Patch News History

As is often the case September brought a bit of an Indian summer and the beginning of the month glorious.Sadly the last ten days or so of the month turned very bleak indeed. The Foolish Five that turned up on the 22nd were caught out before even entering the field and sheltered in the barn for an hour or so before going home.Unfortunately you can’t actually see the torrential rain behind us in the photo but believe me it was there.

I will start with some sad news, Captain Slow’s favourite bullock 473 has moved on to pastures new. Well actually to a butchers, along with the rest of the herd. 473 had become such friends with Captain Slow that he would run to the gate when he heard the Captain’s car coming down the track. He was so reluctant to go that tried to hitch a lift…In an effort to console the tough, war hardened Captain the committee chipped in and bought him a keepsake.

The first model to feature this month is Dwayne Pipe’s TSR2 which has actually been around for a little while.It’s flown well lots of times but has also had its fair share of ‘abrupt arrivals’. Dwayne has been steadily improving the model and gradually increasing the thrust, but last time out it suffered a sudden total loss of power which Dwayne later discovered was due to the speed controller failing. This month it re-emerged after the latest rebuild.So the TSR2 now has an uprated speed controller to cope with more current and this time the flight went well until Dwayne was caught out by the strong wind when he tried to turn back towards the patch from downwind.  Unfortunately the TSR2’s nose went up too much which can be fatal for an EDF, they need to keep lots of air going through the fan. The model stalled and Dwayne was unable to stop it dropping into the valley. But it will return, Dwayne is excellent at repairing damage and I look forward to seeing it flying again soon. I was videoing at the time of the rather distant crash so you can see it in this month’s video.

But Dwayne Pipe wasn’t the only member to take a trip down the valley in September was he Dougal?!To be fair Dougal Entendre’s long walk wasn’t caused by a crash as such, he’d been doing one of his amazing sycamore spins with his Tomahawk but it refused to come out of it. The Tomahawk is a flying wing that Dougal has discovered will spin incredibly rapidly around its centre point if he gets the entry to the manoeuvre correct. But once in the spin the exit can be a problem and if Dougal can’t get it to come out it simply continues spinning all the way down to the deck. Fortunately it spins so quickly that the rate of descent is quite slow and it very rarely sustains any damage. Previously when it’s happened the Tomahawk has come down in the field but on one particularly windy September day it drifted well out over the valley and the photo opportunity was simply too good to miss!

In last month’s Patch News I showed you three new models that all belonged to Chuck Berry and in September he continued the trend and turned up with yet another one, this time it was a Great Planes ElectriFly Yak-55M.Apparently the M version of the Yak-55 was designed in 1989 with shorter and more tapered wings to give it a faster roll rate than the original 55 had. The Great Planes ARTF model is 1285mm span and is constructed from lite-ply and covered in Monokote. Chuck has fitted it with a Prodrive V2 3548 900kv motor, a YEP 80A esc and a 12×6 prop. The four servos Chuck used are Radient RDNA0079s, that’s not a make I’m familiar with at all. The manufacturer recommends using a 4s 2200 mAh lipo but Chuck is using 4s 2700mAh packs to extend the flight time slightly. I did the maiden flight for Chuck and found it to be an excellent flier. Chuck has now flown it quite a bit and says it has a slight pitch coupling with the rudder, nothing that a little mixing can’t sort out I imagine.

Sticking with similar 3D machines Mike Smith has treated himself to an FMS Sbach 342 and very nice it is too.The 1300mm span model comes as Plug and Play so Mike just had to fit a receiver and a 4 cell battery. The motor is a 3948 760kv brushless outrunner which is coupled to a 60A speed controller that has a 3A BEC and the propeller is a 3 bladed 13×5. I’m quite surprised by the prop size, the recommended set up for Chuck’s Yak 55 is a 4250 800kv outrunner fitted with a 2 bladed 12×6 prop. The models are almost the same size and the weights are similar with the Sbach being slightly heavier. There’s a big difference between a 3 bladed 13×5 and a 2 bladed 12×6 but both planes fly very well and appear to have plenty of power so what do I know!The four pre-fitted servos are all 17g and unlike the Yak the Sbach is moulded from EPO foam. Mike is using 3000mAh 4 cell lipos that do the job perfectly. You can compare the Yak and Sbach flights in this month’s video.

Away from the patch we had the PAM Skittles Evening on 14th September at the Barley Mow in Walderton. I had a great night and I think everyone enjoyed both the buffet and the bowling. It’s just a bit of fun but we do always present prizes to the best lady and the best man bowlers and this year, for the first time in the history of the club, a husband and wife won both. Congratulations to Bob and Bonnie Hill, for one month only we have Bob the Bowler!We also had a raffle and one of the many prize winners was Cameron Agate who wisely selected a tub of roses for his mum Angie. I have so say that he didn’t exactly look overjoyed with it!

Always on the lookout for a bargain Chas Butler picked up this Multiplex Stuntmaster for around half the new price.He spotted it on the stand of a dealer from Bournemouth while at the LMA show in Much Markle in September. The model was ready to go, just needing a receiver and battery adding. According to the specs it uses 3 cell 450mAh lipos, I wonder if Chas has got any of those or if he’s managed to squeeze in a larger one. It looks completely unmarked to me but apparently the dealer dinged a wingtip on his sales table so he knocked another £5 off the price. Actually, if you zoom in on the photos you can just make out a very small ding on the right hand wingtip. The Stuntmaster is designed to be flown either indoors or outdoors in very light wind conditions and the weather hasn’t been calm enough to fly it outdoors since Chas bought it. But no doubt he’ll fly it soon and discover just how good (or bad!) he is at 3D flying. The Stuntmaster is made from Elapor (the Multiplex version of EPO foam) with carbon fibre reinforcements, has a wingspan of 870mm and weighs just 350g (12.3ozs). The ready fitted hardware consists of a Permax 2206 1050kv outrunner, a 20A esc and three 8g servos. The 9×5 propeller is held in place by a rubber O-ring so any unscheduled arrivals shouldn’t damage the motor shaft, not that Chas will have any unscheduled arrivals obviously… Both ailerons are operated by one servo mounted centrally in the fuselage above the wing, an arrangement that is pretty unusual on outdoor models these days but maybe it’s common on indoor ones. Looking at some of the online videos of the Stuntmaster it’s a very capable model that can do just about any 3D manoeuvre you can think of, I look forward to Chas demonstrating them for us!

Gorgeous Gary has been working hard on his latest project recently, a Goldberg Anniversary Edition Piper Cub. It’s a proper builders’ model and comes with a 33 page manual containing lots of photos and instructions. The manual mentions die cut parts but looking at Gary’s photos they seem to be laser cut so I assume the kit has been updated. It can be built as either the standard or clipped wing version and Gary has opted for the clipped wing one at around 1715mm span. Gary being Gary, he’s fitting an OS Max 65 I/C motor to it (I can hardly bear to type such a thing!) so it should certainly have plenty of power. He currently trying to source a Pitts style muffler for the engine so he doesn’t have an ugly silencer hanging outside the cowl. There’s an answer to that Gary…! The finished weight should be around 7.5lbs. It looks to be coming along nicely so it shouldn’t be too long before we see it flying.

Certainly the most challenging model to appear this month was Catapult King’s Fairchild Republic A-10.It’s a totally scratch built twin ducted fan mode with retracts, not an overnight project, in fact about a year. This is what Catapult says: Basically I had two 10 blade 50mm EDFs that were destined for the F14 I started ages ago, I also had some retracts that I couldn’t use on the F14 and thought I would like to do a model using both so up came the idea of an A10. I found a 3D view picture and blew it up on a printer until I had a size that would fit the motors and printed it out. From the blown up version the model was basically made up as I went. The main wing didn’t take too long except it took a while to work out how to install the retracts as this was my first time using them. The tail/elevator sections came next followed by the fuselage, all the time thinking about where the electrics etc. would go. The nose wheel and doors and how to sequence them proved to be a pain. It’s mainly made from balsa with ply to strengthen and Depron to lose weight where I could. However, eventually I came up with a reasonable looking plane but I thought it was overweight which, as it turns out, it appears to be. The power train is two 10 blade EDFs which according to spec provide 650g of static thrust each, the model unfortunately has come in at 1.55kg flying weight. It uses a single 2650mAh 4s battery (all I’ve got) and good old HK 9g servos all round plus the heavy retracts. I’d hoped that once in the air the motors would be more efficient and at least it would fly, wrong! I think Catapult is being too hard on himself and personally I don’t think the problem is simply lack of thrust on an overweight model. I wonder if the wing/tail incidence is correct and also maybe the thrust line. You can see the attempts at flight in the video, it doesn’t look like a lack of thrust to me. But Catapult will persevere and I reckon he’ll get it sorted, after all he’s already had success with some pretty outlandish models.

Back to Dougal Entendre now. We’ve all had the warnings drummed into us about not using a mobile phone while driving but apparently Dougal didn’t realise it applied to model flying as well! He wasn’t actually intending to use his mobile as a phone, he wanted to use the timer on it to see how many loops he could do in one minute for the comp.In the end it was irrelevant as he longer had a competitive model to try it with anyway. RIP the Laius. Just to rub salt into his wounds I then proceeded to take the lead in the comp with 29 loops but no doubt he’ll have another attempt with a different model. He cheered himself up by ordering a new FPV camera, a pretty red one.Of course it’s not just the colour that’s different, this one has a 1.8mm focal length lens and his existing one has a 2.5mm lens which means he’ll have a wider field of view (FOV). It’s always good to experiment.

Kryten took some amazing flying photos for us again this month, here’s a selection for you to enjoy:

Video time now and this month it includes footage by Captain Slow and Dougal Entendre, thanks chaps. 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

And finally, with thoughts of Captain Slow and bullock 473: Why wouldn’t the farmers invest in flying cows? Because the steaks would have been too high…

Colin Cowplain

August has come and gone and so have the bullocks. As expected they returned to our field early in the month but have now moved on again. Woody seemed to prefer staying with the bullocks rather than joining the pilots. The bullocks’ departure may have been helped by a car smashing into the gate post and preventing the gate closing properly. One unkind wit was heard to mention that they didn’t realise Basher Bob drove a small red Peugeot…Farmer George has ‘topped’ the field, and according to Google Regular topping helps to maintain a good quality grass sward which has many benefits for both your land and your animals. Fortunately he left the patch alone and our regular mowing is doing an excellent job of maintaining a good quality grass without topping. We can’t see any sign of the topping from ground level but it’s very noticeable from the air when flying FPV.The weather was good for most of the month although one Sunday was lost due to wind and rain. As I was away that week I didn’t care! The August Bank Holiday weekend saw record breaking high temperatures and light wind, perfect for us and for the BMFA Nationals being held at Barkston Heath. The Nationals even made the BBC! It’s HERE

The hot weather brought out lots of bugs and I spotted a cute little grasshopper checking out my Volantex Ranger.Unfortunately Dougal Entendre got bitten by a horsefly and ended up with a very swollen infected leg that prevented him from walking up to the patch for a while. Several courses of antibiotics sorted him out eventually.

Lots of new models made the most of the good weather and the first three I’ll feature all belong to Chuck Berry.His first is an MX2 from HobbyKing, a 955mm span 3D model made mostly from EPP. It comes as an ARF so Chuck added a Turnigy Aerodrive 1050kv motor, a 30A HobbyKing speed controller and a 10×4.7 carbon fibre prop.The battery used is a surprisingly small 3 cell 1300mAh lipo. 1066 has been flying one of these for a while and found it to be an excellent 3D model. Chuck’s also flies very well so we expect to see him prop hanging it very soon.

Chuck’s second new model was yet another foamboard Sukhoi SU-27 from HobbyKing. I included a couple of photos of the Sukhoi last month but Chuck had found a problem with one of the linkages so it hadn’t flown.He is using a Turnigy D2205 2300kv motor with 30A HobbyKing speed controller and a 3 cell 1300mAh lipo.Like me Chuck has fitted a single rudder to one of the fins, it works well and Chuck is able to do the high alpha manoeuvres well. These foamboard models bring out the hooligan in pilots and the target often seems to be Captain Slow. But unlike my gentle touches Chuck went the whole hog and took half the fin off Captain Slow’s Sukhoi.Well done Chuck, keep it up! Sadly it didn’t quite all go Chuck’s way though, this was one of his ‘landings’.But the foamboard range of models are all surprisingly tough and there was no damage to the Sukhoi this time.

And last but definitely not least of Chuck’s new fleet is an FMS Edge 540, a 1320mm span Plug’N’Play model.It comes ready fitted with an FMS 3948-KV760 motor turning a 3 blade 13×5 prop, a 60A speed controller and four 17g metal gear servos. Chuck is using 4 cell 2700mAh lipo packs which give a flight time of around 6 minutes. It’s certainly well rated and seemed to fly very nicely when I did the test flight. It needs Dougal Entendre or 1066 to properly check out the 3D capabilities but it did everything I tried easily enough. Bad news if you’d like one of your own, I’m afraid it’s been discontinued. You can see all three of Chuck’s new models flying in this month’s video.

It’s Bob the Builder’s turn now, he’s got himself a two metre span Volantex Phoenix 2000 V2 glider from HobbyKing.I can’t find anything that lists the differences between the V1 and the V2, the most obvious sign is that the V2 has a very nice wheel mounted in a new fuselage moulding. Apparently the tail has been redesigned to make it stronger and it comes with flaps as standard, I think the flaps were extra on the V1. The fuselage is made from blow moulded plastic and the wings and tail are EPO foam. Bob flew the model in its’ original Plug’N’Play form but he very quickly decided he wanted more power and swapped out the original 28mm 1050kv motor for a much more powerful one.After doing some research he chose a Turnigy SK3 GliderDrive of 1400kv. The GliderDrive motor is effectively an outrunner in a can meaning that the outside of the motor does not spin so it’s ideal for the slim nose of a glider. At the moment Bob is still using the original 10×6 folding prop and he’s changed the original 30A esc to a 50A one.The previous motor gave 300W on 3 cells, the new one gives 450W on 3 cells and 700W on 4 cells, although he hasn’t flown it on 4 cells yet. Bob has also added more colour to both the top and underside of the wings.

Next up is another ‘proper’ model builder, John Warren. This time John has built a 66inch span Jocasta from a plan in RCME in October 2014. The 66” span all built-up high wing model was designed by Jim Newbury and John has equipped his with the 4-Max recommended set-up consisting of a 3547 800kv motor, a 60A esc, and a 12×6 prop. It runs on a 3 cell lipo and pulls 29A at full throttle, giving around 250W. A 3 cell lipo is nominally 11.1v so at 29A the wattage should be around 320W, so 250W is probably a good average figure with a partly discharged lipo. The model weighs almost 5lbs so we thought it might be a bit marginal with that power but it takes off nicely and happily stooges around on half throttle with no problems. Dougal Entendre did the test flight which was fine until the battery died unexpectedly early. He got the model safely back on the ground with no damage and our thoughts were that perhaps John’s batteries were past their best and unable to deliver the power they should but subsequently the flights have been much longer and the packs have had plenty left in them so maybe that first one just hadn’t received a full charge. John has made a lovely job of the Jocasta and it flies well, a perfect model for John in fact.

Back to the foamboard jets now, Dwayne Pipe has put together an SU-27 and it’s…just like all the others!Well not quite actually, I asked Dwayne for some info on the model and this is what he said: It’s a pretty standard setup. 2200kv HobbyKing Turnigy 2826/6 motor with a HobbyKing 30A esc and a 6×4 prop powered by a 1300mAh battery. To reduce the noise, as well as the standard enlarging of the propeller slot, I glued some profiled balsa to the foamboard edges that face the prop wash. This was intended to have two effects: to provide extra strengthening to reduce vibration on the rear of the aircraft, and to stop the formation of Karman vortices which will generate vibration around any flat facing surface, like the edges of the foamboard, in the flowstream. (Look them up on Google). How effective this was remains to be seen.Well having seen (and heard) it fly I can safely say it’s certainly not any louder than the other SU-27s, not sure if it’s any quieter or not but it has to be worth trying. I might do the same on mine to see if I can notice a difference.

Chas Butler has become a regular attendee at the flying field again and is building up his fleet of models. His latest one is a Multiplex Extra 330SC designed by multiple world champion Gernot Bruckmann. The Extra is available in either kit form (ARTF) or Receiver Ready (RR). The RR version comes fitted with a Multiplex PERMAX BL-O 3520-920kv motor, a 55A esc, and four Hitec HS-82MG servos. At the time of writing it’s only had one flight and Chas was being very careful with it especially as he found the controls extremely sensitive. You can see it in this months’ video. This is what Chas has to say about his: Mine is a Receiver Ready version requiring just a receiver and a 3 cell 30C 2600mAh flight battery. I’ve installed a 6 channel JR PROPO DFA receiver and the battery used was an Overlander one of 2900mAh capacity. Since the maiden flight I’ve reduced the Aileron travel by 50% on rates with 50% Exponential and the Elevator by 25% on rates, also with 50% Exponential.
I’m just waiting now for the chance to fly it again. The first flight was very nervy but I’m sure that next time I will be more confident as that was the first flight for some years with any plane quite so responsive. I’ve seen Gernot Bruckmann flying one of these and know what a superb model they are so I expect to see Chas performing all kinds of crazy manoeuvres very soon.

The last new model is a Pichler HiSpeed belonging to 1066. It certainly looks nice but 1066 isn’t very happy with it. He bought it from RobotBirds and this is what their website says about it. The HiSpeed is the latest release in the Speed series designed and developed by Pichler, Germany. While this model is designed to offer breath-taking high-speed flights in excess of 200km/h it is also capable of slow-speed fly-bys and landings. This version is supplied as Plug-and-Play (PNP) needing minimal assembly. It is 95% pre-built and includes the recommended Pulsar C5066 P20-1300 brushless motor, 40A brushless ESC, fast 9g servos and a high-performance spinner/propeller. The main gripe 1066 has is that all the electrical parts (motor, esc, servos) weren’t already fitted, they were just included loose in the package. Also, although the website says it needs a 3 cell lipo and the esc is only rated for 3 cells the instruction say to use 4 cells for the best speed. The model flew nicely on the first flight and appeared to groove very well but it really wasn’t very fast, certainly nothing like 200km/h. For the second flight 1066 fitted a larger prop and it was a bit faster but still not really what he was hoping for. He doesn’t have any 4 cell lipos so if he wants more speed he’ll have to buy some and also swap the esc for one that can handle 4 cells. Never mind, it looks good in the air and it’s quite fast enough for most PAM members! Check it out in this months’ video.

Kryten took lots of excellent flying photos with his quality camera this month, here’s a selection for you: Other photo and video contributors this month were Dougal Entendre and Captain Slow, thanks chaps. Video time now, please watch it full screen, it so much better with small models flying around:If the video won’t play for you please click HERE

Gatwick tower: “BA123, contact Departure on 124.7.”
BA123: “Tower, BA123 switching to Departure …  by the way, after we lifted off, we saw some kind of dead animal on the far end of the runway.”
Tower: “EasyJet 456, cleared for take-off; did you copy the report from BA123?”
EasyJet 456: “EasyJet 456, cleared for take-off roger; and roger, we copied BA123, we’ve already notified our caterers.”

Colin Cowplain

In the June edition of Patch News I said that the June weather hadn’t been up to much and that maybe July would be better. It was, much better! Much of the month was hot and sunny and we had a new UK record temperature towards the end of the July. The great weather meant some good turnouts at the patch and the Farts have been cutting the grass regularly, although it hasn’t grown much this month, and the patch is now in superb condition.  The bullocks moved out early in July and haven’t yet returned but I doubt it will be long. Captain Slow has been missing his favourite, number 73, so 1066 snapped this keepsake and sent it to him via the WhatsApp group:

The first new model I’ll feature this month is this profile Edge 540 in Castrol colours. It belongs to Dougal Entendre and was put together by his son Cameron from a kit that Dougal bought several years ago. I was away on the day that Dougal tested it and the only information I have is that “it flew ok”. All I can go by is the photos but I have to say that it’s one of the ugliest models I’ve ever seen! I Googled it and found several photos of the full-size original and I think that’s pretty ugly as well so it must be the colour scheme.

The same day the Edge 540 flew Woody brought along a much prettier model, his new E-flite F-15. This is what the E-flite website says: The E-flite® F-15 Eagle 64mm EDF jet is a replica of the world-renowned air superiority fighter flown by the U.S. Air Force. It’s equipped with a 4S-compatible brushless motor and a 40-amp ESC that are matched to an 11-blade fan to deliver fantastic speed, thrust and a turbine-like sound. The factory-installed power system and servos help make it quick and easy to assemble the lightweight yet durable EPO airframe with bolt-on wings so you can be flying in less time than it takes to charge a battery. Optional-use fixed landing gear with a steerable nose wheel is included so you can taxi, take off and land on runways, or you can leave the landing gear off for improved performance plus easy hand launches and landings on grass. You can also fly with or without the wing-mounted drop tanks and missiles depending on the look and handling you prefer. And it all adds up to deliver one of the easiest to enjoy and easiest to fly Eagle models ever!

Woody bought the Bind N Fly version that comes with a Spektrum receiver with AS3X gyro and Safe Select technology: This is the first high-performance F-15 model equipped with exclusive Spektrum® AS3X® and SAFE® Select technologies. AS3X works behind the scenes to smooth out the effects of wind and turbulence to deliver a locked-in feel that makes it seem like you’re flying a much larger jet. Optional-use SAFE Select offers pitch and bank angle limits along with automatic self-levelling that can be turned on and off at the flip of a switch making this the easiest to fly Eagle yet! And if you don’t want to enable the SAFE Select features, simply bind the receiver normally and only AS3X will be active.

Dougal did the test flight and with the Safe technology switched off and a 4 cell lipo the F-15 didn’t get away from the launch, the thrust just seemed to push it down more than up elevator could overcome. So Woody changed to a 3 cell lipo to save nose weight and move the centre of gravity rearwards a little and Dougal managed to get it away from the launch and flying nicely. Since then I’ve flown it several times and found that with Safe switched on it goes away from the launch easily but is then a bit too limited in roll to fly with any fun. So I’ve been turning Safe off straight after the launch and flying it normally when it performs really well. It will happily cruise around on half throttle and has plenty of power for the more exciting stuff on full throttle so I can’t really see why you’d want to use the suggested 4 cells. Woody has flown it with Safe switched both on and off and found it’s certainly easier to handle with it on but it will really only fly quite large circuits around the field as the roll is limited a bit too much.I’ve found that the fan alignment isn’t quite right and opening the throttle pushes the nose down which is ok in normal flight but makes landing slightly awkward, you have to be prepared that when you shut the throttle the nose will go up and you need to add some down elevator.  It might be possible to correct it with an elevator/throttle mix but we haven’t tried it yet. It looks great in the air and my only complaint is that it’s too quiet! You can barely hear the fan at all and it’s much quieter than many prop driven electric models. See it for yourself in this month’s video.

Captain Slow lived up to his nickname in early July when he launched Dougal’s Tomahawk pusher motored model, he didn’t move his hand away quickly enough and his knuckle was nicked by the propeller.Fortunately it wasn’t serious, it could have been much worse, but it does serve as a warning to be extra careful when launching pusher models. It also proved the worth of the first aid packs that all members are issued with.
You do have yours with you at the patch don’t you? They are of little use left in the car…

While I’m on the subject of Captain Slow I’ll show you what he’s done to one of the fins on his foamboard Mig-29.We’ve been enjoying lots of really close formation antics with the foamboard jets, they’re almost indestructible and are very cheap anyway. With their mid-mounted motors even if the planes nudge each other the props rarely touch anything but on one occasion Captain Slow’s Mig obviously climbed up into the path of my SU-27.
I find the abusive adornment totally uncalled for when I was the completely innocent party…possibly…

On 11^th July Dwayne Pipe ran the annual Chuck Glider Competition at Buriton recreation ground before the start of the club meeting. The comp is always popular and we had a reasonable turnout on the warm and almost windless evening. There were six rounds flown with the total time of all six flights producing the score, no discards allowed. The winner of the comp, obviously the most prestigious, demanding, and skilful comp of the year, was Andy Palmer (Colin Cowplain) with Mark Agate (Dougal Entendre) second, and Percy Vears (Ron Vears) a very close third.

We were pleased to see Mike Critchley visit the field after being absent for a few months while he was ‘working’ at sailing around the Caribbean and Norway. As you can imagine we were all very sympathetic to the poor chap!He brought along a new Multiplex EasyGlider for me to trim out and I discovered that it didn’t need a single click of trim on any surface. Mike already had an EasyGlider when he joined the club but I think he damaged it and decided to treat himself to a new one. As well as flying with us Mike also flies with MVSA and the EasyGlider is an ideal model for slope soaring as well as flat field flying.

Back to Captain Slow now, he’s actually finished assembling his Sonic Modell Mini Skyhunter, that must be a record.He bought the model from Banggood where it is available from their UK warehouse so there’s no waiting for shipment from China, no import duty to pay, and less risk of it being damaged in transit. I pictured it last month in its ‘naked’ state but now it’s complete and flying. The Skyhunter is 1238mm span and is moulded from EPO foam with carbon fibre tail booms. Captain Slow has fitted a Turnigy Aerodrive SK2826 1130kV motor and runs it on 3 cells although he actually fits two 3 cell 2200mAh packs to get the correct centre of gravity. There is loads of room for two packs and he could connect them in parallel to double the flight time but it flies for ages on just one anyway. The first flight was fine until I asked Captain Slow to do a nice low and slow pass for me to video and he discovered that it tip-stalls quite easily. It took everybody by surprise, not least of all Kryten who had a close-up view of the Skyhunter while Captain Slow regained control! But no harm was done and the centre of gravity has since been moved forward which has largely tamed the tip-stall. The model is designed as an FPV platform so no doubt Captain Slow will be fitting his gear into it very soon.

Gentleman Jim has bought a Parkzone Wildcat. Yes I know he’s already got a Parkzone Wildcat but now he has a new one. Jim bought the first one at one of the Blackbushe model shows a few years ago for a much reduced price.If I remember correctly it was just the foam parts, no motor, esc, or servos were with it so he sourced those himself. It flew very well right from the start and has served him well despite having a few minor hiccups along the way. When Jim asked me to launch it in July I thought he’d done some general tidying up and repainted it but apparently not, he’d seen that Sussex Model Centre had some new ones so he splashed the cash and treated himself.I believe this one was Plug and Play, so it came complete with everything except the receiver and battery. The motor is described as a 480 size brushless outrunner of 960kV and it has plenty of power for the 975mm span model. So how does it fly? Er…just the same as Jim’s first one really, very nicely indeed. See it in action in this month’s video.

Dougal Entendre has put together another model to further his FPV flying experience, a Skyartec Skyfun. It’s Dougal’s second Skyfun and the cockpit is from his original one which has been kicking around in his loft for a few years. You can tell it’s old, that yellow tinted canopy isn’t tinted, it’s just old! Following the cutting of Captain Slow’s hand Dougal was concerned about launching the pusher motored Skyfun safely so he decided to make a take-off dolly. He spotted a child’s toy trolley at the local tip, dug deep, and parted with a whole £1 to secure it.After many long hours of engineering design he finished up with this, the All-Terrain Tranny Agate Trolley Dolly: Does it work? No! You can see the attempts in the video, so far none have been successful but it’s provided loads of fun for us. However, the Skyfun hand launches perfectly well and nobody has caught the propeller although Captain Slow hasn’t launched it yet… One of the trolley dolly attempts knocked the FPV camera off it’s mounting so Dougal taped it out of harm’s way inside the discoloured canopy but found the view wasn’t quite clear enough to fly FPV!The Skyfun flies well, it’s fast, agile, and much nicer for FPV than the Tomahawk. But Dougal has to be careful when chasing other models, the speed difference can be great as he found when he almost bashed Basher Bob’s Calmato.Don’t worry Dougal, for a small fee Patch News will blame Basher Bob (or anyone else you’d like) every time.

Chuck Berry has built a Sukhoi SU-27 and joined the foamboard jet jockeys. Well almost, he had a problem with the linkages prior to flight so it hasn’t actually flown yet but Chuck has since sorted the problem so it will fly very soon. The mid-motored jets have highlighted the fact that many people are unsure which way round the prop should be mounted. The golden rule is that the lettering on the always faces the nose of the plane. It doesn’t matter if the prop is a tractor or pusher, or if the motor is at the front, middle, or back of the model, the lettering ALWAYS faces the nose. The direction of rotation obviously depends on the type of prop but the golden rule never changes.

Chuck has busily accumulating a set of FPV gear and has bought one of these, a ZOHD Dart from Banggood.It looks like it could be a bit of a handful to me but it gets good reviews so I hope I’m wrong.

I’ve also been flying a new model in July, a Volantex Ranger 1600 that came from HobbyKing. I bought one for the big raffle a few months ago and was impressed by what I saw in the box. It has a plastic fuselage and foam wings and tail, reinforced with carbon spars. The 1600mm wings simply clip in place and are easy to remove for transport. The model comes ready fitted with a 2212 1400kV motor, a 30A esc and four 9g servos so all you need is a receiver and battery. The suggested lipo is a 3 cell 2200mAh but I’m using some old 3 cell 4000mAh packs and, reading the reviews, some people are using even bigger packs. It’s designed to take FPV gear but is an excellent flier anyway if you don’t want to fly FPV and will do all the usual aerobatics. I fitted mine with an undercarriage as I want to try some FPV landings with wheels (I’ve only belly landed FPV up to now). Adding the UC was an easy mod, I simply cut a hole in the underside, fitted a ply plate with hot melt glue, and screwed a wire undercarriage to the plate. It works well and the Ranger is good for touch and go’s as well as loops, rolls, inverted flight and so on as you can see in the video. I haven’t had a chance to fit the FPV gear yet but will get it done in the next few days.The Ranger is available in various sizes, HK only list the 1600 and 2000 versions but Banggood also have them with 1200, 1380, and 1980 wingspans, and those the last three come fitted with undercarriages included.

Woody got bored with his old Wot Trainer trainer when he damaged it a while ago and passed it over to Captain Slow who has now repaired it and re-motored it with an AXI 2820/10 that he’s has since about 2003.The model needs some nose weight so Captain Slow uses two 4 cell 2200mAh packs in parallel giving a capacity of 4400mAh. With an 11×7 propeller the motor pulls 40A and produces 620W. The Wot Trainer has a 1660mm span and a 270mm chord so there’s plenty of wing area to carry it’s 3kg weight and it will cruise around at half throttle.

Dougal snapped this photo of 1066 at a flying session that I missed. Later I asked 1066 what had happened and he said the battery suddenly died when he was prop-hanging at very low level. Well he would say that wouldn’t he!

I don’t have much in the way of flying shots this month but here’s an FPV one from Dougal which he describes as a close encounter of the inverted kind, one from Captain Slow of Dougal’s new Edge, and finally a Paritech Viper that has absolutely nothing to do with the club but I found it on another website and I simply love it!

Video time now and this month it includes contributions by Dougal Entendre, Captain Slow, and 1066. Please watch it full screen, it so much better with small models flying around:If the video won’t play please click HERE

When I returned from holiday, my suitcase didn’t arrive in the baggage area so I went to the lost luggage office.
I explained to the woman there that my case hadn’t turned up on the carousel. She smiled sweetly and told me not to worry because they were trained professionals and that I was in good hands. 

“Now,” she asked, “has your plane arrived yet?”

Colin Cowplain

Well June has come and gone but if anyone was expecting summer they probably missed it. We did have some hot days at the end of the month but it was always quite windy. Not really what we would hope for in ‘flaming June’, maybe July will be better. The bullocks returned halfway through the month but they hardly ever bothered us.They have learnt not to touch the fence and if we put one round the pits area they avoid that even though most of the time it’s not actually turned on. Captain Slow’s favourite (number 73 that featured in the caption comp) has become even more friendly and actually wanders over to see him and be stroked now. Two words John: Beef burger. The patch is in great condition and has been mown regularly by the FARTS. Dougal Entendre seems to be taking things a little too seriously and was genuinely seen trimming around the box with a pair of scissors!

I’ll start the June report with an incident that actually happened on 31^st May. This photo shows rather unusual damage to Dougal’s FPV Tomahawk flying wing. Note the chewed up aileron and fin and lack of propeller.Dougal had been following John Warren’s Sunday Flyer, a nice steady biplane that’s easy to follow but it’s fairly slow and Dougal inadvertently overtook it. The trouble with FPV is that once you overtake something you have no idea where it is, you can only see forwards, so when he throttled back to allow the Sunday Flyer to get in front again he didn’t realise he was in effect reversing into it! The impact did nothing to John’s model but its propeller inflicted the damage you can see on the Tomahawk. The FPV video captured the action and this photo taken from the video shows the moment the prop came off! I’ve rotated the photo 180 degrees, the model was actually inverted. The Tomahawk spun in to the deck, fortunately without further damage, but John’s Sunday Flyer carried serenely on as if nothing had happened. You can see it all happening in this month’s video.

Staying with FPV for a while Captain Slow re-positioned the FPV gear in his TwinStar after the initial couple of flights in May to make it a more user friendly layout, it was all a bit fiddly to access before but it’s much better now. The TwinStar has had dozens of non-FPV flights with no problems and seemed an obvious choice for a first FPV plane. The model is unusual in that it has old fashioned brushed motors rather than the now normal brushless outrunners.  That means it also has to have speed controllers suitable for brushed motors, again rather old fashioned items. When Captain Slow started flying it with FPV gear he suddenly found he was losing control and it seemed likely that it was just him not being used to flying with goggles although he thought something was wrong.Having come down near Harper’s Oak on one flight, fortunately with no damage, he asked me to take it up. All was ok at first but when I got a bit more adventurous I suddenly lost control. I throttled back and regained control but when I opened the throttle again I lost control again and the TwinStar crashed. It was damaged but repairable but we couldn’t work out what was wrong until Captain Slow did some tests at home and discovered that the BEC in the speed controller could only handle about 1A so as soon as more load was put on the servos the radio shutdown until the load was reduced. It’s odd that the problem had never showed up before fitting the FPV gear, we can only think that the extra load plus probably more use of the servos and higher throttle settings for FPV tipped the balance. Pre-FPV Captain Slow only ever really stooged around very gently, as is his wont, so presumably he never hit the limit of the BEC. Anyway he’s now putting together another model, a Sonic Modell Mini Skyhunter which is designed for FPV.This was how it was coming along mid-June, should be ready sometime in July…2025.

Iven has been splashing out lately…quite literally, he’s bought himself an Ares Gamma along with a set of matching floats and also a set of floats for his E-Flite Apprentice. Iven keeps a boat on the Thames that he visits most weekends during the summer and he thought floats would be an ideal way of flying while he’s there. Bearing in mind that he’s only just learnt to fly and passed his ‘A’ cert the floats have so far proved a step too far for his abilities but he’s getting there. In the meantime he’s been flying ashore, alongside the Thames, mostly successfully. He’s found that the Gamma is really only suitable for light winds and it becomes difficult to control in much of a breeze.He’s also bought a couple of the tiny E-Flite AS3X (3 axis stabilisation) models, the latest one being a UMX Timber.It’s 700mm wingspan, has the usual 4 channel control plus flaps yet only weighs 121g (4.3oz). It has a ‘brick’ style 6 channel rx/gyro/esc/2 servos in the fuselage, lightweight aileron servos, and a centrally mounted flap servo. The radio and 3000kv motor are powered by a 2 cell 280 mAh lipo battery which also powers the LED NAV lights, landing lights, wing-tip strobes and beacons so it should be ok for night flying. This tiny model has the lot!It also has optional plug-in leading edge slats just in case the flaps don’t slow it down enough for you.

Of course landing in a tree isn’t something that only happens to beginners…is it Dougal?!Dougal’s incident happened one very showery Sunday morning when some of us dashed from the barn during a brief dry spell and flew just east of the patch. I’d just pointed out to the others that we had positioned ourselves directly downwind of a tree when Dougal did his signature low inverted pass straight into the tree! Once we’d all stopped laughing 1066 went into tree climbing mode and managed to safely retrieve the undamaged Sticky. We’ve had Harper’s Oak for many years, now it seems we also have Dougal’s Deciduous!

I was away for a few days in early June but Captain Slow took some photos and video of some new models brought along by Newbie Nick and Matt Takhar. They both have Precision Aerobatics Addictions and when I asked Nick about them he said his is the larger Addition X finished in green covering and Matt has a little pink one! The Addiction X is 1270mm span and is powered by Thrust 40 motor connected to a 45A esc and a 3 cell 2200mAh lipo. Matt’s little pink one is 1000mm span and uses a Thrust 20 motor, a 30A esc and a 3 cell 2200mAh lipo. Looking at Captain Slow’s video they both performed very well, I’ve included some snippets in this month’s video.

Matt’s other new model is an Extreme Flight Laser EXP V2. It’s 60” span and according to the website it weighs around 5.5 – 6.0lbs. Matt hasn’t sent me any details yet but I know he’s swanned off to New York for a few days muttering some pathetic excuse about work so I suppose he can be forgiven. The stock set-up uses a Torque 4016/500 MKII Outrunner, Airboss 80 esc, a Xoar 16 x 7 prop, and a 6S 3300- 4000mAh lipo. I forward to seeing  the new models myself and will hopefully get some more info and video soon.

Captain Slow had an exciting moment while flying his Extreme one morning, there was a sudden bang and the motor ripped out! He managed to land without further damage and retrieved all the parts that came off.The model comes with the motor pre-installed, clamped in place between two pieces of foam but Captain Slow found a distinct lack of glue around the area, a problem that he has now rectified with copious amounts of sticky stuff!

Norwegian Nick can always be relied on to build interesting models and his latest is an English Electric Lightning. This is what Nick says about it: I had some scraps of Depron left over from earlier projects so I looked through some old Q&EF mags and found this Lightning and thought I would have a go as you do. It’s built from a free plan in the July 2009 mag designed by James Rutter. It’s a profile twin edf Lightning with a wingspan 16in, length 25in and weighs 8 1/2 oz. The two fans are GWS 40mm run by a pair of Feigao motors. The escs are 10amp run off a single 850mAh 3s lipo.
After having an intermittent power problem I found that the cable to one of the speed controllers was hanging by a thread. Repaired now and works fine. Also I have swapped everything over so the battery is on the right hand side which I hope will stop the left turn on launch. As Nick mentions there was a dodgy esc connection and when hand launched the model went to the left and plonked down in the grass. Not sure how much of it was caused by the connection and how much was due to most of the weight being on the left hand side of the fuselage. The connection problem prevented a second try that day but I’m sure it will be fine next time out, should look great in the air.

The foamboard fun continues and both Woody and Bob the Builder have put together new Sukhoi SU-27’s. We’ve been enjoying lots of close formation flying with up to four in the air at once and of course the inevitable touches sometimes occur. I’ve also managed to land mine on top of Captain Slow’s a couple of times!But the foamboard is remarkably strong and with the mid-mounted motors the props rarely hit anything so virtually no damage is done. Although Captain Slow did manage to make a few cuts in my Sukhoi the other day…the swine!

Early in June decided I needed an FPV model that was a bit more taxing to fly than my Sukhoi. The Sukhoi was a great choice for learning to fly FPV but I wanted something that was a bit faster and not quite so easy to handle and land. Looking around my vastly overcrowded model room I spotted my Delta, built from Correx several years ago as one of the annual club builds. It was always a good flier and quite fast but equally, being a delta, lands reasonably slowly. As it was built from around £2.50’s worth of Correx and has had hundreds of flights it’s also regarded as disposable, perfect for FPV in fact. So I swapped the FPV gear into it, the main difficulty being that having the motor at the front meant I had to fit the camera out on the wing to avoid looking through the propeller. That hasn’t proved to be a problem and I quite like being able to see the prop spinning (or not) through the goggles. Ever since Dougal and I started flying FPV we have been hoping for a day with low cloud to explore but it hasn’t happened…until one morning late in June. The Delta climbs rapidly and the cloud was low so I quickly reached it and found it to be quite dense, I could skirt along the underside but felt the model would disappear if I entered it properly. Spotter Captain Slow said he could still see the model easily enough so there weren’t any concerns. I did the same on the second flight with no problems but it was really the wrong sort of cloud, a bit like driving in fog.By the time of the third flight the cloud had lifted and there were areas of blue sky so I didn’t think I’d be able to reach the clouds but a couple of minutes into the flight I decided to give it a go. I soon reached some gloriously fluffing bits of cloud and was able to fly above some small patches and see blue sky above me and bits of the ground below me, great stuff. I got tempted by a lovely looking cloud formation a little further on and headed for it. Captain Slow was dripping on about me being a long way off but what the heck, I could see perfectly!A few seconds later he said he’d lost sight of me so I throttled back and came down out of the cloud. I still had a perfect view on the goggles but there was one tiny problem, I hadn’t got a clue where I was! I circled aimlessly, looking for something I recognised, aware that the timer was now telling me I had two minutes of battery left. I spotted some unrecognisable buildings and knew they weren’t anywhere near where I should be so I headed away from them. Now Captain Slow was telling me to climb in the hope that he might be able to see me but to add to my problems I could see the motor was stopping now and again, presumably the radio going into failsafe. The picture on the goggles was still good but I was getting yellow and red signal indicators instead of green so I knew I was at the limit of the FPV range. When I saw two red indicators I turned to try to get a better signal while desperately searching for a landmark. I tried to take notice of what I could see, the rounded end of a valley, a couple of circles in cut crop, a telegraph pole, a field boundary, and suddenly nothing! The inevitable happened, I saw the motor stop and the goggles lost signal as the plane was very low and heading steeply towards the deck. It’s all in the video…There were only three of us flying that morning, me, Captain Slow, and Geoff Berry. After a quick recap of where the model was last seen we headed up to the masts where the gliders fly, it seemed the most likely area to search. We spread out in different directions, I was looking for the landmarks I’d seen from the air and headed off north along the South Downs Way. Things started to get familiar, there was the rounded end of a valley, cut crop, a line of telegraph poles, a field boundary…and an undamaged Delta sat of top of the crop, phew!Looking at Google Maps later it shows the model land 1.16km from the patch, nothing wrong with the range then.The map is looking due north, the masts are over towards the right. Lesson learnt, listen to the spotter and don’t get carried away by a perfect picture on the goggles. Captain Slow says I should be renamed Colin CloudPlane.

Photo and video contributions this month come from Captain Slow, Dougal Entendre,  Gentleman Jim, and Gorgeous Gary. As well as models flying this month I’ve included some photos from the D-Day 75 Anniversary:

Video time now, please watch it full screen, it so much better with small models flying around:

If the video won’t play for you please click HERE
 

Terrified passenger to stewardess “How often do planes crash?”
Stewardess “Just the once!”

Colin Cowplain