Patch News History

Merry Christmas everybody! Yes I know it’s a little early but the next Patch News won’t be published until 1^st Jan 2022. If you have any modelling Christmas presents on the way please let me know so I can share the joy. In November we were mostly quite lucky with the fairly mild weather and had several flying opportunities when the winds were light. But several of us flew on the last Sunday in the month when it was bright and sunny but absolutely freezing in the brisk northerly wind, unsurprisingly we didn’t last all morning. The bullocks joined us in the middle of the month and sometimes needed gently herding away by two or three pilots while the others flew but overall they weren’t too much of a nuisance. Happily they only stayed for a couple of weeks and the field is now bullock free. New member Gordon (Paul) Bennett passed his BMFA ‘A’ certificate on 3^rd November and turned out to be one of the best candidates I’ve taken. Gordon hasn’t been flying models for long but with a history of full-size aviation he has picked up RC flying very quickly. Straight after passing the test he had a go at the club Climb & Glide competition and had the cheek to beat my score with his first attempt. Gordon could be the only member so far to be awarded an ‘A’ cert and then have it withdrawn on the same morning!

The competition entries are growing in number now and lots of members have had a go at one or more of the disciplines. You can have as many tries as you like so why not give it a go, just chose a timer and/or counter, do your best, and let Dwayne Pipe know your score.

Not too many new models were flown in November but I know of several that are being built ready for next season. Page Boy was on his sick bed for a while but was somehow able to drag himself to his building board despite not being well enough to return to work. He’s getting on well with this 39” span Wasp E2K electric pylon racer that he’s building. It looks to be coming along nicely although I don’t think the green go faster stripes are quite up to Page Boy’s usual standard! It’s the same model as 1066 has been flying for a few months so I imagine we’ll see the pair of them screaming around the sky early next year.

Dougal Entendre seemed to spend most of November struggling with his Skyartec Mini Skyfun, it flies well enough but for some reason the motor keeps cutting out at full throttle. Here’s Dougal’s account of it: I bought the Mini Skyfun from a guy in Emsworth for £30, complete with Rx, servos, ESC, motor and a 2s battery, but no fins! I cut a new pair of fins from Depron, using my bigger Skyfun as a pattern. Binding my RadioMaster Tx to the Skyartec Rx was no problem, but whenever I throttled up, the motor ran for a few seconds then cut out. Long story short: I’ve tried 2 different 2s packs, 4 different ESCs, 5 different motors (even running without the propeller), replacing the JST lipo connector with XT60, and powering the ESC from a bench supply with a servo tester providing the throttle pulses. The problem persisted. My final solution involves shoe-horning a 3s battery in, with a lower KV motor and a 5-inch propeller instead of the previous 4-inch. It’s better, but the motor still occasionally cuts out if I overcook the throttle. This is strange, as the powertrain is almost identical to the one in my Mini Blitz, which has no problems. I’m sure there’s a rational explanation, such as the airframe being possessed by a malevolent spirit. I think I’m going to give up with it for the moment, as even when I’ve had it flying, I’ve found the elevator trim is inconsistent, and it tends to skew out of loops. One day I may replace the entire avionics, but that’ll be a pain because the current rx uses the tiny JST connectors, so I’ll even have to replace the servos. For now it’s just going to adorn a shelf in the workshop. Yes, it’s a malevolent spirit! Perhaps Dougal has discovered why it was up for sale, not all second-hand items are a bargain.

I’m hoping the second-hand purchase I made in November was a bargain. I hadn’t flown FPV (First Person View) for a while and decided it was time to get back into it. Last year my Volantex Ranger had crashed twice while flying a reasonable distance away but range checks didn’t show a problem. After the second crash I took the gear to Mike Ridley (Multiplex service agent) who found the aerial wire had broken inside the insulation. He fitted a new aerial and everything was fine for quite a while but one day the Ranger suffered radio failure and crashed twice in the same morning, both times within a couple of hundred metres of the patch. I couldn’t find a reason and abandoned the model until this month when I completed the relatively minor repairs and fitted a different receiver. A test flight showed no problems so I then flew it FPV and everything was fine except that the digital recorder built into the video transmitter didn’t work. It makes no difference to the flying but part of the fun of FPV flying is watching the flight back on a computer later. So I decided to buy an action camera as last Christmas one of Dougal’s presents was an Apeman 4K action camera which he fitted alongside his FPV camera and he is getting some excellent results. Action cameras have a much higher quality picture than the little FPV cameras but they have a time lag so aren’t suitable for providing the picture that’s transmitted back to the goggles. I found the Apeman was about £42 in Black Friday sales but then spotted a similar spec second-hand Dragon Touch for sale at £25 and only about a mile from my house. The camera came with a huge bundle of mounts, straps, tripod etc. that I didn’t need so I advertised them on Facebook Marketplace and quickly sold them for £15. So the camera with mount, two batteries, an underwater housing, 32GB micro SD card with adaptor, and a couple of Velcro straps cost me just £10, that has to be a bargain! Action cameras are very bulky and heavy compared to FPV cameras so I needed to mount it as close to the centre of gravity as possible and I basically copied the method Dougal has used on his Sonic Modell Binary with the two cameras mounted alongside each other. I’ve only had a few flights so far with this set-up but the results are looking good and it provides much better quality videos than with the recorder built into the video transmitter ever did. In this month’s video the FPV footage with a date & time is from the new camera.

Chas rather liked the look of the tiny Mustangs and Corsairs that several of us have been flying recently and kept his eyes open for one at a sale price. One day he spotted the T-28 Trojan from the same range in a Banggood Flash Sale at just over £50 with three batteries and took the plunge. Like the others the model comes complete with a transmitter and is totally finished, all that is required is to charge the single cell lipos using the USB charging lead provided and fit 4 x AA batteries in the transmitter. It has a built-in gyro which works very well and can be switched between three modes, beginner, intermediate, and expert. Expert mode switches the gyro off completely and whilst the model is flyable it is quite a handful, intermediate mode is much more pleasant. Chas chose a reasonably calm day for the first flight and soon got the feel of the Trojan, finding like the rest of us that keeping the tiny model close enough and in sight was the hardest part. On the first landing Chas hit the spot landing spot but the little Trojan bounced off a couple of feet! The same models are being sold under various manufacturers names, I’ve seen Eachine, Volantex, Sonik and WLTech so far. The ranges are expanding and now also include a P-40 Kittyhawk, a P-47 Thunderbolt, a BF109, and a Spitfire. I’ve just noticed that Wish.com have the Corsair for just £40.72, who’s next to take the plunge? There’s footage in this month’s video of the Trojan and also Ian’s Corsair and my Mustang.

On the subject of the tiny models, Basher Bob’s been up to his old tricks again and cruelly smashed my little Mustang out of the sky one day. There I was flying along, minding my own business straight and level over the patch when Bob’s Sea Vixen suddenly smashed right through me. Bob’s version of the incident may be different but I write Patch News…! Luckily the damage was fairly minor and by using cyano applied with a pin I was able to glue the detached piece of the nose and a small piece of the wing trailing edge back in place. The biggest problem was the detached aileron which was originally hinged by the foam itself. I cut a couple of tiny pieces of Mylar hinge material, made small slots in the wing and aileron with a pointed scalpel blade, and glued them in with thin cyano. The repairs worked out well and aren’t really noticeable and now the Mustang is flying again as well as ever. Ian and I flew his Corsair and my Mustang together one day while Dougal videoed. It’s not easy to fly them close together or to film them but Dougal was able to get some pretty good footage which you can see in this month’s video.

Having passed his ‘A’ test Gordon Bennett decided he needed some fun so he joined the foamboard fairies. He bought a Mig-29 from Banggood along with a 2212 2450Kv motor which he’s fitted with a 6 x 4.5 propeller and runs from a 3 cell 2200mAh battery. He made a nice job of putting it together and very quickly had it ready for flight. Gordon had never previously flown a foamboard model so I thought he was quite brave doing the test flight himself but all went well. The Mig appeared to be a bit too sensitive on elevator at first but Gordon got it all sorted out and was soon confidently flying low passes etc. After a few minutes he called landing and dropped the model right at his feet. Well done Gordon, now you just need to learn how to take out Captain Slow’s Mig-29!

Sadly I think my SU-27 will finally have to be retired after hundreds of flights. I bought it in a HobbyKing sale for just £7.64 back in October 2018 and have flown it regularly ever since. For more than three years it’s been my ‘go to’ plane and despite many crashes (mostly due to my lunatic flying) it’s always bounced back and flown as well as ever. It even survived being the first plane I used for FPV. But in November it had several ‘arrivals’ when the battery came loose so I treated it to a new Velcro strap but on the very next flight it suddenly dived straight in. I’m not sure of the cause, possibly structural failure after so many bodged repairs, or maybe the receiver has had one too many crashes to cope with, but  I’m leaning towards a total battery failure, more checks are required. Fortunately I have a replacement SU-27 tucked away from the time when I bought six at once, five for club raffles and one for me. At the time HobbyKing must have been having a massive warehouse clear out as they were only £2.50 each! It’s time to put it together.

I snapped this rather unflattering shot of Woody one morning. Perhaps I’m being a little cruel using this photo as he was actually retrieving my SU-27 from the lower field for me. Here’s a marginally better one when he’s posing with his latest win from RC Aircraft Online, a Logic RC flight box. That’s his second win in two months, well done Woody.

Not at the patch but fairly close by at Boscombe Down some electric records have been broken. Some of you may have seen the news about the development of the Rolls Royce Spirit of Innovation, an electric powered plane that has already smashed several records.  This is from the ExtremeTech website: Rolls-Royce has been working on an all-electric plane, called “Spirit of Innovation,” and the automaker reports that the aircraft absolutely clobbered at least three world records in their latest test flights. For an aircraft that’s only been in the air for a few hours total, that’s pretty impressive — this report comes not quite two months after the aircraft took off for its maiden flight. After the flights, the company announced: “We have submitted data to the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) – the World Air Sports Federation who control and certify world aeronautical and astronautical records – that at 15:45 (GMT) on 16 November 2021, the aircraft reached a top speed of 555.9 km/h (345.4 mph) over 3 kilometres, smashing the existing record by 213.04 km/h (132mph).” They go on to say that the day’s later test flights also belong in the record books. While they didn’t push the rest of the later flights quite as fast, at least one still hit 330mph. They also report breaking the fastest time to climb to 3km altitude by an entire minute, clocking in at a final 202 seconds, as well as breaking two other speed records over distances of three and fifteen km, respectively. The flights took place at the UK Ministry of Defence’s Boscombe Downs aerodrome: an airfield not unlike Edwards AFB, used for testing new and experimental aircraft. Spirit of Ingenuity uses liquid-cooled Li-ion batteries, and a 400kW power train developed with partners Electroflight and YASA, also of the UK. The single-seat aircraft has an ultralight carbon-fibre hull, and while it boasts the ability to put forth 500+ hp, it can land with two of its three batteries disabled.

Kryten was able to take some excellent flying shots of our models in November including several of my tiny Mustang, that can’t have been an easy model to snap:

Video time now which this month includes both some ground and some  aerial FPV footage by both myself 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

Did you hear about the lady who left her job as an air traffic controller to date a monk? She got out of the flying plans and into the friar…

Colin Cowplain

Unsurprisingly the October weather was rather autumnal and served up pretty much everything from sunny days with almost no wind to other days with heavy rain and gales.
PAM members managed to fly regularly although some of the calm mornings were rather murky at first but it quickly cleared on most mornings and the sun broke through.
However on one morning we were totally defeated and gave up after about an hour of consoling ourselves with cups of coffee whilst solving all the world’s problems.
The bullocks disappeared right at the end of September and didn’t return in October. The grass is growing more slowly now and it’s normally mown by the Farts (Friday Afternoon Rural Trimming Society) but in October Dan (Page Boy) and Richard Osborn also cut it a few times. Maybe they should be known as the Drats (Dan & Richard Artisan Trimmers)?

The club Comp Sec Dwayne Pipe has asked me to remind you about the various fun-fly comps that run continually throughout the year. As the name implies they really are just for a bit of fun so next time you are at the field why not pick whichever discipline(s) you fancy and have a go. Full details are on the website, click on the Competition heading. There are two classes for each competition, A and B depending of which BMFA certificate you hold so if you have an A certificate you won’t have to compete against B certificate fliers. Just ask someone to help you with the  timing and/or counting and then let Dwayne know your score. I’ll keep the scores up to date on the website Competition page.

Back in June this year Ian Daniels visited the field and must have liked what he saw because despite all our usual insults and mickey taking he decided to join the club. Ian began his modelling career as a child and progressed to radio control at the age of 16 but after college his interests turned to full-size flying and modelling took a back seat. Recently he did a bit of slope soaring but then decided to try power models and found us. He came along with a Wot4 Foam-E and with a little help was soon flying with few problems. Ian has flown regularly since June and practised hard working towards taking his BMFA ‘A’ cert test. I’m pleased to report that in October Dougal Entendre took and passed him.
Within a few minutes of passing the test he strode confidently off for his first ‘solo’ flight.
Well done Ian, onwards and upwards now, maybe you’ll want to take your ‘B’ certificate next year. With your aviation background I’m sure you’ll be a great asset to the club.

Early in October another prospective new member, Paul Bennett, found us. Paul had worked for ITV for many years but also has some full-size aviation history and now, amongst other things, instructs on a Boeing 737 simulator. I feel a club trip coming on!
Paul currently has an E-flite Valiant trainer which he flies very competently so no doubt he’ll be another ‘A’ test candidate very soon. Having already flown with us three times in October Paul has now been offered PAM membership which he has happily accepted.
Dougal Entendre immediately said Paul should be known as Gordon Bennett so unless I hear any objections Paul is now Gordon. Welcome to the madhouse Gordon!

Those of you who are in the PAM WhatsApp group will know that I bought a very small Mustang P-51D from Banggood early in October. It’s the same as the one Catapult King has, from the Eachine Warbird Series that also includes an F4U Corsair and a T-28 Trojan.
It really is tiny at 400mm (15.75”) wingspan and weighs a mere 60g including the single cell 400mAh lipo. I ordered mine when they were in a Flash Sale in the UK warehouse and with 3 batteries it cost just under £55 including insured delivery. The box contains the completed model, a transmitter, a USB charging lead, a spare prop with spinner, a spare prop adaptor, the undercarriage with screws, and a screwdriver. I initially thought they’d forgotten to include the 3 lipos until I found them in the transmitter battery compartment. I did have to buy 4 AA batteries for the transmitter but everything else is included. According to the manual each lipo will take up to 3.5 hours to charge from a USB socket but so far mine have been much faster. The model has aileron, elevator, rudder, and throttle controls and the transmitter has a 3 position switch for the gyro enabling the choice of Beginner, Intermediate, or Expert. In Beginner mode the model flies well and stops the pilot over-controlling, it won’t let you get inverted by mistake. If you get in trouble simply release the sticks and the model instantly returns to straight and level flight. In Intermediate the model is still stabilised and will return to straight and level if left alone but you have much more movement and can loop and roll. Expert mode turns the gyro off completely and you’re on your own! In Expert mode the model is very twitchy and takes some getting used to, Intermediate is much more pleasant. There is also a One-Key Aerobatic button on the transmitter, press it once, the transmitter beeps, and the model will then roll or loop once depending on which way you next move the stick. It returns to straight and level flight at the end of the manoeuvre so even if you tell it to roll while diving towards the ground with the wings at 45 degrees it won’t crash! The button works no matter which mode you are in so you can safely fly around in Beginner mode and still do rolls and loops. Probably the trickiest thing is keeping such a small model in sight, it disappears quickly if left alone but can be flown in small circuits when you get used to it. It might be tiny but it attracts a lot of attention, everyone stopped to watch the first flight! The manual says you can get 15 minute flights and on one flight I did indeed get 15 minutes but 6 or 7 minutes is usually enough with such a tiny model, it’s not exactly relaxing! The manual also says it’s suitable in winds of about 5-7mph but I’ve flown mine in at least 14 mph and it was fine but I wouldn’t advise it in anything much more than that.
Ian Daniels has the F4U Corsair from the same series which flies just as well as the Mustang,  and Ian can fly it with no problems. These tiny models are certainly in the ‘toy’ class but they are great fun to fly for not much money and I find them fascinating.

Woody turned up with a couple of new planes in October, a Sea Vixen and an E-flite A-10 Thunderbolt. The Sea Vixen is built to Dwayne Pipe’s design and Woody borrowed Dwayne’s templates to trace around onto the Hobbycraft foamboard. Woody has fitted a Turnigy 2826 2200kv motor, the same set-up as he is using in his SU-57.
He’s made a nice job of finishing it in the colours of a target towing aircraft XS587 that I believe currently resides at the Gatwick Aviation Museum in Charlwood. The only slight problem Woody has had so far is actually getting it to fly! The foamboard can be a little tricky to keep flat and as Woody discovered it’s very easy to build in a twist during construction. Colin Cowplain donned his flying helmet for the first flight and managed to almost complete a circuit holding in full right aileron before the inevitable ‘landing’. During the repairs Woody managed to straighten things out and it looked promising for the next attempt but even with full up elevator the Vixen failed to climb away from the launch so Woody needs to check the centre of gravity and the incidence. My guess is that whilst repairing the booms the incidence changed a bit. Third time lucky, watch this space.

The E-flite A-10 Thunderbolt was a prize Woody was lucky enough to win in a raffle on the RC Aircraft Online website and very nice it is too, small but beautifully formed as they say.
This is what E-flite say about it on their website: The E-flite® UMX™ A-10 Thunderbolt II Twin 30mm EDF ultra micro jet is the most practical and easiest to fly A-10 RC model yet! New upgrades make this replica of the iconic U.S. Air Force aircraft easier for a wider variety of experienced pilots to enjoy — including those with limited EDF experience. The BNF® Basic model’s industry-leading Spektrum™ 2.4GHz technology binds to your 5+ channel DSMX®/DSM2® transmitter for full 4-channel control, plus the benefits of exclusive AS3X® and optional-use SAFE® Select technologies. It’s 100% factory-assembled and ready to deliver an authentic A-10 jet flying experience almost immediately. The fully-molded airframe features a factory-applied “desert camo” trim scheme and is strengthened with a carbon fiber reinforced fuselage and nose. Factory-installed twin brushless power systems feature more powerful 2S and 3S-compatible outrunner motors with larger diameter 30mm fans, for improved vertical performance and speed compared to other models in its class — plus longer-than-average EDF flight times when using the recommended 450–850mAh LiPo batteries.
Colin did the trimming flight and found the little A-10 flew very well. Woody had fitted a 2 cell lipo and the motors seemed to be pulsing a bit at full throttle and we think that maybe the voltage of the 2 cell pack was dropping too much under load. The model seemed to be flying perfectly despite the pulsing and after a few minutes Colin landed the Thunderbolt safely. Woody is going to try a 3 cell pack next time, hopefully that will stop the pulsing.

Following on from his success with the SU-57 that he built from Hobbycraft foamboard Basher Bob has also built a Sea Vixen to Dwayne Pipe’s design, using Dwayne’s templates. Basher has fitted a BR2212 1800kv motor from Banggood which spins a 7 x 5 propeller and provides ample power using a 3 cell battery. Basher built it pretty much to Dwayne’s plans although he did add some additional foamboard doublers to the rear half of the booms and covered them with lightweight glass-cloth using Eze-Cote resin.
As you can see in this month’s video it flies extremely well and looks good in the air despite it’s rather unusual colour scheme. Rumour has it that Captain Slow also has a Dwayne Pipe Sea Vixen under construction, the first flight is expected to be sometime in 2024!

Having got used to the SU-27 he bought from HobbyKing 1066 has now succumbed to the foamboard fairy and built one to his own design. I told him I wanted a very detailed report about it, a full essay, not his usual one line of info, and for once he did what he was told!
As most of you know I never stop banging on about the poor flying characteristics of the foam board jets, and I also find the sound very annoying, but if you can put that to the back of your mind there is no doubting they are great fun, and at the price we paid when they first appeared, lend themselves to the sort of flying I love, down low and on the edge. And don’t forget the adrenalin rush you get at every launch, wondering if you will be in A&E getting stitched up!  Mine has been broken many times, has twisted and bent due to the summer heat, but keeps coming back for more, so I hate to admit that if it was a total write off I would have replaced it. But the prices went to a point I was not willing to pay, so for some time I was considering building something along the same lines from art card, but I have many ideas that never see the light of day!!!
However, when Keith turned up with his own design Sea Vixen made from art card, with the card removed, I was inspired enough to have a go. In a past life when building my own design I would get the lining paper and pencils out, draw a proper plan and produce a model, but that was too much trouble for something with no aerodynamics, or flowing lines, so for this one my approach was lay my Mirus upside down on the card and draw round the outline. Having seen Woody and Bob’s Sea Vixens it was obvious that the art card core material is not as rigid as the material used by Hobbyking, so there would be a need to build rigidity into the structure so the rest of the parts were cut with this in mind, while still trying to keep the Mirus lines. Once all the parts were cut I was now concerned that the wingspan was too big for the material, so I started cutting bits off until it looked right. Next step was to put all the parts in the bath, make a cup of tea and wait for the card to float off! Difficult to explain that one to the wife? Next step was to glue all the parts together with the glue gun, unlike the HobbyKing foam boards and Keith’s Vixen I couldn’t be bothered with all the dovetail type joints, relying on butt joints. With everything glued together the airframe did look like a Mirus but with nothing above the wing, there was nothing to hold for the traditional way of launching, so a cockpit profile was added, problem solved with the added bonus of extra support for the motor mounting, which was very flimsy. My next design change from the normal foam board set up was to fit a 28 mm, 1400 KV motor and a standard 8 X 4 prop to try to get the noise down. The model was complete but I was not sure where the CG should be, so I took the decision to fly it before adding any decoration. The first flight was on a day when we were all wondering why we were standing in a wet field on such a damp day, and things did not go as I would have liked. My first mistake was rushing the radio installation the evening before and not double checking the controls, which resulted in missing the large amount of up elevator, add to this a rearward CG and the first launch was interesting, but did prove I had enough power available. Changes were made and the second flight was much better, but the drizzle got heavier so there was just one circuit.
The day did brighten, but before I could have a third attempt Mark noticed that some of the glue joints had failed, so no third flight to date. One positive thing we did discover was due to the need to build rigidity into the structure, the model can be held behind the wing when launching, no adrenaline rush with this one!!! With the model back in the workshop I could see all of the joints on the bottom of the model had failed, and I can only assume this was due to the plane being sat on the wet grass, very odd. I have now re-glued all the joints, given the whole airframe a coat of B&Q water based white gloss, and some stunning artwork. I am sure Andy will expect me to give it a name, one of my favourite films is  Conair, and John Malkovich’s character Sirus the Virus so in keeping with that kind of alliteration I thought I would call it Cirus the Mirus. Wow, thanks for that 1066, I shall never complain about lack of information again…until next month! Since writing that 1066 has flown it again and it now goes very well as you’ll see in the video.

Sadly Kryten didn’t have a chance to take any of his excellent flying shots this month but here are some older ones of his that I haven’t used previously:

Video time now, this month with content recorded by myself 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

I asked the flight attendant if I could change my seat because the baby in the seat next to me was really annoying and constantly screaming it’s head off..
It turns out you can’t do that if the baby is yours…

Colin Cowplain

We had a bit of an Indian summer in September with some lovely days of sunshine and light winds. This came as a real treat following the very poor July and August weather and it brought out lots of members to fly. The patch was cut regularly, mostly on Friday afternoons by the Farts but also a couple of times by Page Boy and Richard Osborn who managed to get the grass nice and short by mowing on dry and sunny afternoons.

Chas started strimming around the very overgrown parking areas but found something more manly was required so Stanley Knife used his brush cutter to finish it all off.
So thanks to all the workers for their efforts we can now park more easily and fly even small wheeled models off the patch without any problems. In the middle of the month the bullocks returned but they are used to us now and tend not to be too much of a problem.

At the end of August, just too late for the last Patch News, young Charlie took and passed his BMFA ‘A’ certificate test. Charlie had taken his Registration Competency Certificate the previous week which simplified the theory part of his ‘A’ test so following the successful flight the examiner, Dougal Entendre, asked questions from the BMFA Safety Code and the PAM club rules after which he was happy to present Charlie with his certificate.
Charlie has since has lots of ‘solo’ flights and proved himself worthy of the certificate.
With the bullocks in the field several of Charlie’s landings have taken place with the fence partially erected and he has consistently landed safely back on the patch and avoided the fence, something several others have failed to do! Well done Charlie, happy landings.

Basher Bob has built himself a foamboard SU-57 which is a copy of the one that Woody bought from Banggood and has been flying successfully for quite a while.
Like Dwayne Pipe’s Sea Vixen Basher’s Sukhoi is made of foamboard purchased from Hobbycraft but with the paper covering removed by soaking it in warm water for five minutes. The paper is heavy and doesn’t like wet grass so for our purposes it’s better to soak it off. The bare foam is rather flexible so Basher has added small pieces very thin plywood to areas of high stress and the resulting airframe is now both light and strong. The motor is an 1800KV 2212 Racestar from Banggood spinning a 7×5 prop. Basher says he’s been running these motors for some time in his other models and has never had any problems despite his many attempts to bury them! He is also using Racestar 9g servos, a 30A esc and flies the Sukhoi with 2200mAh 3s batteries. The model flies very well, just like Woody’s original in fact. I’ve had a go with it and like most of the other foamboard models it will happily fly both quickly and slowly and doesn’t have any nasty tendencies.

Unfortunately Basher discovered the hard way that care is needed when launching the mid-engined foamboard models, it’s very easy to catch the prop with your fingers or in Basher’s case his wrist. The wound was pretty deep and required four stitches but would have been much worse had the prop hit a vein or artery. I know a few of us have caught our sleeves when launching but this incident really brought home the danger. Part of the answer is to hold the model as far forward as possible, not just in front of the motor which is the natural holding place because of the balance point. Basher now wears a wrist guard when launching, a sensible precaution that maybe others should consider trying.
I happened to be videoing when the incident occurred and you can see it (and hear it) in this month’s video. The rest of the flight in the video is actually a later flight as Basher (or should he now be known as Slasher?) had to land immediately because of the injury. 

At the end of last month Chas sent me some information about a lovely little E-flite clipped wing J-3 Piper Cub that he’d just bought. This is what he says about it: I bought this model which had been crushed before it had ever been flown from a PO at HMS Sultan.
I managed to straighten the fuselage and add some doublers to the formers from underneath therefore all the covering on top is original. It has 4 HiTec HS-35 HD servos. The powertrain comprises an E-flite Park 250 2200 Kv motor and 10amp ESC powered by a 2s 450mAh battery. The propeller is a 7×4 APC item. The receiver is a 4 channel DMSS Park Flyer sourced from China. Range check at 50 feet in my garden was OK. Wingspan is 30 1/2″ and the all up weight is 289 grams although the 850mAh 2s batteries from my Mini Wot4 will fit without hardly altering the C of G and only adding 16 more grams. I just need to re-cover the fuselage underside and wait for some calmer weather for the test flight. The wings should be glued to the fuselage but mine are held to the fuselage by aluminium buttons connected to each other via an elastic band.
The heads of the buttons slide into the root ribs through a keyhole shaped slot. The wing load is taken by a carbon-fibre tube that passes through the fuselage and approximately 4″ into each wing. This configuration allows the model to be stored/transported in the original box. Having completed the covering on the fuselage underside Chas brought the Cub up to the field one midweek morning when the forecast promised light winds.
The model is sold as a park flyer and is only suitable for light winds which are something of a rarity at our field. That particular morning was pretty calm but probably not as calm as Chas would have liked for the test flight. He was also slightly concerned about the range of the cheap Chinese park flyer receiver but the low power range check seemed fine so he went ahead and flew. The little Cub certainly struggled a bit in the wind, it is definitely a calm weather model, but Chas managed several minutes of flying without too much of a problem. We think that at one stage it was right at the edge of the range but Chas brought it back closer again and all was well but he’s going to swap the receiver for a full range one. As Chas has made the wings detachable for transport I imagine he’ll be taking it on holidays and flying it on very calm evenings which should suit it perfectly.

I thought some of the calm September days were perfect for Hummer flying and several other members obviously thought the same as one midweek morning four showed up!
On days with light winds Hummers are perfect models for practising prop hanging but I wouldn’t say they are good for very much else. Although they are extremely aerobatic they can be quite odd to fly ‘normally’ and windy days are most certainly not a good idea.

After years of sticking to I/C engines Gorgeous Gary seems to be coming round to the advantages of electric flight and has recently converted his Cougar to 2000 to electric.
He’s fitted a Roxxy 4250/06 800kv outrunner motor along with a suitable speed controller and is using 4 cell lipos in the 2800-3300mAh range.  He’s also added some air inlets.
Gary says the model needed a lot of lead under the nose to obtain the correct C of G and having to remove the wing to swap batteries is a pain but otherwise all seems good.
He flew the Cougar in September and found it had plenty of power and flew as well as ever. You can judge for yourselves as some of the first flight is in this month’s video.

Gary says he has also managed to get hold of an IC/EP Wot-4, I’m not sure if he means that it’s a brand new one or if he was able to pick up a second-hand one. Anyway he’s fitted that out with electric power as well, using a 40 size 800kv motor so Gary will be able to use the same batteries as the Cougar and should also have loads of power.
As you can see he’s used stand-off spacers to mount the motor, presumably to bring the prop forward enough to fit the cowl. Mounting the Cougar motor in a similar fashion would probably remove the need for some or maybe even all of the lead in the nose.

Fancy an Arrows Hobby P-51 Mustang? Well with the success of his Arrow Hobby Marlin ducted fan model so did Mini-Mike so he splashed the cash and waited for the postman. He says he was a little disappointed when it came as the quality didn’t seem as good as the Marlin but he soon got it all sorted and ready for flight. Everything went well on the first flight, the Mustang flew beautifully and didn’t appear to have any vices. It’s in the video.
Mini-Mike’s first landing was a real greaser and he returned to the pits a happy chappy.

After a long lockdown absence Stanley Knife finally returned to flying in September.
But he hasn’t been idle, he has been busy building a DB Models Expo Eighty. Stanley has always liked larger models and this one is 80” (2032mm) wingspan. The DB Models website says: A cabin type model with spats, Lovely flier and a real joy to build. Ideal for aero towing, piggy backing, etc.  Unfortunately Stanley’s turned out not to be a real joy to build as he had problems with hanger rash before he’d even covered it. He’d carefully stood the newly completed (but as yet uncovered) wings up at the end of his shed when a large spirit level fell over and took out a row of six wing ribs! Undeterred Stanley made the necessary repairs and carried on to complete the model. He has fitted a 4248 490W motor coupled to an 80A speed controller and is powering it with a 4 cell lipo battery.
The all up weight of the model is only around 5lbs so there should have been plenty of power but, as you can see in the video, on the maiden flight the take-off run wasn’t exactly rapid. Sadly as Stanley struggled to gain a little height the model flicked inverted and crashed at which point Stanley was heard muttering things like “Oh dear” and “Oops”…at least I think that was what he said. The damage didn’t initially appear to be too bad but I don’t think Stanley will be in any hurry to repair it.

Once again Kryten has taken some excellent flying shots for us and it seems only fitting for the first one to be of his Max Thrust Riot. Flying and photographing…too clever by half!

Time now for the video which includes footage by me, Dougal Entendre, and Captain Slow. 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

The girl at the Airlines check-in desk just threatened me! She looked me straight in the eyes and said “Window or aisle?”
I laughed in her face and replied “Window or you’ll what…?”

Colin Cowplain

I must start this edition with my Webmaster hat on and give a huge thank you to Dougal Entendre (AKA Mark Agate) for his work creating and setting up the new Petersfield Aero Modellers website. The original website was built by an employee of Steve Montague (Cyano Steve) whose company Symbios Group then hosted the site for us for several years at no cost even after Steve had sold his share of the business. The original website was heavily restricted in what I was able to change (so I couldn’t mess it up!) and if I had problems I had to contact Steve Montague and plead for his invaluable help.
But eventually we were asked to move to another host and we looked at using the BMFA free hosting service but there were a few problems and, so we didn’t lose the website completely, Dougal sorted another host but of course that came with a monthly fee.
So Dougal started building a new website with a fresher updated look that we would understand better and the admins would be able to change more easily. Last month when I tried to post Patch News we had lots of problems and eventually Dougal sorted it by posting a link to the new site. During August BMFA came up with what we needed so Dougal has now switched the hosting over to them and the new website is completely live.

Right, on with the August flying news now. The new herd of young bullocks joined us at the end of July and at the start of August we had to resort to using an electric fence around the pits and flying with either some or all of the fence around the patch still up.
Landing inside the fence proved a bit of a challenge for some pilots, didn’t it Woody…!
But the bullocks soon got bored with us and became less of a nuisance and they’ve now been moved to another field so we are trouble free at the moment. With the rubbish weather we had in August the grass was often wet when we mowed so we weren’t able to keep the patch grass quite as short as we would have liked but it stayed perfectly flyable.

Prolific builder Dwayne Pipe surprised us in August by turning up with a foamboard Sea Vixen. We’re used to the commercially available Sukhois, Migs etc. but not a Sea Vixen.
We were intrigued to see how the Sea Vixen would fly and were very pleased when it went away from the launch perfectly and flew extremely well. As you’ll see in this month’s video all went well until the landing when Dwayne discovered that we hadn’t lowered the fence! The model was undamaged other than a minor chunk out of the wing leading edge.
So spurred on by his success Dwayne set about building an improved Mark Two version.
Dwayne designed the Sea Vixen using the same basic idea as the kit ones but sadly the foamboard the Chinese kit manufactures use doesn’t seem to be available to purchase here so he used Westboard foamboard from Hobbycraft. The Westboard foamboard comes with a paper covering which doesn’t like wet grass and it a tad heavy so the second model has had the paper removed. Dwayne has written an illustrated article about the build for possible magazine publication and if the article isn’t published I’ll put the whole thing on the website at a later date. If you fancy building one in the meantime speak nicely to Dwayne for the full article but here’s some of it: The complete design uses only 14 pieces of flat foamboard and can be made in a couple of days, even allowing for covering and glue drying. The design was transferred to the foamboard using my preferred method: photocopying the plans, cutting out the shapes and gluing them onto old cereal packets. Cutting them out carefully to produce templates that were used to draw round onto the foamboard. This is particularly useful as the templates can be manoeuvred to get the best use of the foamboard and minimise waste. The base pan is cut out in a single piece. Cutting out the foamboard is easy if you use a sharp blade and a cutting mat. You will need to replace the blade frequently when the paper on the foam starts to tear. The disposable blades sold in pound shops are ideal as the edge is easily replaced. The pieces were cut-out as designed and were weighed at 200 grams. Then comes the clever bit. Take all your cut-outs and soak them in the bath just covering them in warm water. Within 5 minutes the paper floats off the foam. Carefully remove this and remove the foam leaving it to dry overnight supported on its edge as if it was wet paint. The foam will dry with a hard outer coating which readily takes paint or Solarfilm type coverings. With the paper removed the pieces halved in weight to 100 grams. It is important to leave the paper on before cutting out the parts. The paper takes pencil and ball point which the foam struggles with and the paper protects the foam from tearing. Thanks Dwayne, that’s really good, I just might be tempted to build one for myself.

Last month I featured a Hyperion Edge that Dougal had purchased as a second-hand bargain but hadn’t yet flown. In August he flew it and that’s when things got interesting: The gentleman who sold me the plane said he had discharged the 3 lipo packs so they would be safe to transport. In fact he had discharged each of the 3s packs to 9V, which is much too low for a lipo (3V per cell!). I knew from experience that you can be lucky and recover packs from this state, so I gave each a storage charge back up to 3.8V per cell and hoped for the best. When I fully charged the packs, one had a cell which clearly hadn’t recovered and wouldn’t balance, but the other two packs were fine.
The plane was supplied with a Spektrum AR6210 receiver plus satellite. I bound my Radiomaster transmitter to it, and all seemed well. The first flight started well, and the plane had plenty of power, so I pulled a few aerobatics. During a roll there was a definite hesitation, as if there was a sudden loss of control, but it recovered immediately. I tried another roll and had another loss of control, so landed straight away, after just a minute of airtime. Ground checks showed that we got periodic lock-outs. I tried disconnecting the satellite receiver but the problem persisted, so I took it home and replaced the Spektrum receiver  with a Devo RX1002, which gave no such problems. Not the first time I’ve had trouble with Spektrum gear.
From the start of the next flight it was clear that there was some kind of motor problem. It took off OK but the motor sounded like a 2-stroke running too rich, so I landed. Suspecting a battery problem I tried the other pack, but got the same symptoms. I took it home once again, and swapped the ESC.
For its third flying session, everything was finally sorted and I got some decent aerobatic performance. However, my misgivings about the strength of the tail (mentioned in the last Patch News) proved correct when, while going straight and level, there was an audible crack and the plane twitched in pitch. Fortunately I got it down safely, but the left hand half of the tail had cracked at the joint with the fuselage, and was only held on by the covering!
The Edge is now hanging from the garage roof while I ponder how to make a replacement tail. Although the price of the airframe with all electrics and batteries was a bargain, the experience has reminded me that there’s a cost of ownership with any model. So far it’s given me more grief than the three minutes of airtime was worth.
It’s just lucky that you’ve got nothing else to do now that you have retired Dougal!

Page Boy caused lots of hilarity (sorry, that should say ‘got lots of sympathy’) when he failed to secure the battery in his Hurricane. Needless to say halfway through the flight the battery slid rearwards which did nothing to improve centre of gravity and made the model pretty much unflyable.  The ‘heavy landing’ that followed soon after broke the nose clean off but fortunately there was no other damage. Page Boy has since repaired the fuselage and sprayed it in grey primer but decided to test fly it before finishing the paintwork.
Happily all went well and the Hurricane flies beautifully (when the battery is restrained!) so now he will finish the paint. Rumour has it that it might re-emerge as a Sea Hurricane.

Page Boy also sent through some photos of Richard Osborn’s very nice new Pitts Special. It’s an FMS model, this is from their website: The Pitts Special is a light aerobatic biplane designed by Curtis Pitts. It has accumulated many competitions wins since its first flight in 1944. The Pitts biplanes dominated world aerobatic competition in the 1960s and 1970s and, even today, remain a potent competition aircraft in the lower categories.
Built upon the successful V1 Pitts biplane, FMS is proud to announce the brand-new Pitts V2. Redesigned with a massive 1400mm wingspan, the Pitts V2 is constructed of lightweight and robust EPO foam material. Proprietary connector plugs built into the wing structure means that the wings can be attached to and detached from the fuselage using just a few screws. The slide-fit wing struts are just as simple, slide them on in just a few seconds and the wing is securely braced! An oversized battery bay accommodates most 6S packs with ease giving the pilot ample power to attempt all aerobatic manoeuvres. Hobbywing 50A ESC provides bulletproof performance!
Richard very sensibly asked Page Boy to do the test flight for him and Page Boy says it flies amazingly well, absolutely rock solid, and lands beautifully. It’s comes ready fitted with a gyro so no doubt that helps a lot. I assume the excellent photos were taken by Richard’s daughter, good stuff. By the way, did I mention that I’ve had an aerobatic flight in a Pitts?

Kryten brought along his new Max Thrust Riot to fly at one of our midweek sessions but every time the throttle was opened to take-off the prop adaptor came off the motor shaft.
After several attempts at tightening it failed Kryten decided to take it home and sort it out properly. Never mind, it lives to fly another day, next time out it will be perfect…hopefully.

Basher Bob has put together a Sonicmodell Binary that he wants to use as a camera plane. It’s the same as the one that Dougal flies FPV but Basher won’t be trying FPV with his.
He says that having watched a few YouTube videos of the Binary tip-stalling and read comments about the small wing area he decided to keep his as light as possible so hasn’t bothered with the undercarriage or lights and has fitted the smallest battery he could.
As a result the Binary weighs a little under 3lbs with a 2200mAh 4 cell lipo battery.
As it turns out he needn’t have worried as it doesn’t seem to tip-stall anyway and it is now flying well on a 3300mAh 4 cell battery which gives him flight times of around ten minutes. He has fitted it with Banggood Race Star 2216 1100kv motors and the 11g servos from his old HobbyKing Walrus. He is using a Runcam 2 video camera and promises to provide some video for us to watch in next month’s Patch News.

Norwegian Nick is a great builder and can always be relied upon to turn up with something new and interesting and in August it was this very nice little RFB Fantrainer:
The full-size RFB Fantrainer is a two-seat training aircraft which uses a mid-mounted ducted fan propulsion system. Developed and built by German aircraft company Rhein-Flugzeugbau GmbH (RFB), it has been used by the Luftwaffe and Royal Thai Air Force.
Nick built his Fantrainer with balsa he bought from the late Gentleman Jim’s stocks. The motor is an Overlander BM 400 2845/09 2100kv inrunner linked to a 40 amp esc. It uses a Cox 3 bladed pusher prop 5 x 3.5  which Nick has cut down to 4 x 5.062. He’s covered the model in tissue and the finished weight is just 27oz complete with a 2200mAh 3 cell lipo.

Nick says: It flew on rails straight from the launch with no trimming needed. However after a couple of circuits I noticed that the sound seemed to be changing or slowing down. Thought battery might be going down so turned to land and it tip-stalled into the ground. When picking up the bits I noticed the prop had departed from the drive shaft on the motor and was laying about 5 feet from the fuselage. Picked it up to see if it would go back onto the motor and it went back on with hardly any effort. The prop nut was really tight so I’m assuming that the prop adapter had a 3.5 mm hole and the motor drive shaft being 3 mm it was loose. When checked back at home found that was the case. Unfortunately the starboard wing broke off and some side part at the back of the fuselage had been chewed up by the prop. I think it’s fixable but I’ll put it on to the back burner and try and finish other projects.
Nick’s Fantrainer looks great on the ground and in the video you’ll see that it also flew very well, let’s hope he gets it repaired soon so we can see it back up in the air where it belongs.

Dougal managed to pick up a Max Thrust Aggressor on eBay for an excellent price.
Although it was second-hand it was brand new in the box so Dougal had to spend about half an hour putting it together. It goes very well on the stock set-up, plenty of power, fast and fully aerobatic but it will also thermal soar pretty well, a great all-rounder in fact.
Unfortunately after several flights Dougal managed to crash it, he was getting a little too adventurous and it failed to recover from a spin. The nose end was quite badly damaged but nothing that can’t be repaired so no doubt it will soon be flying again.

Following on from Catapult King’s success with his tiny P-51 Mustang Ian Daniels has bought the F4U Corsair version. He bought it from Banggood for a little over £70 and it arrived from China in just over a week with no extra tax or import duties slapped on.
The Corsair comes complete with a transmitter and two single cell lipos that are recharged from any USB socket. It has a three stage gyro with beginner, intermediate, and expert modes and also an aerobatic button which will enable it to roll or loop safely in any mode. I did the start of the test flight but I needn’t have bothered, with the gyro in beginner mode it simply flew away perfectly and I quickly handed it over to Ian who had no problems at all. It was a fairly windy day but the Corsair handled it easily and Ian flew the rest of flight and then landed it safely back on the patch. As you can see in the video these tiny models really are brilliant little things and I’m sorely tempted…

When Kryten came to fly his Riot he snapped some more great flying shots for us to enjoy:

Video time now which this month includes footage shot by me, Dougal, and Captain Slow. 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

What has eight wheels and flies?
A bin lorry…

Colin Cowplain