Patch News History

It’s April already and we’re rushing towards those lovely balmy summer days that are ideal for model flying…well hopefully anyway. March wasn’t too bad at all, as expected for this time of year there was a mixture of good and bad weather but some of the days were just about perfect for us and we had some good turnouts at the field. A few of us flew on 3^rd March which was a glorious calm day but there was mist laying in the valleys and we needed to be careful as it sometimes blew up across the field. These two photos were taken about fifteen minutes apart, the first one with my Riot ready to take-off, I’m glad I waited! It would probably have been a great morning for FPV flying with some excellent opportunities for a bit of cloud hopping but sadly I hadn’t taken my FPV plane with me. Never mind there were some lovely views from our field especially towards Butser hill.

I mentioned last month that the parking area was extremely muddy and was causing a few problems with people getting stuck as well as being very mucky underfoot. Chairman Gordon Bennett said he’d have a word with the farmer to see if anything could be done and right on cue Olly (or was it Will?) visited us at the patch to see how we were getting on. When we mentioned the parking area he said they had lots of wood chippings that they could put down for us. Sure enough a few days later one of the farm hands brought three large trailer loads of chippings up and spread them over the worst areas for us. It’s not perfect, some hard-core would have been even better, but the wood chips have improved it no end and things should get much better as the weather improves.

One midweek morning early in the month Gordon, Woody, and I turned up hoping to fly but there was a strong easterly wind blowing and some of the MVSA (Meon Valley Soaring Association) members were flying. The farmer had asked them to park in ‘our’ newly wood chipped area as their usual place further along the track was waterlogged. Rather than fly from their usual slope they were using the one much closer to us, pretty much straight in front of the masts but well forward. We didn’t fly as the wind was so strong but had we chosen to they wouldn’t have been a problem, they were still well out of our way. We spent some time chatting to the MVSA guys and then made use of our time by mowing the patch. It was good to chat to some fellow aviation enthusiasts, the ones we spoke to were all very friendly and weren’t at all bothered that our new field is much closer to them than before.

I managed to have few FPV flights later in the month and had the on-board video camera running as usual. There wasn’t anything special to include in this month’s video but here are some stills taken from the videos. We flew on Saturday 30th March rather than the Sunday as the weather looked better and found that the metal detectorists of the Hayling Detect club were out in force. There were so many cars present that some of them had to park in the top of our field, as did we, but that was fine and didn’t cause any problems.

The gap between the trees that we sometimes fly through when landing looks pretty big on FPV, much wider than it seems when landing normally. That’s not to say I won’t hit them!

Basher Bob (Bob the Builder) shot past me rather too close for comfort during one flight!

And Dougal Entendre had a similar ‘moment’ with Page Boy’s Wasp pylon racer!

1066 flew a new (to him) model at the end of the month, a Visionaire that he’d bought from Rod Ashton. I’m not sure if Rod had bought it new or had even ever flown it, maybe he also bought it second-hand and sold it on. According to 1066 is was a bit tatty when he got it so he tried touching up the paint in places but it all went a bit wrong. I think he must mean the black on the canopy and in front of the cockpit but it doesn’t look too bad to me. I asked for info on the Visionaire and 1066 said it’s all stock apart from coming without a receiver. From new the plane comes with an AR636A six channel Spektrum receiver that has a built stabiliser, this is how Spektrum describe it: SAFE (Sensor Assisted Flight Envelope) technology is a revolutionary electronic flight envelope protection system that delivers a virtual safety net. Anytime you need to instantly recover back to level flight, just press the Panic Recovery Mode button or switch on your transmitter. Several club members have models with the SAFE system and it generally seems to work well but as this one came without a receiver 1066 will have to rely on flying it properly himself. The Visionaire has a wingspan of 1143mm (43”) and is made of foam with carbon reinforcements in the structural areas. The brushless motor is a BL 10 1250KV which is linked to a 40-Amp Lite Pro Switch-Mode BEC Brushless ESC and spins a 12×4 propeller. The model comes ready fitted with four 13g servos which are high speed digitals and the recommended battery is a three cell 2200mAh lipo. The Visionaire was discontinued a few years as was the Night Visionaire that came with a High-intensity internal LED lighting system already installed. I’ve been searching the net for information on the Visionaire and it appears that it was originally a Parkzone model and E-flite only sold the Night Visionaire. I think Parkzone and E-flite are both names that are owned by Horizon Hobby and they’ve now stopped using the Parkzone name, just using E-flite for all their models.

To confuse things even more I have founds loads of photos of both Visionaires and Night Visionaires and not one of them has the same colour scheme as 1066’s model. Enough of that, all you really want to know is how does it fly? Well at the time of writing 1066 has only given it one outing but it looked very good to me. It appeared to do everything the usual 3D planes do but it seemed to be especially good at doing things slowly. Maybe that will mean it’s not so good on the windier days, we’ll have to wait and see. But in the meantime take a look at this month’s video where you can see it in action.

On the 1st of the month we were amazed to see an Avro Lancaster approaching the field, very low. We weren’t sure what it was doing, possibly using the radar mast on Butser to line up for a Goodwood approach. We all waved like mad but saw no response from the pilot although I think he must have seen us, maybe he was simply too aloof to bother with us. It circled round several times and on the fourth pass I snapped this rather blurry shot.

 

With a lack of new models being flown in March I’ll have to resort to writing about some that I’ve featured before. We’ve seen very little of Page Boy recently, he was lured away to another club for a while but he soon realised they weren’t nearly as insulting fun as us at PAM so he re-joined us last year. He’s been busy with life in general and hardly managed to fly at all last year, just once in August I believe, and he took the winter off, couldn’t cope with the cold apparently, wimp! But in March he re-emerged from hibernation and gently eased himself back into flying with a pylon racer, his Wasp E2K. Despite choosing Gordon Bennett to chuck the Wasp the flight went well and he soon remembered how to fly. 1066 thought there was a serious problem as the motor only seemed to run at full power for a couple of seconds or so before cutting back to around half power. But there was nothing wrong 1066, it’s called ‘throttling back’, it’s controlled by the left hand stick! By the end of the morning Page Boy had had several flights with the Wasp, the only problem being that despite our new field having a patch over twice the size of the previous one he couldn’t hit it! Never mind, it’s good to have you back Page Boy.

In the February Patch News I wrote about Mini-Mike’s marvellous Mirus, a design that was first kitted back in the early eighties for IC engines (how quaint, remember those?) but of course Mini-Mike has built his to be powered by a lovely brushless electric motor. He is using the same power set-up as Page Boy’s Wasp E2K, a Thumper 3536 1500Kv powered by a three cell 2200mAh lipo but rather strangely whereas Page Boy’s Wasp pulls 855w the Mirus is only pulling 615w. I’m not sure why there would be such a big difference and can only think it’s down to the batteries, maybe Mini Mike’s lipos have a lower C rating or are simply older and have degraded. I notice that the Mirus has a 50A speed controller against the Wasp’s 80A but I would have thought 50A would be more than enough. The only other thing could be the propeller, both models are using the same size but possibly not the same make, that can make quite a difference to the current draw. Even though it has less power than the Wasp the Mirus flew very nicely, plenty fast enough for the first few flights when Mini-Mike was getting used it and trimming it to fly as he likes. It’s slower than the Wasp but it’s a delta not a pylon racer so it’s bound to be slower, they are designed for different things. I thought it looked great in the air and 1066 was right back in reminiscing mode as he watched it. It’s in this month’s video so take a look.

Another model to re-emerge in March after a winter break was Woody’s Splot. When the Splot first appeared last year it had a few problems and it took a while to work out that there was a wire chaffing inside the transmitter that was causing the rudder to move when the throttle was opened; that made for interesting take-offs! Having sorted that out things were much improved but flying it in early March Woody found the Splot still had a tendency to pull to the left if the throttle was opened too quickly. This was diagnosed as a lack of side-thrust so Woody added some washers behind the motor mounts to introduce some right thrust and bingo, the problem was solved.

Having several good days of weather meant it was possible for Kryten to take some decent shots of our planes in the air so here’s a selection of some of his excellent action photos:

Video time now this month with footage taken by me, MacFly, and Dougal Entendre. 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

A few years ago at our Air Traffic Centre we received an early warning that an undisclosed number of US Air Force B2 Bombers would be crossing our FIR [Flight Information Region] at a particular time on a particular day. They would check in with us as they entered our airspace and check out again as they left. We were told the call sign to expect, and, as the route was known, it was logical to assume that they would contact us at a certain time and at a certain place. Being the then famous new ‘Stealth’ bombers we would know little about it but they would pay us the courtesy of letting us know when they were there. Eric, a very capable controller with a keen sense of humour was on position, and heard, “UAE Area, this is USAFB2. This is a courtesy call advising that we are about to enter your airspace.” Eric replied, “USAFB2, welcome to UAE Airspace, we have you on radar 200 miles out over LOTUS, hope you enjoy your visit.” Without thinking the Stealth Bomber replied, “Thank you UAE, it a pleasure to be… Wait…what?  You’ve got us on radar? 200 miles out? You must be kiddin’ me?” “That’s affirmative USAFB2,” said Eric, “I’m kiddin’ you. Enjoy your visit.”

Colin Cowplain

It’s spring, hurrah! Well it is according to the meteorological calendar anyway which says spring starts on 1^st March although the astronomical spring apparently begins around 21^st March Why am I mentioning this? In the vain hope that we see a change from what has been a very wet February, one of the wettest Februarys on record I believe. As well as limiting our flying somewhat the rain has made the parking area at the new site very muddy and the regulars fliers have been moaning about their filthy cars and their struggles not to make the inside as muddy as the outside. Chairman Gordon Bennett is going to have a word with the farmers to see if something can be done to improve the parking area but the situation should improve once the weather becomes more amenable .

Members did manage some flying in February and apart from the muddy parking area everything has been going well at the new site, the pilots are getting used to the different layout and necessary landing approach. The much larger patch is a real bonus and, as Gordon pointed out at the AGM, when landing on the previous 30m diameter patch you only actually got 30m if the model was exactly on the centreline. On the new 40m x 30m patch the absolute shortest run is 30m and diagonally corner to corner it’s actually 50m.
The small trees to the east of the patch don’t pose much of a hazard on landing, there are gaps between them so it’s easy enough to fly over or between them. On the old patch we got used to trying to land on the first few feet of the circle as the run was so short but now we can come over the trees at a reasonable height and then drop down to land in the middle of the patch with plenty of the strip left. The air does seem to get quite bumpy between the trees and the end of the patch so it’s best not to be too low there anyway.

Five members got the mowers out on 28th February and cut the patch. The weather may have been very wet but it’s also been warm enough to make the grass grow a fair bit.

There are sheep in the field at the moment but they haven’t come anywhere near us so far. The farmer has put their feed station close to our pits area so there are a few droppings around but that’s a pretty minor problem and much better than bullocks droppings.

 

I went to have a look at our old field the other day and, as you can see in the photo below, it has obviously been sprayed with something to kill off the grass as it’s now turned yellow. Oddly there is a strip of healthy looking green grass right up through the middle, maybe they simply missed that part but it seems unlikely. The lower field has also been sprayed so presumably the third one has as well but I didn’t drive down the track to look at that one.

The only casualty of the trees so far was a bit of a surprise as it was Dougal Entendre!
To be fair I should explain that he wasn’t on a landing approach at all, he was ‘doing a Dougal’ i.e. a low inverted pass. He had rolled his little MX2 inverted on the downwind leg of the circuit and was on the base leg when he suddenly lost it. I don’t know if Dougal was caught out by a bit of turbulence or if was simply pilot error but the model suddenly decided it wasn’t going to turn onto finals and flew straight into the nearest tree. Fortunately for us (but unfortunately for Dougal) I was filming at the time so you can enjoy the moment in this month’s video! It looks to me as if the MX2 arrived in the slightly turbulent area at too slow a speed but whatever the problem was we all enjoyed the result! Once we’d stopped laughing at his misfortune we helped retrieve the plane. It didn’t seem to suffer much damage when it hit the tree but more occurred during the retrieval process. The trees are Hawthorns, so rather prickly, spikey things which don’t do lightweight foamies any favours but eventually the MX2 was recovered although it looked rather tatty.
So, after many years at our previous field where we had Harper’s Oak (which was named after Mick Harper, an old club chairman who had a bad run in with the tree) we now have ‘Dougal’s Dogwood’, a name that will probably also last for many years unless 1066 manages to hit it when we can give it the more correct name of  ‘Hastings Hawthorn’.

It was good to see Norwegian Nick come and fly a new model at the new field, an SR-71 Blackbird foamie. He’s flown an SR-71 Blackbird foamie before but this is a new version. Nick built his from a plan drawn up by Laddie Mikulasko which is available from Sarik Hobbies. They offer three different deals, you can buy the plan and magazine article for £16, or a laser cut Depron pack for £11, or a short kit containing the plan, the magazine article, and the laser cut pack for £24. This is the description from the Sarik Hobbies website: Designed by Laddie Mikulasko, this is a quick and easy 693 mm span electric profile sport-scale build from the CAD drawn large single sheet plan. All Depron construction with some balsa and spruce strip, and uses an economical BL2212/06 2200KV motor, 40 Amp ESC and 3S 3000 Lipo with a 6″x4″ in. APC-E prop.
At 693mm span and 1270mm long Nick’s model is actually quite large for a foamie. It weighs 500gms and uses three channels, having elevons and throttle but no rudder. Nick has fitted a 2212/06 2200kv motor which swings a 6×4 APC prop as suggested.  He’s using a 30A speed controller and is powering it with a 2200mAh 3 cell lipo battery. The difference between this Blackbird and his previous one is that for this one Nick used genuine Depron as the earlier model was rather lacking torsional stiffness and strength.

To finish the white Depron Nick sprayed the whole model matt black with Rust-Oleum paint from B&Q.  The model flew beautifully, it looks really good in the air and looks to be quite a stable platform unlike some of the foamboard jets that several of us fly. I managed to take some quite good video of the first flight which you can see in this month’s video.
If you fancy building one for yourself Nick is happy to loan out the templates so all you need is to draw round them straight onto a sheet of Depron and get cutting and gluing. At the time of writing Leo has borrowed the templates and I know he’s searching out some Depron so we should see at least one more Blackbird flying soon. No doubt he’ll quickly hand them on to the next in the queue so we could have a squadron of them before long.

Gordon Bennett had some problems with his foamie Acro Wot in February. One day he was flying it at the same time MacFly was flying his Ruckus and Gordon got the models confused and said to MacFly that he’d been flying the wrong model for a few seconds. Then he watched as the Ruckus flew into the ground…only it wasn’t the Ruckus! A sort of double bluff, “I thought I was wrong but I was right all the time” thing. The damage wasn’t too bad, fuselage broken behind the wing, rather bent nose and so on but Gordon repaired it and it looked fine. Next time he flew it the Acro Wot seemed to gradually develop a mind of its own and Gordon moaned a lot about turbulence upsetting it. He got it down in one piece and checked everything over but it seemed alright so he flew it again. But this time it was really bad and he lost control and crashed again, this time breaking off the nose.
Then Gordon discovered that the rudder horn was broken and he decided that was obviously what had been causing the odd flying characteristics. Cursing himself for not spotting it before the crash he got on and repaired the nose and replaced the rudder horn.
Back to the field for another try where Gordon did very thorough checks including a range check and ensuring there were no unintended mixers and everything else he could think of. Content that everything was perfect he took-off and immediately knew something was wrong and landed safely just off the end of the patch. So he asked me to check it out and I found exactly the same, everything looked ok but when I took off I needed a lot of right rudder to hold it straight so I chopped the power and landed just off the strip. Thinking there may be a control mix linked to the throttle we checked it out at full throttle and immediately saw that the stick on trim (decal) on the left wing was peeling back, especially where it was at it’s widest towards the wingtip, which was creating a huge amount of drag. Gordon pulled off the trim and we tried again. This time everything was perfect and the Acro Wot flew just as well as it always had. That was definitely a lesson learned, if something doesn’t feel right make sure there isn’t a piece of stick on trim coming loose.

Mini-Mike has been quite productive in the model room recently and following on from refurbishing his Acro Wot he’s built a Mirus. Some of you will have seen 1066’s Mirus that he’s built in various guises, I think 1066 is harking back to his youth when he used to fly with the Ken Stokes Mirus Display Team. Nostalgia’s not what it used to be…
Back to Mini-Mike, he bought a Mirus 25 kit from NJR Modelling for £89.90, this is what the website says about it: The Mirus was designed in the early ’80’s by the late Ken Stokes as an easy build fast sports model. Since acquiring the design, we have re-engineered the kits to utilise modern CNC and laser cutting technology, which in turn makes for a stronger model that is still very easy to build. It was then, and is now available again in two sizes for I/C engines, a .25 size and a .40 size. We are working on an electric power option for both sizes of model which we hope to be able to release soon.
The Mirus 40 is 39.5” span and the 25 is 37” so there’s not a huge size difference. According to the website they both weigh 3kg but that must be a typo, possibly 3lb for the larger one but certainly not 3kg. Mini-Mike has made his electric powered and has fitted an 8×6 prop on a Tornado Thumper 3536 1500kv motor as used in E2k pylon racing.
He’s mounted the motor on 3mm threaded rod stand-offs from the firewall to bring it to the correct position. The speed controller is 50A and the battery a four cell 2200mAh lipo.All three servos are JX digital metal geared with the two wing mounted ones for the ailerons being slim versions, and the receiver is a Hitec Optima. Mike used Ripmax Aerofilm for the covering and reckons it’s the best one he’s used. It certainly looks good in the photos, I just hope the red with white on both the top and bottom surfaces is different enough to see in the air. There’s more white trim on the underside so it should be alright. So how does it fly? Unfortunately nobody has any idea at the moment as since Mike completed the model the February weather hasn’t been good enough to test fly the Mirus but hopefully he’ll be able to fly it early in March. Watch this space for a flying report.

The photos this month are all taken from videos so not the best quality I’m afraid:

Video time now, this month with content shot by myself, MacFly, and Dougal.
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

Confucius say:
Man who leaps out of aeroplane without parachute is jumping to conclusion…

Colin Cowplain

The format of this Patch News is going to be rather different from usual because there hasn’t been much in the way of new models to talk about but there is a lot of major news about the patch itself. After almost 50 years at Chidden Down we have sadly lost the site. As most club members will know the field we’ve been using was not actually owned by the farmer, Wilson Atkinson Farms Ltd, but was rented (along with two other fields) from the landowner, a situation that had existed since the 1950’s. With permission from both the landowner and the farmer Petersfield Aero Modellers have used the field from around 1975/6 during which time we’ve enjoyed excellent relations with all concerned and have had no problems at all. The permission was originally granted by the late Wilson Atkinson and then control was passed over to his son George who now runs the farm along with his sons Oliver and Will. There has occasionally been talk of the landowner renting to another farm or taking the land back for his own use but it has never come to anything, until now.
Last August the landowner told George he wanted to change the use of the three fields from grassland to arable and would be making a change of use application. George thought permission wouldn’t be granted and the fields would be unsuitable for growing anything other than grass anyway as there’s barely any soil on top of the chalk down so he wasn’t unduly concerned. But in mid-January permission was granted and George was given just two weeks’ notice to vacate the three fields so the landowner could begin preparation for a crop and we were immediately given the same notice. But it’s not all bad news, without delay George offered us an alternative site on land that is owned by Wilson Atkinson Farms themselves and they have said they would very much like us to stay on their land with continued good relations, a situation that also suits us perfectly.

More about the site later, for now it’s on with what else happened in January. The weather during the first half of the month was pretty awful with a series of storms coming through so there wasn’t a lot of flying done but some of the hardy (foolhardy?) members flew in some very cold conditions. Fortunately later in the month the weather improved. On one of the better days there was quite a stiff and chilly breeze but Leo asked Dougal Entendre to test fly a biplane that he had bought from Rod Ashton before Rod joined the club.
Leo doesn’t know what model it is so I can’t give you any details of it at the moment.
He only paid Rod £25 for the model which needed quite a lot of work on the wings and undercarriage and as it had originally been I/C powered Leo had to fit it out with an electric set-up. He had just crashed his Hyperion Edge so Leo fitted the Hyperion motor and speed controller from that into the bipe and is using a three cell lipo although the set-up can take four cells should he decide he needs more power later.
The test flight was a bit of a non-starter as you will see in the video. On the first attempt it looked as if the wind just got under one wing and it took Dougal by surprise with a quick cartwheel. The model looked to be ok so Dougal tried again but… you’ll just have to watch the video, but it made us all laugh. I’ll just say that I’ve not seen a model being sick before!

Another new model that I saw being flown in January was Gordon’s Avios BushMule V2. Gordon has been just a little bit busy (manic!) with the unexpected change of patch and all the paperwork, rules, risk assessments, groundwork, communication, liaising with two other clubs and so on but has managed to write a few words about the BushMule for us:
I got lucky as it was a Hobby King pre-order waiting for the container to arrive so got it for £162 and free delivery. Woody and I both won £100 quid or so on the premium bonds in November so it was a present from Ernie! The package arrived just in time for Christmas Day but I didn’t bother to wrap it up for myself. Super easy to put together but there’s lots of it! Wires all over the place for twin ESC’s, lights and 8 servos so it’s the first time I’ve used cable tie bases in a model to tidy things up. The ESC’s do have reversing but I’ve not wired it as I ran out of channels on the receiver and thought it would only be really useful on water. The 8-channel receiver does allow me to program differential thrust on the twin motors so expect snappy stall-turns and flat spins (no doubt followed by the sound of EPO making rapid contact with terra firma). It’s got a cargo door for dropping miniature Colin Cowplain type parachutists and also a side ‘plug’ door for loading and access. Being a ‘plug’ door means I can do my own ‘Max 9’ re-enactments.
It does look good in the air, as Dougal said, ‘it’s like watching (dodgy) arrivals at Guernsey airport’.   Sorry Gordon but the dodgy arrivals are mostly to do with the pilot!
Gordon was good enough to let me have a go with his BushMule and unsurprisingly I found that it flies just like mine. He seemed less than impressed when I landed it bang on top of the spot but at least I showed Gordon that the plane can do something that it’s never going to do again! Gordon definitely got a bargain price at just £162, I think I paid £145 for mine about four years ago and it’s now showing as £246 from the HobbyKing UK warehouse. I can’t see much difference between mine and the V2 version other than the colour scheme which I have to admit looks much smarter than mine, but there are apparently several minor improvements as well. Dougal shot some video of Gordon flying his BushMule on a rather grey day and you can see it in this month’s video.

Inspired by watching Mini-Mike’s Acro Wot fly 1066 splashed the cash and bought one, here’s his story: It was in May 1985 that Chris Foss sold his first Acro Wot kit, at the time I had been married for a few years and all available funds were needed for things like furniture, wallpaper, paint etc. During the late seventies, and early eighties a Chris Foss model was a must have, whether it was a slope soarer or power model, who didn’t have a Wot 4?  There is no doubting Mr Foss had an eye for the aesthetics of a toy plane, but he also made sure they were fully sorted, and always had fantastic flying qualities. It is testimony to this that 40 years later his designs are still just as popular today, especially with the introduction of the electric moulded foam ARTF kits. I also think Chris was a very shrewd businessman who always knew he had a great product, so was able to price his kits accordingly, which was a real problem for a recently married, and skint 26 year old me, who always wanted an Acro Wot, but just could not afford one.
Move forward 39 years, and Mini-Mike shows up with his 20 year old Acro, which he had converted to electric, the model flew great, and I was taken straight back to 1985, and remembering how it felt watching club mates fly theirs. Sunday evening followed the normal routine, dinner, settee, computer out, start watching toy plane videos, and I could not get the Acro out of my head, so the now 64 year old me, who has a little more disposable income, took the plunge and ordered a kit £158.00 incl. postage (still too tight to get the deluxe kit). There is a saying that nostalgia isn’t always as good as you remember, and I don’t think the kit is as good as I remember other Foss kits were. Starting with the instructions, these are quite basic, but adequate, however my problem is with the modification sheet! It includes showing the need for plywood fuz doublers, these are advised when using larger engines, but are not supplied! Why? The mod sheet also advises many other changes which are not shown in the main instructions, therefore, if you don’t read the mod sheet first, you run out of some of the stock supplied in the kit!  If they had to add a mod sheet to every kit, why not just amend the instructions? I also think the amount of material in the kit is a bit on the stingy side, there is no fat on this one, therefore you have to be very careful with your cuts. Maybe we have been spoilt by ARTF imports, but the quality of the hardware is also very poor, most of it has been put aside for my next foam board!!! I haven’t done much kit building for many years, but taking into account that I didn’t read the mod sheet first, this one went together quite quickly, that said I had forgotten how many hours you have to invest, far more than just opening a box! I also found myself making some schoolboy errors, the worst of which was applying the wing bandage. So what went wrong?
1. I used polyester resin. 2. I followed the instructions, but the weather was very cold, and after a night in the shed, the resin still hadn’t fully hardened.
To add insult to injury, having mixed too much resin, and not wanting to waste what was left, I painted it all over the inside of the fuselage, and after two more days indoor some areas were still a sticky mess. After crying inconsolable for about 3 hours, logic told me I must have failed to mix the resin properly, so if I brushed hardener on the sticky bits all would be OK, how wrong was I, all it did was make it worse. Aargh! After discussing my pending suicide with Patsie, he advised using super glue on the sticky areas, and as much as it hurts me to say, it worked a treat. Eyes dried, suicide avoided, I was briefly in a much better mood, but this was short lived as I now discovered the resin had soaked through the wing veneer, and dissolved large parts of the foam core, at this point for my own safety, I decided to leave the shed, and avoid the kitchen (too many knives). The pictures show some of the damage, and subsequent repairs.
I know our blog editor likes a bit of technical detail, so for the record the motor is currently a Turnigy G32 770 KV which is swinging a 14×6 propeller.
Because the model is designed for IC there is scope for a large battery, (no point in carrying lead) so I have made room for a 4S 4900mAh 30c lipo pack.
The speed controller is an 80Amp Turnigy. Tests have shown I’m getting 700 Watts @ 60 amps, so plenty of headroom in the speed controller, and the battery should not be over stressed, my only concern is that the G32 is supposed to be the equivalent of 32 glow engine, far too small for a 6lb model, we shall see? At the time of writing the model has not been flown, and as I have never owned one, I am really hoping it flies as well as my imaginary nostalgia is expecting. Since 1066 kindly wrote the above for us he has had several flights with the Acro Wot and I’m pleased to be able to tell you that it flew a treat.
I’m sure he could squeeze a few more chequers on the underside, he’s just not trying!
No doubt 1066 will be tweaking a few things here and there but basically it’s a good sound model that flies very nicely. You can see the Acro Wot for yourselves in this month’s video.

There were a couple of days that had sunshine and light winds, one of which turned out to be the last flying session at Chidden Down. Several of the committee plus 1066 went along in the morning of Friday 19^th to remove the electric fence and associated energiser etc. and were surprised to find the cattle in the field but we had no choice, even the spot had to go.
After lunch, having moved everything to the new site, Gordon Bennett and I went back for the last ever flights at Chidden Down where we were joined by Chas and Bob the Builder. In just a couple of hours the bullocks had managed to cover every inch of the patch in hoof marks and decided it was the best place to stand despite having the whole of the field!
We flew anyway, fortunately the whole field had quite short grass so we ignored the cattle and carried on flying, simply taking off and landing wherever it was clear.

The new site we are now using is on Wether Down, further along the piece of land that is used by MVSA (the Meon Valley Soaring Association) and the Sky Surfing Club who fly hang gliders and paragliders. This offers some challenges, particularly with the Sky Surfers who are the closest to us and whose safety must of course take priority over our flying.
But they don’t use the site very often and don’t intentionally stray along as far as where we will be flying. Gordon has been in regular contact with both clubs and has found them to be very amicable and keen to make the new arrangement work for everyone. The MVSA Chairman and the Safety Officer visited us at the patch while we were flying on Sunday 28th to introduce themselves and have a good discussion about their needs and ours.
The other concern is that our patch is just 250m from the big expensive houses opposite the Sustainability Centre so we must be very careful not to upset them with noisy models.
Gordon has produced the Site Detail drawing above that is included in the new rules that have been emailed to all members. The site looks quite small on the drawing but is in fact much larger than it appears. The red line along the south of the patch must be a strict ‘DO NOT CROSS’ if we are to retain the site. This will make landings more challenging with certain wind directions, we’ve been rather spoilt in the past always being able to land straight into wind. But on the positive side the farmer said a round patch like we had at Chidden created difficulties for them (who knew, we could easily have made it square!) and has agreed to the new patch being 40m by 30m. That means it’s about 70% bigger than before which should make landings easier and help if they need to be crosswind.
To the north are three radio masts and the new rules say no flying within 50m of them. Obviously it’s not easy to judge the distance but several of the committee have had trial flights with someone posted close to the masts and nobody got too close even when deliberately flying closer than felt comfortable, they are just something to be aware of.
The track up to the parking area by the barns is in better condition than the old one, the first part is fairly bumpy but once past the house on the left it’s much smoother and the parking area by the barns is better than before. The committee members who are retired  have been very busy getting everything sorted as far as possible and 1066 was co-opted in to help as he was heavily involved in setting up the electric fence and mower box at the Chidden site. On Wednesday 24^th Gordon, Woody, 1066, Chas, Kryten, and myself all answered Gordon’s call to help mow and we cut the new patch area twice. The larger area makes mowing a bit more of a chore but with two mowers running it didn’t take too long. It’ll take a while to get the patch as good as we’re used to but it’s already perfectly useable for most models and by the time you’re reading this we will have cut it again. Latest update: we mowed yet again on Jan 31st so it’s now been cut 5 or 6 times, I’ve lost count!

I can’t stress enough how helpful George, Oliver, and Will have been over the last couple of weeks. They have used their farm equipment to move lots of our equipment including both the mowers and the heavy roller that we thought we might have to abandon. We didn’t think we’d be able to dig out the mower box without destroying it and had more or less resigned ourselves to leaving it where it was and buying a new one. We mentioned this to the farmers one morning and that same evening I received the photo below showing that they’d managed to get it out undamaged and put it in the new field for us, brilliant!

With all the changes going on this month I’ll use some screenshots from my FPV videos to give you an idea of the new site and surrounding area rather than the usual action shots.

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

Did you hear about the budget airline that managed to keep prices very low by only offering late evening flights? They didn’t last long at all before they went out of business.
Apparently word went round that it was a fly by night outfit…

Colin Cowplain

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