September was an interesting and active month for the club, the grass on the patch recovered from the lack of rain incredibly quickly, we enjoyed the first club meeting that we had held for ages, and we gained a new member, with a second one looking quite likely.
The speed of the grass recovery took us all by surprise, the drought ended with some steady rain over a few days but not a massive storm or floods, and the dead looking brown shrivelled remains on the patch suddenly sprouted like mad and very quickly became lush and green. In fact, the whole field quickly recovered enough for the farmers to put sheep out to graze. One of the sheep seemed to enjoy watching 1066 working on his plane!
The patch was mown twice and it’s growing so quickly that we needed it to be cut shorter.
The club meeting I mentioned was held at the Hampshire Hog on Wednesday 23rd with the main event being a talk that was given by Dougal Entendre about the many changes in radio control gear in general but mostly focussing on the various RadioMaster sets.
It was good to meet up away from the patch for a change and have a good natter as well as learning quite a lot about the way RC gear has changed lately and is heading in the future.
The new member who has joined PAM is Jono Robertson, an ex-PADMAC member who was looking for a new club after PADMAC have lost their field in exactly the same way as we lost our previous one. Their site, just off the A272, was rented from the White family by the Atkinsons and the Whites suddenly told the Atkinsons that they wanted it back for their own use. We know just how that felt when it happened to PAM but we were fortunate that the Atkinsons were able to offer us the field we currently use as a replacement.
Jono is an experienced builder and flier and, having completed his three visits within only a couple of weeks, he paid his subs and became a welcome new Petersfield club member.
I’ll begin the new models that I spotted in September with two models flown by Jono.
OK so they aren’t actually new models but this was the first time they’ve flown from our patch so we haven’t seen them before! The first plane Jono flew was an OMP Challenger.
It’s not a model I had been aware of before but apparently some Petersfield Aero Modellers members had seen them on sale at various models shows. The Challenger is available in two sizes, you can choose either a 49” (1250mm) span or a 59” (1500mm) span model. Jono’s is the 49” ARTF version (Almost Ready to Fly or Almost Ready to Fail as 1066 likes to say!) so comes with everything already fitted except a receiver and battery.
The motor is a SunnySky 2820 which is coupled to a 40A speed controller and spins a 12×6.5E prop. All four of the ready fitted servos are OMPHOBBY SG5 17g. Jono uses Radiomaster gear and has fitted the Mini Bird with a Radiomaster ER5A 5CH ELRS receiver which has a built voltage sensor and sends the info back to the transmitter (those of you who saw Dougal’s talk on RC gear will know exactly what the ELRS bit means)! Jono is using three cell GNB 3500mAh lipos rated at 70C continuous and 140C burst.
The Challenger is also available built and covered but without any of the electrical equipment so the purchaser needs to provide and fit their own power system and radio set-up. I found this on the Model Shop Leeds website: The 49” Challenger, an aerobatic high-wing sportster, is an ideal model for skilled pilots who just want to have a little bit of fun; it would make a perfect first truly aerobatic plane for a weekend flyer as well. 
The fuselage is of light balsa and plywood “box” design covered by the Oracover® iron-on film. It is prepared for installation of 500-600W brushless motor using a radial mount with 40-60A ESC featuring powerful SBEC. Detachable hatches on the top and bottom of the fuselage are giving perfect access to the entire power system and RC gear. The elevator and rudder micro servos are to be installed into the tail end of the fuselage. The two-piece all-balsa wing with a semi symmetrical airfoil uses a carbon tube joiner; the wing halves are secured with screws to the fuselage. The full span ailerons are controlled by a single servo each. The empennage is a light all-balsa work.
The main undercarriage features aluminium legs and lightweight large diameter wheels; the tail wheel with a carbon bracket is coupled with the rudder.
Obviously Jono had flown the model many times before at the PADMAC field so I can’t report on the maiden flight but it appeared to fly well on it’s first outing at the PAM patch.
The second ‘new’ model that Jono brought to the patch and flew several times was his Mini Bird that he built from a plan, but he cheated and used laser cut parts from Cloud Models.
The plan can be downloaded from the Outerzone website for free and their website says this: Mini Bird. Radio control sport model. Wingspan 770 mm. For .049 engine and 2 channels. Plan file includes full build instructions. Quote: “Before starting building: For a better finish and flight performance, take time in reading building instruction and referring to the plans, and assemble in good order and correctly and carefully”.
Jono has fitted his with a Scorpion 2208 1280Kv motor but is thinking about replacing it with a T-Motor for a bit more performance. The motor spins an APC 7x6E prop and is fed by a three cell GNB 1350mAh lipo via a ZTW Mantis Slim 15A speed controller.
He has fitted a Radiomaster ER4 4CH ELRS receiver (which like the ER5A in his Challenger has voltage sensing) and Hitec servos on the ailerons and elevator.
Incidentally, although Jono bought the laser cut parts for his Mini Bird, he tells me he has since bought his own laser cutting machine, so I suspect he might be looking to recover some of his costs by cutting parts for other modellers…just saying! Form an orderly queue.
Jono says the Mini Bird flies very smoothly and you can judge for yourselves as both the Challenger and Mini Bird can be seen in action in this month’s video.
The bromance continues between myself and Woody! Note the matching glasses, they are ones that Woody found on Temu that fit over normal glasses and have an amber tint that somehow makes planes stand out better. I think they are really sold as driving glasses to improve vision at night by removing the glare, but they also work well for model flying.
Also in the photo, note the cans. One of the birthday presents that I received from my daughter a few weeks ago was a pack of alcohol-free beers. I’m not sure what she is trying to tell me by buying alcohol-free ones, I honestly don’t drink very much alcohol at all!
Anyway, amongst the beer assortment were a couple of Brewdog Wingman cans so it seemed only right that I should share them with Woody and of course, being alcohol free, they were the perfect drink to enjoy at a flying session. Cheers Woody!
The only other new model that I spotted in September was a HobbyKing J3 Piper Cub.
It was brought along by Snoopy and looks very nice in its Swiss colour scheme. The plane is an updated version of the previous Cub that HobbyKing sold in a camouflage scheme.
Here’s what the HobbyKing website says about it: This version of the popular Piper J-3 Cub is in a striking new Swiss colour scheme which is a must for all scale pilots. This colour scheme uses a lot less paint so there is a bit of a saving in weight which further reduces the already low wing loading. The attention to detail makes it an extremely realistic model, and it comes with a nice, generous size 1400mm wingspan. Like all Cub’s with its large wingspan, and stable flying characteristics it is very easy to fly, perfect for low-hour pilots and experts alike. The Swiss Cub also has a new all-metal landing gear which is virtually indestructible, this will survive the hardest of landings.
Further weight saving has been achieved by the removal of the metal tail bracing wires, these have been replaced with scale-looking, easy to fit, lightweight elasticated white shock chord. Fellow PAM member 1066 had (has?) one of the previous camouflage versions and said the undercarriage was always a problem with it so hopefully this version with a newly redesigned undercarriage will prove to be far less troublesome.
The Cub is a PNP (Plug’N’Play) EPO foam model that comes with a 45A ESC and powerful 3648-700Kv brushless motor pre-installed as are the 9g servos. It can be flown using either a three or a four cell lipo with no need to change the 12×6 propellor. So, now the important bit, how did it fly? It looked good to me, the Cub took-off with no problems (none of the ground looping that 1066’s was prone to do} and flew very nicely. Snoopy was being rather wary with it and kept the Cub about five mistakes high for most of the flight but when the transmitter timer announced that time was up he landed the Cub back on the patch with no problems at all. That first flight can be viewed in this month’s video.
I don’t think it was related to Snoopy buying the Piper Cub, perhaps it was just a happy (?) coincidence, but Snoopy recently had a “minor incident” with his Durafly Ugly Stick…
I reckon it was just an excuse for him to tell the missus “I think I need a new one dear”!
This month the action photos are an excellent assortment that were actually taken in August by Kryten plus a couple of less excellent screenshots from this month’s video:
This month’s video includes footage by MacFly, Dougal Entendre, and me.
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:
Some wise words from a light aircraft pilot: Stay out of clouds. The silver lining that everyone keeps talking about might be another aeroplane going in the opposite direction.
Reliable sources also report that mountains have been known to hide out in clouds.
Colin Cowplain
Nice one Colin, Jen said, and I quote, ” was it worth it?” Lol.