Patch News – December 2017

Happy New Year to you all, hope you’ve had a great time over the holiday. That’s it for another year, all over now, nothing to see here…  Did Father Christmas bring you some modelling/interesting/amusing presents for Christmas? If so, remember to bring them along to the next club meeting on 11^th Jan and share the joy.

December was a fairly typical winter month for flying, some of us managed to fly quite a bit but many others, probably sensibly, stayed home in the warm, and during the whole month there were only three new models flown. Gorgeous Gary managed to escape the festivities and went flying on 28^th December. It was a perfect flying day apart from the temperature and he was obviously surprised to find himself alone. He sent me this photo, and said  the track wasn’t too bad to drive down. You should have emailed Gary, you might have had some company.The saga of the bullocks continues, they moved on just a few days after I moaned about them in the last Patch News and, apparently (fingers crossed) they won’t be back until the spring. That seems a long way off right now but it’s already noticeable that the days are getting longer, better push on with those winter projects if they’re going to be ready in time for the decent weather.

Much of this edition of Patch News will actually be about stuff away from the patch but that tends to happen every winter. I’ll begin with a couple of rather worrying talks by our Chairman Mark Agate, or as he’s now known, Tranny Agate.  No no no, not because he dresses in Angie’s clothes at the weekend (although, let’s be honest, we’ve all had our suspicions…) but because he confessed to being a transmitter addict. Yes, at the first talk he gave us at the beginning of December he stood up and admitted that whilst he couldn’t talk to his wife about it, he felt able to share with club members the fact that he can’t stop himself buying transmitters. He then proceeded to produce more and more of the things from an array of innocent looking boxes, dating from his very early days of RC flying right up to his latest purchase of Devention transmitter number four.I think it was a total of twenty three on the night and as you can see in the photo they ranged from the early days Fleet Control Systems and Skyleader up to the aforementioned Walkera Devention sets. Please note: I’m writing this two days before Christmas and he’s probably bought more since then, not to mention any he received as Christmas presents. He gave us a brief rundown on each transmitter, why and how he came to own it, it’s good and bad points, and why he felt the need to buy the next one. I think he hoped that by sharing his problem it might help alleviate it in some small way but only a few days later he showed me a list of transmitters he was watching on eBay…

The other talk Mark/Dougal/Tranny gave us was at the last meeting before Christmas and its title was ‘Christmas Night With The Stars’. It turned out to be all about celebrities who have links to model flying and as you can see on his title slide below it included nudity and gender fluidity…back to Tranny Agate then!The PowerPoint presentation also had videos of Stardust – Music Sounds Better With You, Goldfrapp – Drew, Enrique Iglesias getting his fingers chopped up by a drone, and clips from The Fast Show, and A Bit of Fry & Laurie. Now I know what you lot are like, it was the nudity part that interested you most, so here you are, a snapshot from the Goldfrapp video which shows the modelling connection with a WOT-4 and a naked…er…bloke. Sorry.I’m sure all those present would agree that the talk was excellent, if you weren’t there you missed a great evening.

On 2^nd December several PAM members travelled to Medstead, near Alton, for the opening of the newly relocated model shop Modellbau UK. There was a nice display of models outside the shop, including several turbines, and the inside was crammed with loads of goodies. The owner Ian Budgen stocks planes, helicopters, drones, and buggies, along with all the bits and pieces that go with them. Tranny Agate was beside himself with excitement when he spotted a cabinet full of transmitters; fortunately it was safely locked, but just around the corner he found a loose one and snatched it up. We managed to prise it out of his hands eventually. As with all model shops Ian struggles to compete with some of the online prices for larger items but he hopes to have regular ‘specials’ at great prices. When we visited his Wot-4’s were as cheap as any I’d seen online. He also had several of the mini Wot-4’s on display, which demonstrated one of the advantages of a proper model shop, the ability to see them in the flesh, I hadn’t appreciated just how small they are having previously only seen photos online. For us in Petersfield, one of the best things about Modellbau UK is the availability of a good range of the small items we require. The online shops have their place but if you’re scrolling through page after page of dross trying to find the most suitable quick-links only to then discover that the 30p packet either costs £5 to post or takes up to 28 days to arrive, you’ll find a trip to Medstead is a much better experience. We wish Ian well with his endeavours.

Onto the first of the new models now, my Multiplex FunGlider. Following the demise of my Swing Plus I felt the need for a fairly small all-rounder, something that would be a reasonable soarer but also be aerobatic when I get bored of stooging around looking for lift. My Multiplex mate Captain Slow had let me have a fly with his new FunGlider last month and I really liked it, so it was in my mind when I looked at what was available. Austrian model shop Lindinger have them on offer at the moment and when I mentioned that I was considering buying one Captain Slow said he wanted a Multiplex receiver and some other bits and pieces so a combined order would make the total cost high enough to get free postage. Like all the Multiplex models the FunGlider isn’t cheap but the Lindinger price of €129.99 (around £115.50) for the RR version isn’t too bad. The RR (Ready to Run) FunGlider comes with 4 MPX Nano S servos and a BL-20SD 20A speed controller which is coupled to a BL-0 2816-900 Permax brushless motor. All that is required is to fit your own receiver and battery and then add some of the supplied ball bearings into the moulded hole in the fin to obtain the correct centre of gravity. In theory, if you are using a Multiplex transmitter, you can download all the correct model settings to your transmitter using Multiplex Quick Start. This automatically gives you the correct rates, expo, servo direction, throttle/elevator compensation, and 3 position spoilers. I say in theory because I couldn’t find it on the website or work out how to do it! Never mind, it didn’t take very long to set everything up manually. The first flight was on 12^th December, a day that the field had the remains of some snow from the previous day and only myself, Captain Slow, and Woody turned up, all three hardy Multiplex fliers!I knew from Captain Slow’s FunGlider that it would fly well and I’ve not been disappointed so far. It will soar remarkably well for a 1300mm span foamie but it also does all the aerobatics you could reasonably expect. It’s much like a larger version of a Spirit or Kinetic, it glides better but isn’t as crazily aerobatic. Captain Slow filmed me doing a couple of low passes on the first flight and you can see them in this month’s video.

Also in the video is some of the first flight of Catapult King’s new Sunbird electric glider. ”Stop, wait” I hear you shout “his Sunbird was featured in the September Patch News!” Well yes it was, but this one is Sunbird number two. When he purchased the laser cut kit from HobbyKing he used the kit parts as templates to cut an identical set of parts so he could build another one later, and now he’s done exactly that. Catapult was confused by the polyhedral wing when he built the first one and decided he’d got it wrong, although most of us weren’t sure either way. So he’s done it differently on the new one and thinks it’s now correct, I’m still not sure which is correct but they both seem to fly well. You can see the difference between them here: I must admit that the new one did seem to fly better, extremely well in fact. I believe it has exactly the same power set-up as the first one i.e. a Turnigy 2830/1000kv connected to an HK 30A ESC and a 3 cell 1300maH Zippy Compact lipo. As you’ll see in the video Catapult was soon very confident with the model and was able to fly it close enough for me to get some excellent quality footage.

In one of the recent HobbyKing sales I spotted an HD Wing Camera for just £11 odd and decided it had to be worth trying. Well it sort of was… It works well enough but the colours all have a purple tinge to them. On the HK site others mention this but some people say theirs is perfect so maybe there was a duff batch or something.I thought my Swing Plus glider would make a suitable platform for a test flight but unfortunately the flight suffered from a dodgy battery connection and was short lived. I got a beautifully filmed on-board crash though! The camera fared rather better than the glider and escaped unscathed, so then I taped it to the nose of my F-16, hardly a stable platform for aerial photography but it worked reasonably well. I’ve played around with some software in an effort to sort out the purple tinge and have now improved it to a green tinge! The third flight included some shots of Dougal’s Kung Fu getting in the way of… I mean flying in formation with… the F-16 so I’ve included it in this month’s video. I’ll probably put the camera on my FunGlider next and hopefully will get some smoother footage. Not sure how I can correct the purple tinge though, anybody got any ideas?

On the subject of airborne cameras, when Team PAM took part in Balsa Brain recently I won a camera equipped drone in the raffle. I tried flying it from my back garden but found it quite tricky to control in what seemed quite a light breeze so I gave up before the inevitable “please can I have my drone back” conversation with the neighbours.Then I took it to the field and, with a lot more space to play with, managed to learn to fly it reasonably well, although the video footage was pretty rubbish, the content not the quality. Eventually I took it to the indoor flying at Havant one Saturday evening, and had a lot more success there. The combination of no wind, lots of space, and the ability to review the footage on my laptop while charging the single battery it came with, made the process a lot easier. The camera seems to be better than the HobbyKing Wing Camera and I was able to get some reasonable still photos as well as decent video footage, including some of the various other PAM members that were present.You can see some of it in this month’s video.

Back to the patch now and onto the third new model that flew in December. 1066 started building a Mirus six years ago and he’s been going on about it for about…six years. The Mirus is a Ken Stokes designed delta from around 30 years ago, that was known for going ridiculously fast, usually being grossly over-powered by an I/C engine fitted with a tuned pipe. It’s a throwback to 1066’s youth when he flew with the Ken Stokes Mirus team and proved, once and for all, that he’s a hooligan. The one 1066 has just completed took so long because when he started building it he was still flying I/C, but then, having switched to electric power, he had to do lots of redesigning. The original design had a balsa fuselage and tail, with a balsa skinned foam wing, and this one is similar but it’s finished up with a Kline-Fogleman stepped Depron wing that’s reinforced with carbon spars and balsa leading and trailing edges. It finally appeared on Christmas Eve when a few hardy souls went to the patch despite the heavy murk and occasional drizzle. When the murk thinned enough and he got fed up with the rest of us goading him 1066 took the plunge and flew it. The flight was a bit of an anti-climax as it flew perfectly but wasn’t especially fast. He’s using 35mm NTM 1250KV motor, 70 Amp ESC, and a 4 cell lipo. With a 10 x 5 prop it’s pulling 51A and giving around 500W but, as he wants more speed, back on the bench he tried a 9 x 9 but the current went up to 69A for around 600 watts so he’s going to stick with the 10 x 5 for now. Might be worth trying a 9 x 6? I managed to video the first flight but am saving the footage for the January blog so you’ll just have to wait.

Remember ex-PAM member Smiffy? He of ‘the instructions said minimum 3 cells so I’m using 8’ fame. He contacted me recently, just for a general catch up and said he’s been flying with the Guildford club and is also a member at Dunsfold where the club uses the tarmac runway. His latest toy is a Bf-109 which he says is a real handful. It looks fantastic but I’m afraid I don’t have any detail, just this photo that he sent:He also mentioned that he’s bought a YT Ventrix and a KingTech G100 turbine. I found this photo of a Ventrix on the KingTech website. Jealous? Me? Never…drool!

When my Kung Fu first appeared several people asked about the colourful tape I’d used and were surprised to hear that it’s Duck Tape. Most people think it’s only available in grey but it’s actually produced in lots of colours and patterns and I snapped this photo of the display stand at The Range recently.For those who don’t know it The Range is a chain retailer selling home, arts & crafts, garden and leisure products, including furniture and kitchen equipment. The nearest for us is on the old Portsmouth airport site: Portfield Industrial Estate, Portfield Road, Portsmouth PO3 5RR. While I was there I picked up a leaflet about Duck Tape and it had a website link: CLICK HERE.  It’s worth a look and shows the full range of tapes available but it also has a Your Duck section for people to upload their own projects. Well it had to be done and if you check it out you’ll find my Kung Fu amongst other exciting projects such as Pimp My Walker (Zimmer frame), Duck Tape Designer Crutches, and Zebra coloured walking sticks!

Ok, it’s video time now: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.

Rather a lack of quality flying shots this month but here’s a couple that Captain Slow took of my FunGlider:

Now for the winner of the ‘How far did you get before you broke it?’ competition. This year the unfortunate winner is John Warren who snapped the tail of his CAP 20 whilst carrying the model between his car and the gate to the field!Don’t feel too bad John, we’ve all broken models while they’re still in the workshop!

One day at Gatwick airport a young lady was conducting a survey into human sexual behaviour. After about three hours of questioning passengers, she sees a pilot walking through.

Knowing the reputation of pilots she stops him “Excuse me, Captain, I am doing a survey on human sexual behaviour and I was wondering if you could answer a few questions.”

He agrees, and after three or four questions, she asks him “When was the last time you had sex?”

Straight away the Captain replies “1959”.

The girl was shocked… she looks at the captain and says “That was a long time ago!”

The pilot replies “I guess so… but it’s only 2015 now…”

Colin Cowplain.