Patch News – August 2017

August saw the return of the bullocks, and happily, their departure as well. We had some pretty wet weather while they were in the field and they didn’t do the patch any favours but it’s nothing like as bad as before. I think it will be fine again given a decent bit of weather over the next few weeks, although apparently there will probably be sheep in the field by the time you read this. The sheep are less of a problem to us and don’t really damage the patch other than by adding their own brand of fertiliser! While the bullocks were in the field they mostly ignored us and, although we did have to herd them away from the models and patch a few times, very often they paid little or no attention to us despite being fairly close. Personally I’m rather fond of them, but I prefer them medium rare…

1066 wasn’t too keen on my Friday Afternoon Gardening Society acronym and suggested the Friday Afternoon Rural Trimmers Society was more appropriate, so next time you head off up to the field on a Friday afternoon you can truthfully tell the wife “just off to see the old farts”.

While I’m talking about 1066 he’ll be really pleased to see that I’m featuring one of his models this month…or maybe not. This is the remains of his Speedy glider that met an unfortunate, untimely, and unusual end.The photo shows it exactly as it was when we reached it, note the divot by the battery pack! He was doing a flat out low pass over the patch when there was a very sudden and loud screech from the motor immediately followed by total loss of control. We think the motor must have seized and the sudden stop somehow killed the speed controller including the BEC (Battery Eliminator Circuit). No doubt people that understand the electronics better than I will mutter about ‘spikes’ and ‘back emf’ etc. but all we know was that it screeched and the radio stopped working. As I said, the model was flat out and low so from the screech to the crash was probably less than a second. It’s a great shame as the Speedy was an entertaining hotliner to fly and to watch. We’ll have to keep a watchful eye on Catapults King’s Speedy which has the same ‘outrunner in a case’ motor to see if there are any tell-tale signs of motor problems before the worst happens.

August was supposed to be the month that saw the maiden flight of Percy Vears’ Vulcan but sadly it wasn’t to be.Percy built the Vulcan from the Tony Nijhuis plan and with a wingspan of 1.24m (49”) it’s a fair size for a one piece model. The airframe is constructed from balsa and plywood, covered with glass cloth and epoxy resin, and finished with Humbrol acrylic and weighs only 2.3kg (5lb) without batteries.Thrust is provided by four electric motors driving four 50mm 10-bladed fans. Two 4-cell lipo batteries located in the wings provide power for the motors, radio equipment and retracting undercarriage. With its’ retracts and small wheels the model isn’t suited to our rather rough grass patch so Percy was pleased to be offered the chance to fly from the tarmac runway at the CADMAC’s Thorney Island site. Two dates that fitted in with the CADMAC schedule were provisionally planned and on the first date we arrived to find ideal weather conditions but when doing radio checks we found a problem with the receiver sometimes going to ‘hold’ mode. We couldn’t sort it on the field so we aborted and Percy investigated the problem in his workshop. It turned out that the UBEC wasn’t able to supply enough current to power the retracts, servos, and speed controllers, exacerbated by a nose-wheel retract that wasn’t always retracting quite fully so was continuing to pull current. So he’s now fitted a higher current UBEC which seems to have sorted the problem. The second date was forecast to have strong gusty winds so we scrubbed it before making the trip. The next available date is 16 September so fingers crossed the weather plays ball.

You may remember that a couple of months ago I reported that Woody had managed to pull the wings off his Ugly Stick at about 200ft altitude. Surprisingly the only major damage was to the dummy I/C engine but they are currently unavailable from HobbyKing so I thought Woody would write the model off. But this month it reappeared, reborn as a ‘normal’ electric model with no dummy engine. Woody simply removed all the dummy bits, the original electric motor, and the driveshaft connecting the two together, and then bolted an Emax 2820-07 straight to the front bulkhead. It worked perfectly and the Ugly Stick is now back flying just as well as it ever did, a great result.

The current popular trend of electric powered gliders seems to be growing and another three appeared in August. First up is Gentleman Jim who has bought a Phoenix from HobbyKing.The Phoenix is available in two sizes, 1600mm and 2000mm wingspan, and Jim, like Kryten last month, and Stanley Knife last year, bought the 2000 version. According to the website the Plug’n’Play version only takes 15 minutes to assemble, something both Jim and Kryten disagree with! However it does go together very quickly and the end result is a great flier, good for both soaring and gentle aerobatics.Jim wasn’t keen on the supplied stickers and when I took the photos his Phoenix was in its bare form. He has since applied some of the supplied ones along with some of his own design. Kryten and Stanley Knife have both added the optional flaps but so far Jim hasn’t bothered with them. But having watched Jim’s Phoenix several times cruising sedately over the patch at a few feet altitude and steadfastly refusing to land I think they might soon be added!

Second of the new gliders to show up was Captain Slow’s Dalasy Models Expert 600 that he purchased in 1999.Now I know we call him Captain Slow but I thought that was because he likes slow flying models not because it takes him 18 years to finish an ARTF glider! Ok, the truth, he bought the model when he was in the army based in Germany in 1999 (he’s really a Major not a Captain) and flew the model a lot out there. He flew it at our field a few years ago but it’s only in this month that he’s fitted it with 2.4 GHz radio gear and started flying it again.Dalasy Models was a Czech manufacturer and there are similarities in the construction with my own Czech made Swing Plus. Both models feature a glass fibre fuselage, a V-tail, and built-up wing with a carbon sandwiched spar for strength, but the Swing Plus is only 1.7 metre span whereas the Expert is 2 metre span and is fitted with ailerons. Captain Slow is still flying it with the original brushed Speed 600 motor which is fitted with a gearbox and he’s still using 8 cell NiMh batteries of 3200mAh capacity. This all makes the model a little on the heavy side compared with more modern set-ups but nevertheless it performs well. The climb is relatively sedate but that’s how he likes his models and it thermals well once it’s up there.

The final ‘new’ glider to show up in August was Dougal Entendre’s ancient Olympic 100” thermal soarer. He actually flew it with FPV at our patch back in July 2014 but I expect you’ve all forgotten about it by now.As you can see it’s a proper ‘built from balsa’ glider to which he’s added a small pylon that holds the electric motor and speed controller. The Olympic was originally a plan from the American mag RCM back in the 70’s and Dougal has recently discovered that Airtronics kitted the model for a while.If you fancy building one the plan can be found by clicking HERE. Dougal has added some sheeting and rib capping strips to improve the torsional rigidity of the wing.Under power it’s best described as ‘I can hear the motor so it must be climbing’ but it soars beautifully. Dougal’s claim to fame with the Olympic is that he once came second to Chris Foss in the Towner Trophy thermal competition many moons ago, that’s no mean feat.

At the first club meeting in August we had an RTP (Round The Pole) night. A few months ago I bought an RTP set-up from HobbyKing, mainly to utilise the spare weight for which I was paying postage anyway. I spotted the package in the HK Bargain Bin for under £12 and it just looked like too much fun to refuse. When it arrived I discovered I didn’t have a big enough space at home to fly it so I suggested flying it in the hall one club evening. It was a popular suggestion and another 5 identical ones were promptly ordered by others members.We started off with just one model flying but that was a bit boring and they come with streamers so you can do combat with two models flying at once on the same pole. That was much more exciting so we decided to try three models at once, and then four! If you weren’t there to witness the ensuing chaos you can see some of it in this month’s video at the end of this Patch News!

Along the same lines (that’s a joke) also in the video is attempt number two with 1066’s electric control-line model. One evening 1066, Dougal, and I went to a local park to play with the modified model. It was much better than previously and we all had successful flights with it. At least with electric control-line you can just shut the throttle and land when you get dizzy. Eventually 1066 decided to try looping it…and failed, minor repairs are now required. You can see it fly in the video. No doubt more on this subject will follow.

Norwegian Nick brought along a Christmas present from his kids to fly at Buriton before one club meeting.It’s a Parkzone Ultra Micro T-28 Trojan BNF (Bind’N’Fly). It comes completely finished; all you have to do is charge the battery and bind the pre-installed receiver to your existing Spektrum transmitter. The Trojan is just 16.5” wingspan (420mm) and the flying weight is 38gms (1.34oz) complete with four channel radio controlling ailerons, elevator, rudder, throttle and steerable nose leg. That’s ridiculous, 4 channel ready to fly weight of 38gms!The undercarriage is removable and Nick flew without it. It took a few attempts to get the centre of gravity and trim correct but once they were sorted but then it flew very well. Unfortunately I didn’t get any video of it flying; maybe I’ll be able to get some for next month.

Tony Neil flew his P51 Mustang once during August. Tony won the Mustang in the November 2013 big raffle and flew it early in 2014 but I haven’t seen it fly since then. It’s a 59” span Phoenix Models ARTF that comes with all the parts to make it either I/C or electric powered. Tony chose the I/C route and installed an ASP46 2-stroke. It’s a lovely model but would be so much lovelier if Tony had fitted an electric motor instead! He struggled to take-off with small wheels and the rather rough patch but eventually made it ok only to discover it had much too much aileron movement. This meant the flight was a bit ‘interesting’ but he got it under control and back down in one piece so it ended well.

Bob the Builder has been building again and he’s named his latest model a Splotel as it’s a cross between a Splot and a Trottel. You know what a Splot is, the Trottel is the little Depron model he’s been flying lately, it’s on the same forum as the Kung Fu’s that is this year’s club model. Basically the Splotel has a Splot wing that’s made from an earlier Depron version that Bob built and he’s made a balsa and ply Trottel fuselage, tailplane, and fin but scaled them up to Splot size. The wing has a 10mm diameter carbon spar so he won’t be breaking that in a hurry!The finished model just looks like a Splot with a tricycle undercarriage to me. It has a PropDrive 3536-1400KV motor than can take either three or four cells and the model weighs 3lbs with a 2200mAh four cell pack. On four cells the motor produces more than 600W so the model has over 200W/lb! The power certainly showed when I took off on its test flight, it and it shot off across the patch like a startled rabbit.It flew well, I spent most of the flight at less than half throttle but it would go vertical forever if you wanted. I managed to remove the main wheels when I landed and was rather relieved when Bob did exactly the same when he landed on the second flight, obviously a bit of a weak point. No doubt Bob will sort that easily enough.

I had a bit of an issue with my Multiplex transmitter in August. When I tried switch it on one Sunday morning it was totally dead, just a quick flash of the power LED, then nothing. Needless to say I took a lot stick, mostly from Spektrum users who very kindly let me fly their models whilst mentioning Superb Spektrum. The problem turned out to be my own fault; apparently if you leave the transmitter switched on when you stop flying at lunchtime on Wednesday the battery will be flat by Sunday morning…doh! After a quick charge everything is working perfectly again, Marvellous Multiplex. But Dougal had an even more embarrassing problem with his Devention transmitter when he went to fly at Buriton before one club meeting. He opened his transmitter case only to find this:Leaving the transmitter at home must surely be worse than leaving it switched on?! However, he redeemed himself later that by giving us an excellent talk on launching gliders and brought along a 3.8 metre span one to show us.

A few months ago I featured some members’ modelling rooms/sheds/garages. Now Catapult King has sent me some photos of his spare room, explaining that it’s now so full he has had to resort to building his models in the kitchen. He says it’s less than ideal but it’s convenient that he doesn’t have an other half to pester him!

Now for a few flying photos, Gentleman Jim snapped the first two on his mobile, the others are from Catapult King.

Now it’s time for this month’s video, some was done by The Squire, Dougal, and Captain Slow, thanks guys: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

This month’s joke was sent in by Dougal Entendre so don’t blame me:

I watched a documentary on how wings are fixed to planes. It was riveting.

Colin Cowplain