Patch News – December 2023

Happy New Year everybody, I hope you enjoyed Christmas and saw in the New Year safely.

I’ll begin this Patch News with an important question: Have you completed your response to the BMFA Call to Action email yet? This concerns the CAA Consultation on the CAA Review of UK Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Regulations and it is extremely important as it will affect the future of model flying for all of us. There may not be a future for model flying unless we make our voices heard. All PAM members will have received various emails about this, please be sure to submit your response before 10th January.

Did you all see the Christmas Greetings post on the website? There haven’t been any comments left so I’m wondering if most of you missed it. If you did you can see it here:

Did Santa has bring you any modelling goodies to play with in 2024? I recently received a HobbyKing MX2, the same as the one Gordon Bennett bought a couple of months ago.
And now I hear that Gordon has received an Avios BushMule from Father Christmas, the same as the one I’ve had for a few years. Seems to be a bit of a trend developing there…!

As many of you will know Woody is a diehard fan of the Top Gun movies, he believes he’s the British version of Maverick and this Christmas Santa left him an appropriate T-shirt.
Woody even has a nasty gash on his nose, obviously an injury sustained when he ejected!

December was one of the worst months for flying that I can remember, the weather being pretty miserable, pretty often. It was warmer than most Decembers but there was a lot of rain, often accompanied by strong winds. Some of the hardier members still managed to get some flying in but I have to admit that at times it seemed like a chore not a pleasure.
The Boxing Day weather was ok but only Dougal Entendre and Mini-Mike could make it: We’d planned to get one final mowing session completed but with a lack of enthusiasm and helpers it got put off several times, but we did eventually get it done on 15^th December.
The patch is now in good condition and should be fine with no more work required until the spring. Meanwhile the sheep that had been in the field have grazed the rest of the grass down nicely so the whole field is now quite short. The sheep have now been moved on to pastures new which provided some of us with a little light entertainment one morning when they were herded up the track and off along the road just as we were arriving to fly.
I imagine the field will now be free of animals for at least a couple of months so hopefully the very muddy areas around the field entrance and parking areas will gradually recover.

I spotted this Old Farts Club beer gift pack in a garden centre recently and thought it was very apt for our mowing team, the Friday Afternoon Rural Trimming Society.
Is it just me or does the Boring Old Fart bear a certain resemblance to Dwayne Pipe?
The Daft Old Fart is very definitely Bob the Builder, and let’s face it, the Grumpy Old Fart could be any or all of us. I’m afraid I was too parsimonious (tight) to actually buy the pack!

Unsurprisingly with the poor weather there was a distinct lack of new models appearing in December but there were several that re-emerged having been upgraded or re-owned. Mini-Mike brought along two models to test out that he’d changed a few things on, the first being an old Acro Wot that he’d first put together back around 2005/06.
It’s one of the original ‘proper’ wood ones with a built-up fuselage and veneer covered foam wings and Mike had fitted an OS70 4-stroke to power it. But after many years of it laying in the loft unloved and unused Mike removed the OS70 and replaced it with a Turnigy SK3 Aerodrive 3548 840kv motor coupled to a Plush 60A speed controller.
The fuel tank was replaced by a 3300mAh 4 cell lipo which is fitted through a hatch cut in the top of the fuselage and the old analogue servos were replaced with 3 Spektrum digital servos. Mike also fitted a Spektrum receiver which he bound to his new Radiomaster tx.
It was at this point that he realised he was going to need a lot of lead in the nose to achieve the correct centre of gravity because the old OS70 had been much heavier than the new Turnigy motor. He ended up having to add 240g despite mounting the battery as far forward as he could get it. The overall weight of the Acro Wot must have ended up about the same as the IC version, it just seems a shame to add all that dead weight. When it came to the test flight everything was fine and the model flew beautifully, there was plenty of power and it was every bit as good as when it had the OS70 fitted. I captured some of the first flight on video so you can see it for yourselves in this month’s video.

Prospective new member Rod Ashton brought along his E-Flite Timber to fly. Rod has completed the required 3 visits and will probably have joined by the time you read this.
The Timber flew fine although Rod doesn’t look very happy about it in the photo!
He’s been adjusting the throttle/elevator coupling and had got it sorted by the third flight.
Rod’s having a bit of trouble landing on our small patch but he’ll get used to it after a few more flights. As he hasn’t yet got a BMFA ‘A’ certificate Rod has to have one of the club’s NFCs stood with him for every flight so that’s a priority for the start of 2024.

I’ve been struggling with watery eyes when flying for a while now, especially in cold windy weather when the wind just makes them stream. I wear varifocal glasses and have both clear and sunglasses with the same prescription but they give little protection from the wind. I mentioned it to the optician last time I had my eyes tested and his rather unhelpful reply was “Yes, it’s an age thing, there’s nothing I can do.”  It seems to affect several other members as well and some have tried a few different types of goggles with varying success. As I’ve usually been the first to take the mickey when others have tried them (doesn’t sound like me does it!) I was rather reluctant to go down that route but having almost crashed a few times I decided I’d have to try something. I spotted some cheap ski goggles on the Temu website that said they were windproof and anti-fog and would fit over normal glasses. They were available with various tints (but not clear) and were only about £3 a pair so I ordered a couple to try. When they arrived they fitted over my normal glasses very well and would certainly be windproof but even the pair with the lightest tint looked a bit too dark . I tried flying with them and found that they were definitely too tinted, might be ok in the summer when the wind is less of a problem anyway but definitely a bit too dark for winter use. So then I ordered a different type that was clear but seemed to be more for eye protection (a bit like safety goggles) and although they weren’t tinted they also weren’t clear, it was like being out on a foggy day. At under £2 it seems you get what you pay for.
So after a bit more searching on Temu I found some moto-cross goggles that said windproof and anti-fog and were also tint free. I splashed out almost £5 for a pair and they seemed to be just what I needed. I wore them for a few flights last time out and they certainly stopped my eyes watering and didn’t mist up although my varifocals did a bit. Needless to say I took a bit of stick for wearing them but as the saying goes “Don’t give it if you can’t take it” so I ignored it. But then I discovered an added benefit while having my after flight coffee, the goggles trap a flask cup perfectly so now I can drink hands-free! Gordon decided it was a photo that simply had to be taken.

When he wasn’t busy taking embarrassing photos of me Gordon was flying his new  SU27.
It was originally built by Woody but he didn’t get on with it so he passed it over to Gordon to try. Gordon didn’t like the way the hinges were done (as supplied, not something Woody had done) so he cut off the ailerons and elevators and re-hinged them with tape.
Woody hadn’t fitted a rudder but Gordon knew foamboards are better with one so he added a servo but left the rudder hinged as supplied. He also removed Woody’s lighting system (yes Woody, planes will actually fly without lights!) and tidied up the linkages a bit.
Gordon was unsure of the correct centre of gravity position after the changes he’d made but it flew fine although the CG seemed to be a little too far forward. So before the next flight Gordon will move the CG back a little and will also increase the rudder movement as it wasn’t very effective but overall the flight was good as you’ll see in the video.

The battery packs used in electric cars have dropped massively in price recently and surprisingly they are the same cells as we use for flying. So in theory our packs should also get cheaper but we’ll have to wait and see about that! Also, several electric car manufacturers are gradually switching from LiPo (Lithium Polymer) batteries to LFP batteries. Some electric bike packs also use LFP cells, this is a Bosch electric bike pack:
LFP are what modellers know as LiFe batteries (actually LiFePO4) and many transmitters already use them, including my Multiplex Cockpit SX9 transmitter.
When I started flying electric models 32 years ago people were using NiCad and later NiMH packs. I found this photo of me with my first electric model on 24^th August 1991.
It’s a Proof and it used 6 NiCad cells but gradually Lipos began to take over although in the early days they were very expensive, couldn’t deliver high currents, and didn’t last long. But they were much more energy dense and therefore lighter than NiCad and NiMH packs. The LFP batteries were around in those days but with a variety of different names and like NiCads were round cells and were (and still are) used in many power tools because they could deliver high currents. They have a nominal cell voltage of around 3.3v against the LiPo 3.7v and aren’t as energy dense as LiPos so are heavier for the same capacity but still much better than NiCads. I used them for a few years until LiPos got better and cheaper.
Some of you may remember that when I used them I would bring a 12v lead acid leisure battery to the field and charge the used pack after each flight, often still in the plane, rather than swap multiple packs as we do nowadays. I used them in my SportJet with the pack of 5 cells seen below rather than a 4 cell lipo to make up for the lower voltage.
Car manufacturers are now switching to LPF because they last longer, can be discharged further without damage, don’t use rare earth materials such as cobalt, manganese or nickel, and are safer. I remember that to prove how safe they were the cell manufacturers used to hammer a nail through the cells and show that they didn’t go up in flames. Now the car manufacturers are doing exactly the same demonstrations with LFP batteries. Incidentally, despite what you read in newspapers and on social media, statistics show that electric cars are much less likely to catch fire than petrol or diesel, Google it for yourselves.
I think there are some interesting, and hopefully better/cheaper times ahead for all of us.

The other of Mini-Mike’s models that he flew after making some changes to was his electric ducted fan Phase 3 Squall which he hadn’t flown for a while.
Having bought himself a new Radiomaster transmitter Mini-Mike fitted the Squall out with a Spektrum receiver so it needed binding and the plane re-trimming.
Mike flies the Squall on 2650mAh 3 cell lipo which seems to suit it perfectly, the plane goes really well and, as you can see in this month’s video, it looks good in the air.

Unsurprisingly, with the awful weather this month Kryten wasn’t able to take any action shots but here are some of his from last month plus a couple of my non-action ones:

Video time now, this month with footage shot by MacFly, Dougal Entendre and me. Please watch the video full-screen, it’s so much better with small models flying around:
If the video won’t play for you please click HERE

How did the two aeroplanes decide which party to go to on New Years Eve?
They just winged it…

Colin Cowplain