Patch News – August 2013

Its the beginning of September so it must be time for another Patch News. Apologies for being a bit late with this issue, I’ve been pretty tied up with various things at home during August. It’s also meant I haven’t been out flying quite as much as usual, a real shame as the weather has been perfect for flying most days.
The little EPP Mustangs and ME109s that many of us have been flying are going well although we haven’t done much actual combat with streamers. The Mustangs are now back in stock in HobbyKing’s UK warehouse and several have been bought by PAM members.  Chairman Ron and I had a dogfighting session one morning, his 109 versus my P51, both without streamers. We careered around chasing each other all over the sky and after several minutes Ron decided he must be near the end of his battery so he throttled back. Big mistake! His tail viciously tore into my propeller (never let the truth get in the way of a good story!) and my prop won the battle.  The prop destroyed his tailplane and fin resulting in a rather sudden vertical arrival of the poor 109. Fortunately my P51 was undamaged.  We found most of the pieces of foam from Ron’s tail but they were badly chewed up so he simply made a replacement tail out of balsa and it’s now flying again, good as new.
 
Last Sunday we had another dogfighting session, this time with me, Wonky Wiltshire, and Woody, fortunately with no collisions.  It’s a lot of fun, really gets the adrenaline flowing and, if the worst does happen, the models are usually easily repaired.  They are so cheap that even in the case of a total write-off the loss wouldn’t be too great. Mine has now had more than 150 flights so it’s proved to be a real bargain.
Speaking of Wonky, he recently had a long holiday in France staying on a farm where he was surrounded by acres of flying field. Being a sensible chap he’d had the foresight to pack his P51 and a few batteries in with the wife’s frocks.  The first I knew of this was when I got a text “Pls send P51 prop ASAP”… not so sensible after all then!  Phil had remembered to everything he needed except a spare prop and he’d managed to break the original one on the very first day. I duly despatched one via a 2 day delivery service so when it arrived a week later (!) he was able to fly again. He didn’t break it…
 
When I first featured Woody’s new Texan a couple of months I mentioned it could be a bit of a handful with the typical Texan/Harvard tip-stall.  One flight ended in the bushes by the bottom track after I snatched the transmitter away from Woody because I thought he was going to tip-stall it on landing…oops! After much head scratching, nose-weight adding, lateral balancing, and aileron raising, it is now less likely to bite unexpectedly. Hopefully it will be ok now as it looks great in the air and in general it’s well behaved.

 After the first few flights Woody added a sound system that has been made especially for this particular kit. It’s a fairly basic system that only has the Pratt & Whitney Wasp sound and can’t be ‘fine-tuned’ to match the transmitter throttle position exactly but it’s very realistic and loud enough in the air to be effective. It can be a bit off putting when landing the model and trying desperately not to get it too slow but still land on the patch. Blipping the throttle to keep the speed just right produces very realistic coughing and spluttering noises and it’s difficult to ignore the noise and concentrate on the aircraft speed! To see and hear how it sounds click here: Woody’s Texan
 
Viv has been flying his beautiful Black Horse Models Ryan STA quite a bit recently. Originally the model was powered by a 120 4-stroke motor but Viv has now gone all electric and has converted the Ryan along with the rest of his models. You can see the model in its I/C form on the website homepage, a lovely shot taken by Nick Squire I believe. Now it’s electric it flies just the same and is clean and quiet as well. It’s a large model with a wingspan of 2350mm (92.5”) and weighs around 6.5kgs (14lbs) but it floats around the sky in a very scale like manner. It used to be a bit difficult to get it down when it was I/C, it would just continue flying even with the engine on a slow tick-over! But being electric now Viv can completely stop the motor, and he seems to have got the flaps sorted better so he is able to put it down on the patch fairly easily.
 

Chris Hard likes small models and along with his flying wings that’s I’ve featured previously he’s been flying a little F-16. Unlike most of the other jets in the club this one’s not an EDF but has a pusher prop.  It was produced by Align RC but I don’t think they are still made. I know nothing about it other than its pretty quick and manoeuvrable; perhaps Chris will tell us more in the Comments section…
 
Apparently Chris likes lovely weather but isn’t too keen on direct sun. I’m not going to say too much, I’ll be first in line to borrow that brolly next time we get caught at the patch in the rain!
 
Unusually Multiple Models Montague hasn’t bought any new planes this month, if fact he recently sold one to Steve 1066 Hastings. MMM decided he had too many models and needed some space, so 1066 obliged by taking the Extra 300 from 3D Hobby Shop off his hands.  He’s still getting used to the model and its characteristics but it’s looking good so far.
 
1066 has also been wheeling and dealing on eBay again and this time he has bought a Parkzone Typhoon 3D for a knockdown price. It’s another foamie, made from what Parkzone call Z foam; I reckon that’s just their name for EPO. It’s 1000mm span and weighs around 740gms. Unusually it comes with a geared inrunner brushless motor rather than the more normal direct drive outrunner which means it can swing a large diameter prop.  Steve hasn’t flown it much yet but it certainly looks promising and should be a good 3D machine once he gets it sorted to his liking.
  The first thing he did was add some nose weight, hence the yellow tape holding a piece of lead on the nose.  He let me have a fly and it was fine at the start of the flight but after one rather violent manoeuvre it went right out of trim. I landed to check it out and found the tailplane was hanging off!
I seemed to be dogged by dodgy models that particular day as I had a similar experience with Bob Hill’s foamie Mustang. Bob asked me to trim the model as he thought it was handling rather strangely.  It went away from the launch ok and all seemed normal at first but suddenly things changed. I thought the rudder servo had jammed over to one side and I couldn’t keep it in the air. Unfortunately it hit the fence and the barbed wire did nothing to improve its condition, but when we retrieved it we found most of the fin and rudder about 50 yards from the model. It must have been damaged previously and had broken off in the air, causing the very odd handling! Fortunately Bob soon had it repaired and it’s flying properly again now.
 
I snapped this photo at the patch a couple of weeks ago.
 Any guesses who owns this case full of lipos? Hapless Harper who has almost as many batteries as crashes? Smiffy who has to have bigger, better, faster, more than everybody else? MMM who must have loads of packs for all those planes? Or even me, I’ve been flying electric longer than anyone in PAM? Nope, none of those… it belongs to “I’ll never go electric, I’ve got too much I/C stuff” Steve Hastings!  Well you certainly can’t accuse him of going into electric power half-heartedly!
 
Do any of you remember the Multiplex Twin Jet that burst onto the scene around the turn of the century? In those days electric models were still very much in the minority and the Twin Jet was pretty revolutionary being a 36” span electric twin and an ARTF foamie. Multiplex reckoned it could be put together in one evening. The brushless outrunners we use almost exclusively nowadays were a rarity back then so Twin Jet was powered by a couple of the Speed 400 brushed ‘can’ motors. Similarly lipos were virtually unheard of so this model used a 7 cell NiCad or NiMH pack. Being cheap, quick to assemble, and fast and fun to fly it caused quite a stir and there were always several Twin Jets flying at electric events and model shows. Many were uprated with more powerful motors and some were very fast indeed. Oddly they were few and far between at the PAM patch even though several members were flying electric models by then. Multiplex stopped producing them several years ago but Mike Smith is still flying one.
 
I’m not sure how long Mike has had it but it must be several years old. It’s one of the later version ones that were moulded in white foam (the earlier ones were only available in dark grey) but it’s still powered by the original Speed 400 motors. I assume Mike uses a 3 cell lipo pack instead of a 7 cell NiCad but I’m not certain.  It still flies very well, is pretty quick and looks like a lot of fun to fly.
 
Finally, it’s time to show you Tony Neal’s latest model, a 1200mm (48”) span Ripmax Mustang.  It’s the same model that Woody has been flying successfully for a while, although his is currently awaiting repairs. I don’t think it’s still available and like the Twin Jet it was originally designed for a brushed ‘can’ motor and 7 cell NiCad, but being bigger it used a 600 can sized motor.  Like Woody’s, Tony’s model has a modern set-up of brushless outrunner motor and 3 cell lipo. Tony was having a bit of a bad day with his other models and declined to fly it but I’m sure it will prove to be a good flier once he decides to take the plunge.
 
 
British Airways recently introduced a special half priced fare for wives who accompanied their husbands on business trips. Expecting valuable testimonials, the PR department sent out letters to all the wives of businessmen who had used the special rates, asking how they enjoyed their trip. Letters are still pouring in… “WHAT TRIP?”!
Colin Cowplain