Patch News – December 2016

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you’ve all had a brilliant Christmas and fantastic New Year’s Eve. Still got a headache? Serves you right, I have no sympathy for you at all!So who was lucky enough to receive some modelling gear as presents? Please send me your photos and info, and I’ll include some next month. No Basher, no repeats of last year please, I want AERO modelling photos, not you in your Christmas Y-fronts and socks again.

As was to be expected the December weather was variable. We didn’t have too much rain but up at Chidden Down lots of days had early morning fog which sometimes lingered the whole day. On those days a few of us flew Hummers, about the only things flyable in the murk, and then only if you can prop-hang reasonably well.We did have what could have been a nasty ‘moment’ one morning. I will say no more about it except that Tony Neal will now be known as Slasher Neal.

But we also had some good days and 22^nd December was just about perfect. With a very gentle south westerly wind to blow the fog away the day was bright and not too cold. The mist lingered down over Portsmouth and the Solent but it was perfectly clear at the field.The lovely weather lured some of the Midweekers away from their Christmas preparations and I was joined by Gentleman Jim, Dwayne Pipe, Basher Bob, Woody, and John Warren. It was especially good to see Woody back flying again following his replacement knee op. I’m sure his flying had improved, maybe his knee jerk reactions are faster now!

If you were paying attention last month you’ll know Santa had promised me a Kyosho F-22 Raptor. Well surprise surprise on Christmas morning there it was under the tree. It’s 25” (635mm) span and is moulded in polystyrene foam. Not sure how durable that will prove to be; nowadays virtually all foamies are made from either EPO or EPP.It comes with all the necessary electronics, 3 servos, the motor, the speed controller, and a 55mm diameter fan unit. Those wings may be scale but I’m sure they’re way too small!

This is from Wikipedia: The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor is a fifth-generation, single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft developed for the United States Air Force (USAF). The result of the USAF’s Advanced Tactical Fighter program, the aircraft was designed primarily as an air superiority fighter, but also has ground attack, electronic warfare, and signal intelligence capabilities. The prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, built most of the F-22’s airframe and weapons systems and did its final assembly, while Boeing provided the wings, aft fuselage, avionics integration, and training systems. The high cost of the aircraft, a lack of clear air-to-air missions due to delays in Russian and Chinese fighter programs, a ban on exports, and development of the more versatile F-35 led to the end of F-22 production. A final procurement tally of 187 operational production aircraft was established in 2009, and the last F-22 was delivered to the USAF in 2012.Although the model is a fully moulded foamie there’s still a reasonable amount of assembling to be done and, being polystyrene, I won’t be able to use my usual lazy-boy cyano. There hasn’t been any foam-safe cyano in the raffle (useless Hastings, useless) so I suppose I’ll have to use epoxy.

It’s been a good month for me as not only did Santa bring me the Raptor, but also Mrs. Santa gave me permission to buy a new transmitter, and of course it had to be Multiplex again.I didn’t really need one, my faithful Multiplex Cockpit SX is still performing faultlessly, but the new transmitter (rather confusingly also called the Cockpit SX) does have a few extra features, the most obvious one being speech. On the old set the throttle-linked countdown timer beeps at various times, and there are different beeps for various alarms, particularly if telemetry is being used, but the pilot has to glance at the screen to read the actual values.But on the new one it speaks the time during the countdown and, if you use telemetry, will speak (for instance) the current the motor is pulling, the milliamps left in the battery, or whatever else you set up. The frequency and volume of the announcements can be adjusted and you can listen to them via an earpiece if you wish. I have used 16 of the 18 model memories on the original set, although it is possible to download and save them to a PC for recall if required later. The new set has room for 200 models so I don’t think I’ll run out! It comes with a USB lead to charge the single cell 4000mAh LIFE battery, and the same lead it used to download free software updates.Multiplex seem to bring out new transmitters in a fairly basic form and then add extra features that people request. The Cockpit SX has been out for around a year and as soon as I connected mine up it downloaded an update that included another 8 mixers. The setting up is all done on the full colour TFT touch-screen which works very well although some of the text is a bit small for my aged eyes.Of course other manufacturers also produce sets with much the same features but Multiplex have an enviable reputation for reliability and the M-Link FHSS system is generally accepted as being bulletproof and that has certainly been the my experience so far. Dwayne Pipe asked how long I’ve had the original transmitter and I’ve been looking back through my photos to find out. I’ve found some of me holding the transmitter 5 ½ years ago so I think it’s probably just under 6 years old, pretty good going I reckon.

While I was looking back through my photos I stumbled across this one from February 1999. If I remember correctly it was taken to commemorate the club’s 25^th anniversary.A few of us are still PAM members but sadly a few have passed away. What is surprising is that Viv and I are the only two in the photo that are still flying regularly with PAM, although Ken Knox and John Evans fly with other clubs.

Dougal has sent me some information about the Spad XIII that Santa Angie bought for him.At fifth scale it’s 68” (1727mm) span, so pretty big, especially for a biplane, and is going to need a large motor and an 8 cell lipo. It’s an ARF so it requires final assembly rather than actually building from scratch but Dougal says there’s still quite a lot of work to be done. It’s an accurate, true scale, very comprehensive (and expensive) model and I’m looking forward to seeing it in the air. I can still remember Dougal’s last Spad, sadly it didn’t end well…

In December Terribull brought along a revamped model that I had test flown a couple of months ago.This is what Terribull says about it:

A few years ago I decided to build a model called ‘ Gonzales’, which was a free plan in a Quiet & Electric Flight magazine. The plane was built to plan except for the motor which I could not source, so I decided to fit a KMS inrunner which produced 350 watts on a 6/4 prop. Five flights were made using 3s 2200 lipos and all went well. But about 3 mins into the sixth flight it had total radio failure and the model tent pegged itself in the ground. The only bits still in one piece were the wings and tailplane.

More recently, the plane was rebuilt using the old wing and tailplane, and the model was taken to the patch for a test. It proved to be a handful so I decided to let Andy have a go at flying it. The model needed huge amounts of aileron trim to level the plane out but it survived. Back at my other club I took it for a flight which revealed the settings used up at the patch did not work, something had altered, and the plane crashed demolishing the first 10 inches of the fuselage. At that point I did consider stripping it out and scrapping it, but no, the fuselage was repaired using the jigsaw of broken balsa complete with a modification to the fuselage sides that incorporated side cheeks to offer some protection to the motor, as well as making the model look better. The wing is my own design made of balsa sheet, and a rudder was added.The model uses an Overlander 2836/08 outrunner with a 9×6 prop producing 220 watts. Up at the patch recently I allowed Mark to fly it. After slight trimming the plane was decreed a success, highly manoeuvrable and neutral flight. So, not bad for a rebuild which I think is way better than the original. As for its name, I call it ‘Aerobat’. 

Woody didn’t waste his time while he was recuperating following his knee op, he built a new model.It’s an E-Bandit which was designed by Graham Dorschell and was a free plan in RC Model World in June 2015. It’s a 35” (890mm) span jet style model which is constructed mostly from Depron so it’s quick to build and is a light model. Woody has fitted an E-Max 2815/07 1100kV motor with a 9×6 propeller, a 60A esc, and uses a 3 cell 2200mAh lipo. Woody loves his lights so he’s fitted a Lander lighting kit with an LED afterburner.I test flew the model and I have to say I was too busy trying to trim it out to notice any lights! But after a few adjustments it was flying quite nicely and, with a little more sorting, will hopefully serve Woody well. Both the E-Bandit and Terribull’s Aerobat can be seen in this month’s video. Dougal kindly videod the E-Bandit for me.

On a rather murky 30th December Catapult King snapped some pics of 1066 Hummer hovering and Colin Cowplain flying his Saab Gripen. Catapult also shot some of the video this month.

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

Fred and Maureen were flying to Australia for a two-week vacation to celebrate their 40th anniversary when suddenly, over the public address system, the Captain announced, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I am afraid I have some very bad news. Our engines have failed and we will attempt an emergency landing. Luckily, I see an uncharted island below us and we should be able to land on the beach. However, the odds are that we may never be rescued and will have to live on the island for the rest of our lives.”

Thanks to the skill of the flight crew, the plane landed safely on the island.

An hour later, Fred turns to his wife and asks, “Maureen, did we pay our deposit cheque yet to the bank?”

“No, sweetheart” she responds. Fred, still shaken, then asks, “Maureen, did we pay our credit card yet?”

“Oh no! I’m sorry. I forgot to send the cheque,” Maureen says.

“One last thing, Maureen.“ Did you remember to send cheque for the car loan this month?” he asks.

“Oh, forgive me” begged Maureen. “I didn’t send that one, either, I’m so sorry.”

Fred grabs her and gives her the biggest hug in 40 years. Maureen pulls away and asks “So, why did you hug me?”

Fred answers, “Oh they’ll find us…”

Colin Cowplain