Patch News History

The November weather was pretty much as we would expect with quite a few wet and windy days interspersed with some reasonable flying days. Lots of us managed to fly several times during the month, mostly the ‘midweekers’ of course who were able to pick the best of the weather. The patch is in excellent condition and has now all but stopped growing so the Farts didn’t need to mow much at all this month. When we arrived at the field on the last Sunday in November we were surprised to find very murky conditions. We quickly tracked down the cause of the problem…But he’s been forgiven as Captain Slow has kept up his much appreciated fortnightly battery charging and swapping service, something that has renewed importance as the herd of ‘new’ bullocks arrived towards the end of the month.They’ve already been testing the fence but will hopefully soon learn that it’s best to ignore it. I wonder what number bullock Captain Slow will befriend this time, perhaps we should start a book…the winner gets a joint of beef!

There weren’t too many new models flown in November but there was quite a lot of action to report on anyway. The first new model I’ll show you is an indoor one designed and built by Dwayne Pipe. I though Dwayne Pipes were only found outside…? I spotted it at the Havant indoor flying session that’s run by Waltham Chase Aero Modellers.Dwayne has scaled down the foamboard Sukhoi SU-27 that so many of us are flying at the patch. It has a wingspan of just 15” (380mm) and is made from 2mm thick Depron. The speed controller and Spektrum compatible receiver are combined in a one piece unit that came from Banggood and Dwayne is using a pair of 2g HobbyKing servos to control the elevons. At the moment the motor is an 8.5mm diameter inrunner drone motor that swings a 6” prop.Unfortunately, as you will see in this month’s video, it’s rather underpowered at the moment and can’t manage much more than a circuit before the motor overheats and the plane lands. To overcome this Dwayne is planning to fit a Microaces motor that is designed for aircraft rather than drones which should fit the bill nicely. The Sukhoi is remarkably stable and flies very slowly so with more power it should be a great indoor flier, well done Dwayne.

Chas Butler is also putting together an indoor model, a Clik R2 SuperLITE that’s constructed from EPP and carbon fibre. It has a wingspan of 840mm (33”) and an AUW of 130g. The motor is a 1620kv unit that swings a 9×2.5 carbon fibre prop and is fed by a 10A speed controller. It has one 6g servo and two 4.5g servos, presumably the 6g one drives both ailerons and the 4.5g ones are for rudder and elevator. The battery is a tiny 2 cell 280mAh lipo.Chas says he hasn’t decided what receiver to use yet but has found this one which seems a likely candidate.It weighs just 2.4g and for comparison the 20p piece weighs 5g! This is how a completed Clik R2 SuperLITE looks.

The month saw some ‘interesting’ FPV moments. The first one was when I was flying my Ranger 1600 FPV one day and spotter Captain Slow suggested I flew further to the south west than previously. But as I got to a reasonable distance (but well within spotter sight) I suddenly lost the radio link although the FPV was working perfectly. The model came down, fortunately with minimal damage, and everything seemed to be working correctly. But back at the patch the radio was dead and I found that the lead from the esc had become unplugged from the receiver. I knew it wasn’t a result of the crash as it has been working before and I couldn’t see why it would have come out on the walk back so I decided it must have been loose while I was flying and was making/losing connection causing the crash. I put it all back together and found nothing else wrong. Next time out I did a careful low power range check and got almost double the stated range with no problems. So I flew it again and all seemed fine for two flights. But on the third flight I flew back to the area where I’d lost control and it promptly happened again! The model came down relatively unscathed within a few yards of the previous crash and again everything was working perfectly, and all the connections were still sound. It seemed likely that the radio was short on range and the crashes were in the same location because that was the furthest I’d gone each time. I checked the location on Google Maps and found the distance was only about 400 metres so it should have easily have been within range.The next morning I rang Mike Ridley, the Multiplex service agent. Mike lives in Sholing so is very handy for PAM members and he’ll service virtually all RC gear except Spektrum. Don’t blame me, I’m just repeating what he said! Within minutes of arriving Mike had found the problem. A while ago I had found a split in the receiver aerial insulation where it exits the case and I’d covered it a piece of heat-shrink tubing. But Mike found that the coax shielding underneath the insulation was also damaged. It’s only the bare 30mm or so of wire at the end of the aerial that does anything, the rest of the aerial is shielded and if the shielding gets damaged it affects the range. I told Mike I’d done a low power range check and he explained that it doesn’t necessarily show up a problem. He fitted a new aerial and did some tests to ensure the receiver was back to normal. He also checked that the transmitter power output was correct. I’ve since flown the Ranger several times to extreme range and had no problems at all so I’m happy again. While I was with Mike I bought a new transmitter aerial for Woody as he’d broken the hinge pin on his. Oh, and the cost?  The grand total of £15. Mike also gave me a 2.4GHz Radio Use & Installation Help Sheet that I’ve added to the News section of the website. I thoroughly recommend Mike Ridley, Model Radio Workshop. 

The other FPV incident happened to Dougal Entendre. Last month I reported that his Skyfun propeller had thrown a blade and the vibration tore the motor out, breaking the motor mount and taking the top off one of the fins as it went. This month the Skyfun returned with a new motor mount and repaired fin and was soon flying as well as ever. But not for long. If you were at the club meeting on 28th November you’ll have heard the tale, seen the video, got the T-shirt etc. so I won’t go into detail here, suffice to say Dougal inadvertently flew into some thick cloud and, lacking X-ray vision, the spotter (me) couldn’t see the model. Dougal throttled back but I didn’t see it emerge from the cloud and although Dougal had a nice clear picture of the ground on his goggles he didn’t know where he was. Several of us scanned the sky for the model but we couldn’t spot it. Eventually the Skyfun ran out of battery and came down. By comparing Google Maps with the video of the flight that was recorded in his goggles Dougal figured out the location and retrieved the model. All the electronics seem to have survived but sadly the airframe didn’t. In this month’s video you will see some of the cloud Dougal found but also some nice fluffy bits that I played with.

Meanwhile Captain Slow has been flying his FPV Skyhunter and getting used to flying with goggles. He prefers to remain seated while flying as he’s less likely to lose his balance. It is fairly easy to lose balance while flying although I’ve found you gradually get used to it and I rarely have a problem now. Landing can be a bit tricky to get right with FPV as judging the height isn’t easy but on one of his flights Captain Slow managed to land right on the spot.Obviously more luck than judgement but I suppose I must give him credit where it’s due. At least he didn’t run off the patch into a hole as Dougal did when I let him have a go at landing my Ranger while he was flying it FPV! You can just about see the slightly crumpled nose that was the result of my earlier receiver problem, not Dougal.Dougal and I had swapped goggles to compare my cheap Quanum box goggles with his expensive Aomways. Dougal was happy with the quality of mine but found then big and cumbersome. Can’t say I’m surprised, he shouldn’t have tied a windsock to the front of them, it’s not as if he could even see it while he was wearing the goggles!On the plus side at least he couldn’t see Captain Slow camping it up in the background either!

Woody has built himself another foamboard Mig-29. This one came in a different colour scheme to all the others and I must say I think it looks rather nice. As is usual for Woody he’s got lights all over it, not sure how many but it’s a lot, about eleven I think. They are very bright and show up quite well especially on gloomy November days.Woody fitted it with a 7” prop rather than the normally used 6” in the hope of keeping the noise down but it doesn’t seem to have worked. He’s opened up the prop slot since I took this photo and that has reduced the noise a lot.It flies much like all the others and certainly has plenty of thrust. You can see it in action in this month’s video. Want one? The version with the new colour scheme is currently in stock in the HobbyKing UK warehouse for around £17.

Chas has had a bit of a clear out and on 17th November he took a car load of stuff to the Southern Counties Autumn Swapmeet at Mountbatten School Romsey. Wow, he’s certainly packed a lot of stuff in there!Chas reports that he couldn’t get the stuff out of the car quick enough for the buyers and the prices were very good. A seller’s table cost £9 for the morning including admission and admission for buyers was £4. That’s definitely a swap meet to bear in mind for anyone who has some modelling stuff to move on. They also held one in March this year so presumably there will be another in March 2020.

John Warren has joined the foamboard fun with a Sukhoi SU-27. I’m afraid I don’t have any photos to show you, I’m sure I took some of John with his Sukhoi but I can’t find them now, I must have inadvertently deleted them. Not to worry, you can see in this month’s video that the test flight went well. But I do have a photo of his Jocasta. John has now added his ‘corporate colours’ of white trim to the previously all red model and very smart it looks too.He had a bit of a moment with the Jocasta this month, while he was flying he had to call for help when it started to fly erratically. Dougal took over and at first all seemed well but then suddenly the Jocasta did its own thing again. He managed to regain control and land safely back on the patch where the cause was investigated.I’ve seen unpinned hinges that have come out but John had pinned this one only to have it break on the hinge line.

The winter building season is upon us and although there was a lack of new models at the patch this month there are plenty of models being built. All the ones I’ve seen so far have been ‘proper’ built-up wood models. The members of the PAM WhatsApp group will have already seen some of them, please send any photos for publication to me personally rather than the whole group. First up is Page Boy’s 1370mm (54”) wingspan Slec Funfly.Slec produce the laser cut kit in two versions, I/C and electric and Page Boy’s is the electric one of course. It should end up weighing just under 4lbs when fitted with a 650kv motor swinging a 12×6 prop, a 60A esc and a 4 cell lipo.Page Boy reports that the laser cut kit is of very good quality. The original glow version was first produced by Precedent and their FunFly won several events including the Nationals Fun Fly Class 2 back in the 80’s.

Chas is building a Tony Nijhuis designed Westland Lysander that’s 1/9th scale giving it a wingspan of 1676mm (66”).The final weight should be around 6lbs and Chas will be powering it with a 595kv 4-Max motor with a 14×7 prop, a 70A esc and a 4 cell 4500mAh lipo. He hasn’t made a decision on the colour scheme yet but this one is a contender.

Bob the Builder is building a Ghost Rider 50, he likes the way Dougal’s flies so much he’s decided to make his own.Actually he says it’s ‘based on a Ghost Rider 50′ so presumably he’s made a few changes. It’s 1300mm span (51”) and is fitted with a PropDrive 1100kv motor that should produce around 800W on a 4 cell lipo. That ought to be plenty as Bob thinks the model will weigh 4lbs. Wonder if it’ll make him fly like Dougal? Answers on a postcard to: Bob the Builder, Not Even Close, Never-In-a-Million-Years…

I have details of several other models that are under construction plus a few other interesting snippets and photos but I’ll save those for the December edition of Patch News when I’m likely to be rather short of material.

I haven’t had any of Kryten’s superb photos this month so you’ll have to put up with a few that I snapped with my mobile. These were while we were flying inside the live fence to avoid the bullocks and nobody hit it:

Video time now and this one includes footage from Captain Slow and Dougal. 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

And finally, a festive joke to warm the mince pies of your hearts:

A plumber, a prison warder, and an airline pilot all died on Christmas Eve and rose to heaven.

St. Peter met them at the pearly gates saying “Since you died on Christmas Eve before I can let you in you’ve all got to show me something that represents Christmas.”

The plumber put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a lighter. He then lit it, and said “It’s a Christmas candle” St. Peter said “Yes, there are candles for Christmas, go on in.”

The prison warder produced a set of keys and shook them saying “These are Jingle bells.” St. Peter said “Well there are bells at Christmas so you can go in.”

But when the pilot rummaged in his pockets all he could find was a pair of stewardess’s panties. St. Peter demanded “And just what do those have to do with Christmas? “

“These? Oh these are Carols…”

Merry Christmas everybody Colin Cowplain

I said in the last Patch News that September had started with great weather but finished with strong winds and rain. Well the awful weather continued into October and although we did have a few good days much of the month was pretty lousy. Undeterred by the rain some of the keener (or should that be more stupid) members still managed to mow the patch a few times and hopefully it won’t need to be cut again for a while as it’s now turning colder.One particularly horrible very wet and windy Friday afternoon only three of us were able to make it for mowing, but at least we were cheered up by Woody supplying cakes as it was his birthday. Thanks Woody.

Following the departure of the late lamented 473 and all of his mates the field stayed bullock free for the whole of the month. The young replacements have now moved into the lower field but they’ll probably go inside for the winter before coming to our field. That’s what we’re hoping but we’re keeping the fence in place just in case.

Probably as a result of the poor weather not many new models were flown in October but the regular pilots flew whenever possible and there were a few other things that kept us entertained anyway. One midweek day early in the month we were pleased to see a Gypsy Moth exploring the area. It didn’t seem to be aware of us at all but it flew several fairly low and close passes and stayed in the general area for a few minutes. Luckily Kryten was on hand with his decent camera and he managed to snap this photo despite the rather murky weather conditions.I took some rather poor quality video with my mobile which you can see in this month’s video. Later in the month, on one of the few midweek days of perfect weather, we were treated to a very low fly-by by what I think was one of the Solent Flight Ikarus C42’s from Lower Upham Airfield. They are often in the area when we are flying but rarely come very low or very close to us. On this occasion the pilot seemed to be practising engine out procedures as several times the plane came down very low with the engine idling before open the throttle and climbing away. Mostly it wasn’t close to us but on one occasion it came almost overhead and I managed to take some video.This photo is a screenshot from the video which you can see in this month’s video. Needless to say we quickly landed all models on both these occasions and didn’t fly again until we were sure they’d left the area.

We are continuing with the foamboard fun and I’ve lost count of how many there are now in the club, must be about twenty I think. Captain Slow and I seem to have got into the habit of flying in close formation and sometimes the inevitable collisions occur. These are always Captain Slow’s fault of course, I always do my best to avoid contact despite what he says! There is very rarely any damage from these collisions, sometimes a nick from the prop but almost never anything more. On the day of the Gypsy Moth visit we were practising our formation flying when Captain Slow managed to carelessly hook his Mig-29 tailplane into the dangling battery lead on my Sukhoi, very poor piloting by him I thought. Kryten snapped a couple of great photos, the first when we were in close formation shows the battery lead dangling underneath my Sukhoi, and the second when we were actually locked together.Of course we both immediately shut our throttles but then found there was a distinct lack of directional control which meant Kryten had to take rather sharpish avoiding action but all was well. This is how they ‘landed’.There was no damage at all to either model so once we’d managed to disentangle the planes we carried on flying. The things we do just to help Kryten get some decent pictures…

Dougal Entendre has put together another 3D model, an MX2 3D EPP from Hobbyking, exactly the same as Chuck Berry’s that I featured a couple of months back. It comes as airframe only so no motor, esc, or servos are included but most of us already have suitable electronics to hand anyway. It’s currently showing as around £45 on the HobbyKing website but I think Dougal said he only paid £35, a real bargain. This is what Hobbyking say about it: Its fuselage is torsionally very stiff yet light with loads of space beneath the long top hatch for your radio and power system. The wing is a one piece affair featuring EPP construction, a very accurate symmetrical aerofoil with 2 additional spars to minimise flex and twist. The control surfaces are something else – the elevator, rudder and ailerons feature a 3 layer construction (EPP-Depron-EPP) making for stiff surfaces and NO flex at extreme throws! Snap rolls ‘Snap’ and control response is instantaneous. The light – yet rigid – airframe adds up to one great flying 3D ‘foamy’. Waterfalls, harriers, flat spins, rolling circles this model has the precision to perform these and any other moves you can think of! Assembly of the airframe in a quick 10-15 minute process with the help of a little medium CA. The radio and power system layouts are very straightforward, the long top hatch making for easy access. This is a great model for general park flying and hard core 3D. You will be hard pressed to break this model, it will take hard knocks and just keep bouncing back every time! Dougal has fitted his MX2 out with the Propdrive 2830 1100kv motor that was previously in his now defunct Laius, a 40A ESC and a three cell 1500mAh lipo. At the moment the prop is an APC-style 10×5, but he wants to go up to at least a 10×6 or 11×5 as it could do with a bit more power and there was still 45% battery capacity left after a 5 minute flight. Dougal tells me that he stripped the plastic gears on the 9g elevator servo just with the aerodynamic loads, so he needs to replace that one with something beefier, and probably the rudder servo as well.1066 has (had?) a Hobbyking Sbach 3D EPP which is a variation of the same base model but according to 1066 the engine mount/front bulkhead (a weak point of the Sbach) is stronger on the MX2.  Dougal’s first flight with the MX2 looked very promising, I think it will be as good as 1066’s Sbach, judge for yourselves in this month’s video.

Captain Slow has now fitted some FPV gear to the Mini Skyhunter that he first flew back in July. That first flight was ‘interesting’ because the model had a drastic tip stall so Captain Slow has taken steps to eliminate it. He has moved the centre of gravity forward by fitting two 3 cell lipos instead of one and that seems to have solved the problem.The FPV gear consists of a Foxeer Predator Mini camera, an Eachine TD600 video transmitter, and Quanum Cyclops goggles. Captain Slow is slowly getting round to slotting in an SD card to record video of his flights but refuses to rush! He had several FPV flights in October and all went well, no problems with either the equipment or him flying it. He finds it better to sit down when wearing the goggles and he has a tendency to lose his balance. That’s understandable, both Dougal and I occasionally find ourselves a bit off balance at certain times although it happens less and less as we get more experienced. We only ever fly one FPV plane at a time which means there is often a spare set of goggles doing nothing so sometimes another club member will watch a flight to get the feel for FPV.In this photo Gentleman Jim was keeping an eye on Captain Slow while he explored the area with the Skyhunter.

1066 has been searching for a hotliner (fast aerobatic powered glider) for a some time now but he hasn’t been able to find anything he really likes, at least not at a price that he really likes. Eventually he bought a rather battered second-hand Multiplex Gilb on eBay and has spent some time tarting it up. I’ve not heard of the Gilb so I’ve done a bit of searching on the internet and discovered that Multiplex introduced the model way back in 1995. The wingspan is 2150mm, length 1070mm and all up weight is in the 2500-3200g range. It was reviewed in QFI (Quiet Flight International) in July 1995 but as I don’t have the magazine I can’t tell you what it says. On one of the forums someone was talking about various brushed motors and using 10-14 cells, ah yes, the old pre-brushless motor days with nicad/nimh batteries! 1066’s model came ready fitted with a Tornado Thumper 3536-06 1270kv outrunner motor and a 70A speed controller. 1066 is using various four cell lipos, mostly in the 3000-3300mAh range and the power is reasonable although he’d like a bit more. I’m not sure what prop size he’s using but he said he’d tested one with 2” more pitch and the current went up to 90A so he can’t fly with that one!He had to do quite a lot of work to the model to get it ready for flight and quickly discovered that more work was needed, it was well out of trim. I wasn’t present for the first flight but apparently the model was a real handful. After some more work it’s now flying pretty well although there’s still a bit to do to get it flying as 1066 would like. It’s pretty quick so not easy to video but I managed to get some footage which is in the video.

Captain Slow has also bought himself a second-hand Multiplex model, this one’s a Pilatus PC-6 Turbo Porter that he found on the BMFA Classifieds webpage. The following photos are all taken from the advert. The Turbo Porter is a moulded foam model that has the usual controls plus flaps and a scale sprung undercarriage with large wheels. It can be converted for operation from water with the addition of a float kit. The 1250mm span model comes fitted with a Permax 3530 1100kv motor with an 11×5.5 prop, a 40A esc, and 6 metal geared digital servos. The suggested lipo is a 3 cell 2100-2700mAh, a pretty standard size that we all have. The cheapest I can find it new online is £170 and some retailers list it at over £200 so I reckon Captain Slow got a bargain at just £75.I haven’t yet seen the plane for myself but Captain Slow says it’s in good condition and he just needs to change the esc connector and fit a receiver and battery. We should get to see it sometime towards the end of next year then.

I always feel poor old Kryten gets a bit of a rough deal in Patch News, he provides us all with some superb flying shots of our models but never gets any photos of his own models in action. My mobile takes excellent photos of stationary models and pilots, and it’s pretty good for video as well, but it’s just not up to the job when it comes to capturing flying shots. This was the best I could get of Kryten’s E-flite Apprentice:But I did manage to capture Captain Slow measuring Kryten’s spot landing attempt one day. It was an excellent spot landing but as an aside, why on earth has Captain Slow got ER embroidered on his socks?Is he still wearing socks he purloined when he was merely Acting Lance Corporal Slow all those years ago?

Dougal had an interesting incident while flying his Skyfun using FPV one day. On the second flight of the day I was Dougal’s spotter and the model seemed to be flying well but suddenly I could see something hanging underneath it.At almost the same moment Dougal said he’d lost power. He glided the Skyfun in for a deadstick landing and on the approach I realised it was the motor that was hanging down. When we reached the model we could see what had happened, the prop had thrown a blade and the ensuing vibration had snapped the metal mount. At some point the second prop blade had also broken and one of them had chopped the top off one of the fins as it flew off! The motor was left dangling by its wires and Dougal was lucky that it hadn’t pulled the plugs out from the esc wires, we would probably never have found it. I’m not sure if the motor mount is a stock item or a special Skyfun part but I expect Dougal will soon have it sorted and flying again.

It was good to see Gorgeous Gary on the last Sunday in October, he’s been absent for a while blaming holidays, work, and life in general. He brought along a couple of models, his foamboard Sukhoi SU-27 and his Ripmax Jive.Gary was slightly nervous having not flown for a while but the Sukhoi soon put a big smile on his face. The Jive was also ok although that strange dirty, noisy, smelly thing on the front seemed a bit reluctant to run at first.I was flying when Gary was trying to start it but I could hear comments of “There’s an answer to that” etc. How cruel, you’d never hear me saying things like that! It was all in good fun and the Jive was soon up and flying.

My Volantex Ranger 1600 is flying well on FPV and I made a few changes to it in October. The Ranger 1600 comes without an undercarriage although the 1200, 1400, and 2400 versions all have one. I wanted to use mine to practice FPV take-offs and landings so I fitted an undercarriage from another model. It worked well enough but the wire was too weak and bent on anything less than a perfect landing so I’ve now replaced it with one made of stiffer wire. It’s proved to be much better and has stood up to many touch & go’s and landings without bending. I have also fitted another FPV set-up whilst retaining the original one so I can choose which to use at any time. The original FPV equipment is all fitted inside the Ranger fuselage with the camera mounted in an existing hole under the nose. But the model also comes with a moulded foam insert that clips on in place of the usual canopy so I fitted the latest set of equipment to that. The second set-up consists of a Caddx Turbo Micro camera that I spotted in the Hobbyking sale for just £8.02 and a Speedy Bee VTX-DVR from Banggood for £11.92. So for just under £20 I got what has turned out to be a good quality camera and a transmitter that sends the video stream back to the goggles and also records the video onto a micro SD card, ridiculously cheap.The set-up works well and having the camera mounted higher up has proved to be much better as the original camera tends to pick up dew and grass cuttings on the lens during take-offs, not ideal. The higher mounted camera avoids all that and although it’s only around 100mm higher than the original it makes a surprising difference when taking-off, I can actually see where I’m going instead of just grass!

Time now for a few of Kryten’s excellent action photos:

Video time now and this one includes quite a bit of FPV footage from both me and Dougal. 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

A class of school children were taken on an airport tour and their last stop was in the control tower. They were given a talk by an air traffic controller who explained how everything worked and he then asked if there are any questions.
One lad says “Have you ever had a real emergency?”
“Well there was one time when we ran out of coffee…”

Colin Cowplain

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