Patch News – 23rd March 2012

Chairman Mick’s RC Lander Hawker Hunter made it’s first appearance last weekend, and very nice it looked too. Mick has removed the retracting undercarriage having decided hand launching and belly landing would be better on our field. This has saved some weight and as it has a 6 cell pack powering a 70mm fan we were all confident it would go well. It climbed away beautifully from Steve 1066’s launch and after a few clicks of trim it was flying very nicely. I flew it for a few minutes and did some basic aerobatics and all seemed good so I handed the tx over to Mick. He flew around gently for a couple of minutes before the always expected ‘Harper Holocaust’ occurred…the motor suddenly quit! I got it down with just a slightly squashed nosecone, but the motor was obviously not well. As yet Mick doesn’t know what happened to it but has bought a HET Typhoon replacement so the Hunter should be flying again very soon.

Andy Smith brought along a very sleek looking Century Max Thrust Vortex to join the hairdryer set. Unfortunately it failed to get away from my hand launch (it wasn’t my best but it wasn’t that bad, honest!) and sustained a bit of damage but Andy says it will return very soon. To continue his bad luck his Parkzone Trojan had a slight midair touch with Steve’s fun-fly and lost half it’s tailplane. Andy got it down ok so repairs should be swift.

Bob Hill has converted the ex PAM raffle prize Pilatus PC9 to electric power and it has shown the usual excellent Seagull flying qualities. The electric conversion is a total success and Bob is getting used to flying characteristics before exploring the aerobatic capabilities.


Spurred on by the success of his Alpha Jet Phil Wiltshire bought a Phase 3 F16. It has a 64mm fan running on a 3s lipo and uses an all moving tailplane rather than the usual aileron and elevator set-up. The first and second flights went without incident and by the third one Phil was getting confident and gradually getting the rates and expo to his liking. But there was a sudden motor stop after only a couple of minutes, and Phil managed a safe deadstick landing. Investigations found nothing wrong and we could only think that the esc had got too hot and cut the motor so Phil tried again. The same thing happened again, a sudden motor cut after a couple of minutes but unfortunately this time Phil was heading rapidly towards the deck at the time and ‘abrupt contact’ occurred! Phil was unsure if he lost the radio at the same time as the motor or not, it all happened too quickly. Unfortunately it was a write-off (well it was after Phil ripped all the gear out of it!). On a brighter note he passed his A cert last week, well done Phil!

The long awaited Typhoon that Ian Hewlett has built from Brian Taylor plans flew on Monday for the first time. Ian has made a lovely job of the model that features flaps and retracts and it powered by an OS120 pumper. The first flight went well with no problems apart from some minor problems with the u/c doors and he went away a happy man promising to sort the doors for next time.

Nick Sivertsen tested out his new Fan Trainer on Tuesday. It uses a 3 bladed Cox propeller in a shroud rather than a multi-bladed fan but it seemed to produce plenty of thrust on 4 cells. Nick struggled a bit with very sensitive ailerons but otherwise it was great. Nick got it down safely and will cut down the aileron movement before the next flight.
Andy P.