Patch News – August 2016

Well the summer has continued to give us some excellent flying weather; in fact some members have been moaning it’s too hot at the field! As predicted last month we have been joined by the bullocks and as a special bonus the sheep are also in the field. The bullocks haven’t given us too much trouble so far and apparently they should be gone in a week or so, hopefully before the patch gets too badly damaged.

The first thing to happen in August was the club barbecue on 31^st July… It was too late to report in the July Patch News so I’ve included a short report here now:I think everyone enjoyed it, the weather was perfect with just a light westerly breeze, the field had been cut and cleared, and the animals hadn’t yet arrived. Farmer George was good enough to allow us to park in the field which made life much easier for everyone. 1066 brought along the new drum barbecue and loads of charcoal that he had purchased for the club and soon all the men were cooking away for their wives and families. This photo features Colin Cowplain, Mike Creamer, and Wonky Wiltshire cooking while 1066 struggles to unwrap a sandwich.Mike flew his drone behind the families and flight line and took a few photos and some video, a snippet of which can be seen in this month’s video at the end of this Patch News.Modelling Clay and Wonky Wiltshire treated us all to a display of what they said was ‘formation flying’ with their EFX Racers and received the usual encouraging shouts of ‘lower, lower’. Always one to please, Modelling duly flew lower and lower until, eventually, the inevitable happened!Fortunately the damage was minimal and easily repaired.

Another July event that seems to have gone unreported was the annual Chuck Glider competition which was held at Buriton before our mid-July meeting. The club Comp Sec Dwayne Pipe was master of ceremonies and made sure the competitors stuck to the correct flight order and he also timed each flight. There was a pretty good turnout, about ten competitors from memory. Catapult King had a novel biplane chuck glider, something I’ve never seen before. Sadly its performance explained why I’ve not seen one before.President Don’s ancient model looked like the one to beat, it really is a superb glider, but I think Don’s throwing arm isn’t what it used to be and he couldn’t manage any really long flights.Many of the pilots launched facing downwind…why? I didn’t understand the logic but they continued to do it even after being advised that throwing into the wind had to be better. A good time was had by all so thanks go to Dwayne for organising it. Modesty prevents me from naming the eventual winner, I think Don was second, and I’ve no idea who came third. I was too busy throwing and retrieving my chuck glider to take any photos but somebody took some excellent ones, I wonder who! I think it was probably Rusty G (Graham Swan). Anyway thanks to all those who have contributed photos and video for this edition.

Woody has finished building his Splot at last and has been happily flying it throughout August. He’s made a great job of his first ever build off a plan, and his covering skills look good too. It flies like…well like all the other Splots really. Once he’d got the rates and expo sorted to his liking Woody got very brave and even did some low passes for me to film. A huge step for Captain Altitude!

The lovely weather brought out lots of electric gliders and Stanley Knife maidened his new Phoenix 2000.This 2M span Plug’n’Fly glider comes complete, already fitted with 4 x 9gm servos, a 30A speed controller, and a 4010 850kV motor. It flew very nicely with a 3 cell lipo as suggested but next time out Stanley found that the motor had died an early death. He couldn’t find an identical replacement on the HK website so he simply fitted a spare motor he had kicking around and found a suitable folding prop for it. Once again it flew perfectly, just the right amount of power so the replacement motor was obviously a good choice.The Phoenix is fairly unusual in that it has a blown nylon fuselage fitted with plywood formers, although the wings and tail are made from the more common EPO foam. It doesn’t come with working flaps but they are moulded in so if you require them it’s just a case of fitting a couple of servos and suitable linkages.

Jeremy Stuttard came along one midweek day to test fly his new E-Flite Radian XL.The Radian is available in a variety of sizes, the XL being 2.6M span. That’s 102”, so fairly large. It comes as a Bind’n’Fly model, being already fitted with a Spektrum AS3X receiver. That means it has a built in gyro for super stable flight. The model is rudder/elevator, no ailerons, but it does have pre-fitted spoilers so getting it down shouldn’t be a problem. I launched it for Jeremy’s first flight and it felt heavy but it flew away beautifully and looked mightily impressive stooging around in the light wind we had that day.I recorded some video which you can see in this month’s video, including a brilliant low pass, but Jeremy was still enjoying that long first flight when I had to leave to I didn’t get to see the landing.

New member Terry Paget has been flying with PAM for a few months now and has been working towards his ‘A’ certificate so that he’s able to fly without a suitably qualified pilot stood next to him. I’m pleased to report that Examiner Dougal Entendre took and passed Terry during August and he received his new certificate at the last club meeting. Congratulations Terry.The subject of nicknames arose recently and, as Terry isn’t exactly known for ever being short of something to say, some unkind person suggested Terribull. Sounds absolutely perfect on so many fronts to me!

Terribull passed the test flying his WOT4 Foam-E but manged to bury it shortly afterwards when flying with the Firebirds club, so more recently he’s been flying his Weekender, a 31” span model designed by Dave Hughes back in 1966, the days of single channel radio and Cox 049 glow-plug motors. Terribull has adapted it for rudder/elevator control and fitted a Purple Power 2827 1350kV motor from 4-Max, coupled to a 20A Overlander speed controller. He uses a 1300mAh 3 cell lipo pack which gives good long flight times. There’s more than enough room inside for the radio gear.I’ve had a flight with the Weekender and it’s as aerobatic as can be expected of a 3 channel model and very well behaved. Terribull is now building a larger version with ailerons and no dihedral. I wonder if the larger one will be called Long Weekend…

Dougal send me through a photo of 1066 prop hanging his Hummer. Note the body language, the tightly clenched buttocks, leaning the way he wants the model to go, the tightly clenched buttocks, you can almost feel him squeezing the transmitter as he angles it round to the right, the tightly clenched buttocks…!

Norwegian Nick brought along his beautifully finished ME163 Komet for another try after it had previously failed to get away from a hand-launch despite a really strong heave.This time Nick had added a detachable dolly in the hope that it would be able to get off the patch. The model was built from the Cloud Models kit and features a fibreglass fuselage which makes for a lovely model but unfortunately it also makes it rather heavy.Despite various attempts to reach reasonable speed across the patch the Komet failed to get airborne so Nick has gone away to think of something else to try. I reckon it would go fine from a tarmac runway, and maybe from a longer grass one than we have at our field.

Chris Hard flew on several occasions this month and flew a couple of models we haven’t seen for a while.The first one was his Tarka, a model originally designed by Dave Boddington for Club 20 racing, so named because the models all had to use 0.20 cu inch sized I/C engines (just over 3cc). Chris’s Tarka uses electric power of course but I’m afraid I didn’t record which motor etc. Chris used.The Tarka flies well, fast but not ridiculously so, and is fully aerobatic. The second model Chris flew was his Radjet 400 which I’ve featured previously. Chris owns both this 400 version and the larger 800 version. They both fly well, but the small one is quite a hairy little bugger and it’s not something for the faint-hearted or the short-sighted, it disappears very rapidly if you’re not very careful!Every time Chris brings it along it makes me laugh, it just looks as if he’s bringing a pizza for his lunch!

Back now to Modelling Clay; one Sunday he made the fatal mistake of saying he’d have ‘one last flight’ and promptly had an aileron servo fail in his WOT4 Foam-E. The damage looks pretty terminal to me and I doubt it will be repaired. A sad end but it had served him well.

Many of you will have seen Modelling’s new Acro Wot when he gave a presentation at a recent club meeting. The presentation covered the trials and tribulations of his first covering and spray job. The model is built from a Chris Foss wood kit, rather than one of the foam ones, and Modelling chose to do the electric version.As far as I could see the only difference between the old original I/C version and this one is that it has a battery hatch at the front.He has fitted an AXI 4120/14 V2 motor fitted with a 13 x 8 prop and coupled to a Jeti 70A speed controller with a switching BEC. He uses a 4 cell 4000mAh lipo rated at 25C. The servos are Hitec HS82MG and he splashed out on a Carbon Copy canopy and undercarriage. Modelling has made a lovely job of the glass-cloth covering and spray job. He didn’t make it easy for himself as he designed a scheme that included lots of pin stripes, particularly on the underside of the wing centre. 1066 talked Modelling into doing the first flight himself (I think 1066 was too scared to do it!) and the plane flew perfectly, as if it was on rails. Acro Wots are known for being a bit tricky to get down on our patch as they tend to float on and on but Modelling even did a lovely landing. Well done Tim, we all hate you!

I managed to lose some of the video I shot this month, including the Acro Wot’s first flight but I’ve just found it all again! As I have already completed this month’s video I will include the ‘lost’ footage next month, try not to get over excited in anticipation…

The last new model to feature this month is Dougal Entendre’s Vignette. He’s built a fuselage and V-tail and fitted the wing from his deceased Spirit. I think it looks really good and it reminds me of my first ever electric model, a Proof, designed by Dave Wilshire, that I first flew on 24th August 1991. Twenty five years of electric flying, wow! And I’ve hardly changed at all… The Vignette motor is from the Spirit’s evil twin, a Wingnetic, the same as I have fitted in my own Spirit. The V-tail controls elevator and rudder so with the aileron wing Dougal has all four functions.I suspect that if it had failed to fly nicely the name would have changed to Vinegarette but it didn’t, it flew brilliantly. You can see some of the first flight in this month’s video, although it’s so fast and agile it’s not easy to film. It’s very annoying, it seemed to be faster than my Spirit, and flew even better.

Finally, a couple of superb quality photos from Rusty G. These both feature Dougal’s Spitfire, I think you’ll have to agree they are absolutely stunning.

Next month’s Patch News may well be rather late making an appearance as I will be in Mexico at the end of September and beginning of October. Before that I’ll be in France for a few days, and I’ve got to find time to organise the skittles on 17^th September and finish my club model (with the Fine Klogleman wing) before the meeting on 22^nd September so that doesn’t leave me very much time for writing. All contributions of anything I miss while away will be gratefully received, photos, videos, and write-ups.

Please watch the video full screen, it’s so much better with small models flying around. If the video above won’t play for you CLICK HERE

A Boeing 747 was having engine trouble, and the pilot instructed the cabin crew to have the passengers take their seats and get prepared for an emergency landing.

A couple minutes later, the pilot asked the flight attendants if everyone was ready. Back came the reply:

“All set back here, Captain, except the lawyers are still going around passing out business cards.”

Colin Cowplain