie Dom sprang into action, climbed the tree, and successfully retrieved the Tasman. Maybe he should become Dogwood Dom!
It turns out that not only is young Tom a promising flier, he also takes excellent photos and videos. So, this month all the action shots were taken by Tom, thank you young man:
Video time now, this month with footage by me, MacFly, Dougal, Captain Slow and Tom:
Please watch the video full-screen, it’s so much better with small models flying around.
If the video won’t play for you please click HERE
The Final Funny:
Two aliens are flying a fact- finding mission around the Earth. The first one says
“The dominant life form here have developed satellite based nuclear weapons.”
The second one says, “Ah, so they are an emerging intelligence then?”
The first one replies, “Apparently not, they’ve aimed them all at themselves.”
Colin Cowplain
