Patch News History

We had some lovely summery weather during May, and in particular it was ideal for the first flights of this year’s club models on 6th May. The field remained bullock free for most of the month partly due to the Sustainability Centre using it as the car park for their Green Fayre on 13th May. The fence was left in place that day but switched off just in case some little darling decided to see if the warning notice was genuine. We added red/white striped tape to the top wire to make it more visible in the hope that the visitors wouldn’t drive right through it. They didn’t, and all was well when 1066 went to turn the fence back on in the evening. We are expecting the bullocks to return any day now but we’re ready for them, the fence is armed and dangerous…well switched on anyway. Woody did a ‘hands on’ test of the fence the other day (accidentally) and it certainly gave him a jolt… Oh how we laughed!In the meantime the Friday afternoon mob have been working well rolling and cutting the patch and it’s now it is in excellent condition. Barring any fence problems the patch should just get better and better through the summer.

The highlight of May had to be presenting and flying of the 2018 club models, the Mini Blitzes. The presentation was at the meeting on 3rd May when no less than 13 models were brought along. There are at least 2 others that couldn’t make the meeting so I know of 15 that have been built, a good number from a small club.Most were built more or less to the plan but there were a couple of ‘oddities’. Firstly Dwayne Pipe decided the Mini Blitz was going to be too small and too fast for him so he built a twice size version. Having flown my ‘correct’ size Mini Blitz I have to say I can see his point, mine is very fast and being so tiny it disappears all too quickly. The second model that wasn’t to plan was Bob the Builder’s Blitz Fu. In a brief moment of insanity Bob decided to mount last years’ club model, a Kung Fu, on top of his Mini Blitz. So he ended up with a twin engined (one above the other) biplane, the lower wing being a delta and the upper one a swept forward flying wing. The normal Kung Fu elevons became just ailerons, with the Mini Blitz elevons being just one elevator. What could possibly go wrong?! All the other Mini Blitzes looked to be pretty much standard although Kryten’s was made from Depron and had a Kline-Fogleman stepped wing section (more shades of the Kung Fu). Modelling Clay’s Blitz stood out for being very heavy, I think he’d made it out of modelling clay! The customary judging by all present took place and the winners were: Best Looking Model – Tony Neil and Dan Handley (Page Boy) tied for first place. Least Likely to Fly – Bob Hill (Bob the Builder). Most original design – Bob Hill.

Neither Captain Slow nor Dwayne Pipe could make the official first flight day of 6th May so they both flew theirs the day after the meeting. Dwayne’s just flew away perfectly from the launch with just minor trimming required, all rather boring really! Captain Slow’s was rather hairier and, much like most of the correct size ones, it was fairly fast and disappeared rapidly. After much protesting and shouts of ‘I hate it’ etc. from Captain Slow we let him land to have a coffee and a lie down! But later both I and 1066 flew it and found it was a nice flier with no vices. To be fair to Captain Slow, the Blitzes really do need to have very different colours or markings on the top and bottom surfaces, it’s all too easy to lose orientation with such a small model. Captain Slow’s is almost identical top and bottom and I think that’s a large part of why he hated it!

On Sunday the 6th the weather was perfect for the test flights and 10 of us turned up with our Mini Blitzes. As various ones flew we discovered that very little reflex was needed, much like the Kung Fu’s last year. Modelling Clay’s didn’t get away from the launch, I think it’s going to need a bigger motor to overcome the weight problem.Kryten’s Depron Blitz failed to get away from the launch the first time but after minor tweaking it is now flying well.All the others flew well, some are relatively slow, others, like mine, are scorchingly fast and difficult to keep up with! Orientation is a problem as they disappear so quickly. Although mine flew well I did manage to break it a week or so later but it was soon repaired and flying again. Dougal was good enough to photograph it for me…so kind…The biggest surprise was Bob the Builder’s Blitz Fu, not only did it fly but it actually flew well and was nice to fly. Sadly on a later flight, it lost the battery retaining hatch, closely followed by the battery; the result was inevitable.

This month’s video includes several snippets of the first Mini Blitz flights but they are a bit too small and fast to get much decent quality footage so it’s a bit limited. The video also includes a couple of models that first flew last month, Stanley Knife’s Excalibur and Norwegian Nick’s Sprite, but I forgot to include them in the last video. Some of the video and superb photos this month come from Captain Slow, Catapult King, Dougal Entendre, Gentleman Jim, and Kryten, many thanks chaps. I think it was Kryten who took these lovely shots while I was flying John Warren’s newly repaired (again!) Albatross. Note the trailing rigging wire and the wheel with a tyre hanging off! I always like photos of the buzzards and kites that we often seen when flying. Gentleman Jim snapped this superb one of a buzzard with amazing plumage and Kryten took the one of a kite having a close look at my Ezio glider. As well as all the Blitzes several other new models first flew in May. First up we have Page Boy with his Phoenix 1600 that was a Big Raffle prize last year. We’ve seen several Phoenix 2000s flying at the field but this is the first 1600 as far as I know. It’s basically the same model but with 400mm less wingspan and (I think) a slightly shorter fuselage. The powertrain is the same in both models so the slightly lighter 1600 version has a bit more go and is a bit more aerobatic, but presumably doesn’t glide quite so well. It’s Page Boy’s first electric glider and it will take a bit of time to figure out how to get the best from it but he seemed to enjoy the first flight and had no problems.Next we have Catapult King with his new Altagerra.  When we first saw it several of us oldies said it looked like a control-line stunter and it turns out that’s exactly what it was originally. The Altagerra was a free plan from the Outerzone website and drawn up by someone referred to as Old Pilot so Catapult sends his thanks to both of them. It is a conversion from a 1961 control line stunt plane and Catapult’s is powered by a 2200 3 cell lipo connected via a HobbyKing 40A esc to a Turnigy D2836/8-1100Kv motor fitted with a 10×6 prop. Catapult says he needs to do a power check to see if he can increase the size of the prop as it could do with a little bit more pull. That said its flight characteristics are fine and it will do a loop from level flight. All the throws are wound in quite a lot and have a large amount of expo as it was originally extremely twitchy as you can imagine being a stunt plane with a short fuselage. A quote from the designer Old Pilot: I’m converting the Altagerra, a 1961 control line stunt plane, to a 5 channel R/C electric for a contest build on RC Groups. Had to change the feathers a bit to tame Dutch roll and porpoising, along with the size and location of the ailerons for better roll response…

Wonky Wiltshire has had an EFX Racer for quite a while and flown it lots. It’s pretty quick but when Durafly announced the EFXtra Racer version he couldn’t resist. He first showed up with the new EFXtra Racer back in November last year but he decided not to maiden it in the howling gales present that day.It’s a clipped wing version of the EFX Racer that has an uprated motor and esc, better servos, and ball link connectors. There is more battery space and also more glass fibre and carbon fibre reinforcement.The website says it’s suitable for either 3 or 4 cell batteries, with just a different prop size to suit the cell count you choose. I’m not certain whether Wonky was using 3 or 4 cells but from the way it went I’m guessing 4 cells. Watch it on the video see what you think, if that’s 3 cells I don’t ever want to see it go on 4!

The next one is far from being a new model, in fact it’s pretty old, but Dougal has recently given it an update. It’s an Olympic 100” span glider and Dougal has flown it at the field occasionally over the last couple of years when he has fitted it with a pylon mounted electric motor. It worked well enough but it certainly wasn’t pretty.But in May Dougal decided to bite the bullet so he chopped off the nose and fitted a permanently mounted motor.It looks a lot neater than the pylon mounted one and the model flew well, although the climb rate is rather sedate.

Dougal also flew his large scale Spad XIII a few times during May. I’ve featured the Spad before in Patch News but it’s only had one outing previously so many of you won’t have seen it. The model is an ARTF from Maxford USA and at fifth scale the Spad is 1727mm (68”) span and weighs around 6kgs (13lbs). To power it Dougal chose a Turnigy Aerodrive SK3 – 6364-245kv brushless outrunner motor which swings an 18 x 8 propeller at about 6000rpm. He uses two 5800mAh 4 cell Zippy Compact lipos in series (8 cells) linked to a Robotbirds Pro-80 amp Brushless ESC V4 Opto HV speed controller. He’s fitted a separate high voltage BEC to ensure the radio gets the voltage it requires.There is loads of power available and the lipos still had around 50% capacity remaining after each 7 minute flight so there’s plenty of reserve. Dougal says it’s lovely to fly around and he’s now progressed to doing gentle aerobatics with it, but the landings are taking a little longer to master. A big heavy biplane with inter-plane struts and rigging wires has a lot of drag so it needs to be flown all the way down with some power applied which makes it difficult to touch down on our small patch. But Dougal is getting there, each landing is better than the last and, as you can see on this month’s video, he’s pretty much cracked it now. Assembling a large model at the field is a bit of pain, and then it has to be carried along with all the usual equipment as well as a ‘back up’ model. This is Dougal’s solution:

The video also features another previously featured large model, Norwegian Nick’s gorgeous Citabria Pro that he built from a Balsa USA kit. The model is 2032mm spam (80”), is covered in Solartex and is fitted with Hitec servos. The all up weight is 11lb 9oz so it needs a powerful motor and Nick eventually plumped for a PPPO 5065-380Kv from 4-Max which should provide 1820-2100 watts. He has fitted a YEP 100A speed controller and it is all powered by a 5 cell lipo of 3000mAH capacity. When he flew it previously Nick felt it could do with a little more power so he has fitted a larger prop and it now has more than enough get up and go.As you can see in this month’s video Nick enjoys doing lovely smooth low passes with the model, some very low!

Things don’t always go perfectly for even the best fliers and some tend to get a little over confident at times, especially with older, small, almost throwaway type models. 1066 in particular tends to get a little carried away with low level manoeuvres, and one ‘mad moment in May’ resulted in this:Ouch! 1066 says the Kung Fu is (was?) such a great little flier that it will soon be repaired or replaced.

I was sent an interesting photo by Gorgeous Gary of his Jive that had lost a large section of covering one flight.I think I can see the problem, the name’s a rip off…  Oh stop groaning you lot!

We had a flying visit (literally) one May day when a paraglider overflew the field and landed in the bottom field. It looked as if he had simply come too far downwind from the Mercury slope and was unable to penetrate forward to the slope again. Obviously all models were kept well clear as he drifted across our field, it’s just another occasional hazard for which we need to keep an eye out.

A few Blitz in action photos:

Now it’s time for this month’s video. It’s a bit longer than usual but hopefully you’ll think it’s well worth watching:

Please watch the video full screen, it’s so much better with small models flying around. If the video won’t play for you CLICK HERE

This month’s joke doesn’t have an aeronautical link but hopefully Woody will enjoy it:

My friend asked me to help him with his crossword puzzle as he was struggling with 4 across. “What’s the clue?” I asked. “Overworked postman,” he said. “How many letters?” “Thousands!”

Colin Cowplain

What a difference a month makes, in last month’s Patch News I included photos of several of us flying in a snow storm and exactly a month later I took this one of 1066 knife-edging across the patch in clear blue sky.April wasn’t all like that of course but it was an awful lot better than March and we managed to fly fairly frequently. Much of our time at the field was spent erecting and trying out the new electric fence, and then figuring out the best way of using it. 1066 had put in lots of work sourcing and buying all the necessary bits, making up a thief-proof system, and security etching everything. We thought we had everything sorted out ready for the bullocks…wrong!One day farmer George told Woody the bullocks would be put in the field on the following Monday so we removed the battery to charge it, but when we returned with it on Sunday the bullocks were already there and had wrecked the fence and the patch. The wire was torn to pieces and badly tangled and many posts were broken. Lots more work, and money later saw the fence working again but to say we weren’t happy would be an understatement! We then had to work out a system that would allow us to fly safely whilst still protecting the patch and the pits from the bullocks. We eventually worked out a system that seems to work well, with the pits enclosed in an electrified fenced pen adjoining the patch. Not ideal but workable, and we might refine it further over the next few months.The FAGS (Friday Afternoon Gardening Society) chaps have done a great job of rolling and mowing the patch for all PAM members to enjoy and it’s now in pretty good condition, ready for the serious summer flying. In the meantime the bullocks have gone again (not permanently but at least for a while) but the fence is staying up and live as we now know we can’t rely on the farmer informing us prior to their return.

In the March Patch News I included a photo of a Lancaster doing a low pass over our field on a wintry day. Some of you realised that Patch News was published on April Fools Day…but some didn’t and totally fell for it. The original photo was actually of Mick (Hapless) Harper’s electric powered Lanc. It was taken several years ago (by Stanley Knife I think) on a bright summers’ day and I did a bit of photo editing to make it look suitably wintry.As 1st April was the 100th anniversary of the RAF it seemed appropriate to use a Lancaster for my April Fools caper.

I’ve previously featured Woody’s gorgeous looking Ripmax Easy Street but now he has added an undercarriage to allow proper take-off and landings rather than having to hand launch and belly land the thing. It looks very smart, especially with the spats covering the wheels although I’m not sure they’ll last too long on our rather rough patch. The model takes-off well but it’s very slippery and is not easy to slow up enough for a decent landing on the patch. Practice Woody, more and more practice, that’s all it takes!

Chris P Bacon recently decided that he wanted more power in his Wot-4 as it didn’t seem to have enough oomph to satisfy his need for speed. His Wot-4 is the built up wood construction glow or electric power version and he had originally fitted one of those dirty noisy smelly things, a second-hand SC52 4-stroke. Fortunately he soon saw the light and swapped out the I/C engine for the Ripmax recommended electric motor. But now he’s upped the wattage and fitted a Turnigy L5055C 700Kv outrunner, a motor that’s maximum power is quoted as 1600W! Chris P has fitted a 15×8 prop which I reckon should pull it out of sight vertically with no problem at all.

Stanley Knife bought himself a new toy during April, a Durafly Excalibur. It’s a 63” (1600mm) span V-tail warm-liner electric glider, a model that I’ve had my eye on for a while, I think it looks great.This is what the HobbyKing says about it:

Forged for a King in a distant realm, the legendary Excalibur is here. The most anticipated Durafly release this year, the Excalibur must be flown to be truly appreciated. Innovative design features, such as the cantilever forward swept wing, V-tail tail surfaces, incredibly strong construction and stunning lines.  Just like the legendary sword, Excalibur’s strength is paramount. The engineers at Durafly were given their hardest challenge yet, to design a wing that is ultra-thin but incredibly strong in EPO foam! The wing has carefully positioned carbon fibre reinforcement and pre-tensioned glass fibre strips. The fuselage is feature packed with a square carbon fibre tube and glass fibre strips. The V-tail along with control surfaces are reinforced. All these features combine to make the Excalibur a weapon. Servos are all pre-installed with a whopping 3542 800kv Aerostar brushless outrunner motor up front. 60amp Aerostar brushless speed controller. Two piece removable wing makes assembly fast with wire-free PCB connection between the wing and fuse.  Rule the sky with the Excalibur.

No hype there then! Stanley bought the Plug N Fly version so had little more to do than add his own receiver and a 4s 2200mAh lipo He wasn’t feeling too good on the day and decided to let me test fly the Excalibur. I was impressed, very impressed, it flies beautifully, has loads of power, tracks extremely well and has a very satisfying whistle on low passes! The model is supplied with 13×7 folding prop blades but there are also optional 13×8 ‘Pro’ prop blades available for pilots requiring the maximum performance. It certainly doesn’t need them but it might be fun to try them sometime to see what difference they make.

Stanley Knife popped over to Australia a year or two ago to see ex-PAM member Alan Flux and visited Alan’s local model shop that also runs his club. He came back with a tee shirt that I thought was quite funny and worth sharing: I was rather surprised to receive quite a large box from HobbyKing a couple of weeks back as I didn’t remember ordering anything that would require a box of that size.When I opened it and removed all the padding I found six small boxes, each with a cardboard loop around it.Each box was very posh and, as well as the cardboard loop, had a couple of magnets to hold it closed. Inside each one was foam with a suitable cutout and a nice little cloth bag complete with a drawstring.Inside each bag I found a 3 cell 1300mAh lipo and of course its’ XT60 connector was wrapped in a foam tube!The batteries were Graphene lipos and I can’t help thinking some of the extra cost of them must be down to all that fancy packaging, surely it’s not strictly necessary? I notice that HobbyKing have just started using strong plastic bags rather than boxes for some items which gets over the small item in a large box issue but presumably the plastic bag is less environmentally friendly so I suppose they can’t win!

Still on the subject of batteries, I had an email from Smiffy (Andy Smith) asking if I wanted to buy a hardly used battery and speed controller. Think he’s had a bit of a problem!He didn’t say what had happened but it looks as if the speed controller overheated and that set the lipo on fire.

Norwegian Nick has been AWOL for a while but he returned in April and brought along a little model called Sprite.Nick built it from a free plan in the RCM&E magazine, where it’s described as a micro F3A pattern ship, designed by Tim Hooper. The model is built from balsa and the wings are covered in Solarfilm and fuselage tissued and doped. The motor is a Turnigy 1811 2900kv outrunner which is powered by a couple of 95mAh 2 cell lipos in parallel via a 10amp speed controller. Nick has fitted four 3.5gm servos and the all up weight is just over six ounces.On the day he brought it to the patch Nick was unable to fly as he discovered the motor mounts were loose but it’s all ready to go now and will fly as soon as the weather is suitable.

One more new model appeared in April, a 3D capable 1250mm wingspan SebArt Katana S 30E ARTF. This lovely looking model is the latest from Page Boy. Unfortunately I missed the first flights as I was away on the day but Captain Slow took some photos and video for me. Page Boy has fitted 4 Hitec HS65 metal geared servos and a Turnigy 3542 1000Kv motor connected to a Plush 60A speed controller. This is all powered by a Turnigy 2700mAh 3 cell lipo but using a 13×6 prop he’s only managing to get 4 min flights at the moment. The motor is pulling 600watts which should be more than enough considering the all up weight is just 2.2 pounds.Dougal Entendre did the first take-off and trimmed the model out before handing the transmitter over. It flew very well despite the winds being much stronger than was forecast and it looks as good in the air as it does on the ground. Dougal did the landing in the gusty conditions and Page Boy went away very happy.

We are seeing more and more kites around the field each year, usually out over the valley but sometimes right over the patch. They mostly ignore our models, especially ones under power, but they do appear to see Captain Slow’s Obelix as either a threat or simply something that intrigues them, it’s probably the most ‘bird-like’ of our models.I snapped this shot of four kites and the Obelix (at the top right) but shortly before I took the photo there were five of them in a tight formation, all following the model much more closely.

OK it’s video time:

Please watch the video full screen, it’s so much better with small models flying around. If the video won’t play for you CLICK HERE

This month’s tall tale was submitted by Norwegian Nick:

Years ago an old Irish ex-WW2 Spitfire pilot was speaking in a church and reminiscing about his wartime experiences “In 1942” he said ”the situation was really tough. The Germans had a very strong Air Force. I remember one day I was protecting the bombers and suddenly, out of the clouds, these Fokkers appeared.”

There are a few gasps from the parishioners and several of the children began to giggle.

“I looked up and realised that two of the Fokkers were directly above me. I aimed at the first one and shot him down. By then though, the other Fokker was right on my tail.”

At this point several of the elderly ladies of the church were blushing with embarrassment, the girls were giggling and the boys laughing loudly.

The Pastor finally stood up and said ”I think I should point out that “Fokker” was the name of a German-Dutch aircraft company who made many of the planes used by the Germans during the war”.

“Yes that’s true“ said the pilot ”but these Fokkers were flying Messerschmitts.”

Colin Cowplain

Wow, this month seems to have flown by, we’ve had the meteorological spring (1 March), the astronomical spring (20 March) and the start of British Summer Time (25 March). We’ve had a few cracking spring days but also some very wintry days and the flying has been ‘interesting’ on several occasions because of bitingly cold winds. But many of the members have flown during the month, some of us quite a lot, and I’ve got loads of material for this Patch News. In the February Patch News I said ‘It could have been worse’ and included a photo taken in Feb 2012 of my Twister in the snow. I should have known better, the next few photos were taken on 18 March.Insanity prevailed and I was joined by Captain Slow and Woody. What the photos don’t show was the howling gale that was blowing the snow right across the field. The anemometer showed that the wind was gusting over 30mph.

Captain Slow quite correctly said that we were only there for the bragging rights and as it turned out, he won them. He flew his red and white Obelix for a few minutes without too much trouble and then I flew my nearly all white FunGlider. I soon discovered that a white model doesn’t stand out too well in a snowstorm! It was ok for most of the flight when I was able to keep it close in, in front of me, but when I turned downwind on the landing circuit I really struggled to see it. With it coming towards me there was a very small frontal area to spot through the snow and I got completely disorientated and of course it got blown downwind making it even harder to see. Very soon neither Woody nor I could see it at all and I had to assume it had crashed. After a short search by all three of us we found it near the far side of the lower field and unsurprisingly it was quite badly damaged.However, as is often the case, back home on the workbench it all went back together pretty well and it was flying perfectly again a couple of days later, none the worse for it’s misadventure.

But we were in for a treat one weekday morning when just Gentleman Jim and I were present.  We had heard an interesting sounding large aircraft flying around but hadn’t seen anything until suddenly this appeared!It just did one quick pass but I managed to snap one poor quality photo. Apparently is was displaying at Goodwood.

Several new models made an appearance in March, the first one being Gentleman Jim’s gorgeous Multiplex Solius.

This is how the website describes it: Airborne elegance! High performance electric glider with T-tail, cockpit and clear canopy. With its pleasant handling and excellent performance the Solius offers tremendous flying pleasure to anyone from the weekend flyer to the pro-standard pilot. Whether you’re looking for long gliding flights or lively aerobatics – the Solius always gives a good account of itself. The outstanding features of this Elapor model are its many new, innovative and sophisticated details, which set entirely new standards for this class of model.The 2160mm (85”) span Solius is available either as a kit or Ready to Run (RR) which comes with the servos, motor, prop, and speed controller already fitted. They also sell a RR+ version that comes fitted with a Multiplex 5 channel receiver and a 2200mAh lipo, so you just charge the battery, bind to your Multiplex transmitter, and fly. Jim bought the kit version which meant he had quite a lot of gluing and installing to do but the effort was worth it, the Solius is a great flier. It has the usual ailerons, elevator, rudder, and throttle, and Jim has programmed in spoilerons as well. This raises both ailerons to spoil the lift and make landing easier but I must say it does seem to float on and on even with spoilerons activated. Jim has also fitted telemetry and speech units to his Hitec radio so he gets vario bleeps to let him know if the model is rising or sinking and spoken altitude reports at regular intervals, all clever stuff. You can see some of the first flight in this month’s video.

One model that I honestly didn’t expect to see again was Chuck Berry’s E-Flight Sukhoi. (He prefers his childhood nickname Chuck to Goose). He had a bit of a mishap with the Sukhoi a few weeks ago and we all thought it was a write-off but he tells me that when he got home his wife April suggested he had a go at repairing it. Once he got started he found it went back together quite easily and as you can see it’s now looking as good as new. Only on the inside can you see some minor tell-tale signs of where the hot glue did its’ work.

There were a couple of mishaps during March that will require some serious work, maybe Bob the Builder and Modelling Clay should ask Chuck Berry for a few tips on repairing. Modelling’s mishap is in this months’ video.

My old friend Dave Durnford from the Alton club was good enough to write an article for Patch News about his recent visit to the Paul Heckles Flight Centre: Back To School – Models & Flying Tuition by Dave Durnford

There are many ways to learn to fly model aircraft, and as many and more model types used in the process. In the halcyon days of our hobby, when almost every town had a model shop, R/C trainer model kits were a plenty and balsa readily available should you chose to build from a plan.

I would suggest nowadays the newcomer has a more limited and less easy choice. At time of writing, this might be summarised as what wholesalers Ripmax / Perkins etc. are currently distributing to the few remaining shops. Otherwise it’s an online order to the likes of Hobby King for a RTF model.

As a club instructor, I get to see all types of ‘perfect’ trainer as supplied by the various outlets. Some are better than others, both in terms of quality and suitability. No doubt there are one or two, (somewhere?), that learnt on a scale ‘Spitfire’ or ‘F3A’ pattern ship but most of us cut our flying teeth on a high wing trainer of some description. Looking around at the models presently available that fit the bill, I was a little disappointed. I then remembered the professional model flying tuition, what model(s) do they use? Surely they must have seen it all and know what works and is durable to withstand the newbie’s bumps ‘n knocks.

So my enquiries lead me to Paul Heckles Flight Centre located at Draycott Aerodrome, near Swindon. Their website (CLICK HERE) describes the operation and includes photos of the superb flying site used.

I made a visit to Paul to see for myself the models he uses for training.

For fixed wing training, (the school also teaches rotary), the Flair / A.T.S. ‘Kite’ is the stalwart aircraft in their fleet.Despite all the knocks and ‘heavy arrivals’, very few airframes have been totalled in all their years of operation. Unfortunately, this model kit is no longer in production and after speaking to Justin at the current Flair Models in Warwick, unlikely to be in the near future. All is not lost though as foam wings are available from ‘Bill Kits’ and fibre glass cowling & carbon u/c from ‘Carbon Copy’. As for a plan, there never was one, so I’m doing my best to draw something up from existing airframes.

Tuition – Paul gave me a tip into his proven successful approach.

This might be summed up as always seeing and maintaining a fixed horizon. Just think of trying to fly a model whist straining up and peering at a blank sky. What attitude is the model at? Is it climbing? Descending? Banked? Not easy to say without a reference i.e. a horizon be that the ground or a line of trees, always kept in the peripheral of your vision. Thinking about it, it works for me, how about you?

So what model would you recommend for a newcomer to our great hobby?

Thanks Dave, that’s all good stuff.

Stanley Knife recently dug deep into his pockets and splashed out a fiver on a new receiver. Yes, that’s right, just £5. I think he said it’s a Redcon CM703 2.4G 7CH DSM2 DSMX Compatible Receiver from Bang Good but I’m not certain. Not wishing to risk an expensive model to check out such a cheap new receiver Stanley then splashed the cash again, this time on a Flite Test Bloody Baron from Sussex Model Centre.The 29” (737mm) span Bloody Baron is a sort of Fokker/Ugly Stick lookalike that’s made from water resistant foam board. As you can see it’s a very basic quick to build four channel chuck it in the back of the car type of model and Stanley chose to fit a Turnigy 26-36 1100Kv motor coupled to a 40A esc. The model spec says to use a minimum 3 cell lipo so Stanley is using 4 cell 1000 lipo and an 8×6 prop which gives plenty of power. The first flight went perfectly and looked like a lot of fun so Stanley let me have the second flight. It flies really well, much better than you have a right to expect for a few pieces of foam board, and the only problem I found was that it didn’t seem to have enough up elevator movement. As I landed I was holding in full up elevator and even that was barely enough. We checked out the movement and found the problem, the elevator servo had come loose! Oh, and that £5 receiver? It worked perfectly so I reckon that was a bargain.

I know I barely mention it so you’ve probably not noticed but I’m a Multiplex fan, as is Captain Slow. But the other day I began to wonder if we were getting a little too similar in our ways as it’s not just the transmitters we have in common. I snapped this photo to illustrate my point:If fellow Multiplex users Woody and Percy Vears also turn up with FunGliders and twin finned flying wings I’ll really begin to worry. And Chuck Berry has now got an MPX Cockpit SX9 on order…

Other transmitters are available of course and Dougal Entendre (AKA Tranny Agate) has many many different ones. Fancying a bit of retro rc he decided to convert one of his collection to 2.4 GHz and eventually chose one of his several Devo sets as the donor and an American 72 MHz Royal transmitter as the recipient. With my blissfully small knowledge of electronics I thought it would be a very straightforward task to swap the innards from one transmitter into another case but it seems it’s not that simple. At a recent club meeting Dougal gave us a presentation of the conversion and the various problems he encountered along the way. One of the things that happened when transmitters were computerised was the change from mechanical to electronic trims and Dougal wanted to keep the original stick units along with their mechanical trims in the Royal tx. This involved quite a lot of head scratching and mechanical engineering but eventually he cracked it and thought he’d overcome the worst of the problems.But when he switched on for the first test he discovered that the electronic output from Royal stick units was much less than from the modern Devo ones which resulted in much reduced movement of the servos. More head scratching soon had the problem solved and all worked well so then it was down to mounting the new electronics and a modern lipo battery in the old case. Modern transmitters all have a screen to display the various available menus for setting the model up and in the retro transmitter this needs to be hidden but easily accessible so Dougal mounted it inside, rear facing, and then made the rear cover quickly removable.One thing considered vital these days, especially for electric flight, is a throttle lock switch and that had to be mounted on the outside of the case but other than that the only external differences are the stubby 2.4GHx aerial and the addition of a neck strap attachment ring. Having satisfied himself that everything was working as it should Dougal chose his Hummer for the test flights and, as expected, it performed perfectly.Well done Dougal, an interesting and well executed project.

The winner of the latest Patch News caption competition was chosen by a poll of the members at the last meeting in March and the chosen one was…insert drum roll here…Page Boy! The winning caption was ‘Apparently 1066 thinks he has to go through a gate (Agate) to get to Hastings.’ Congratulations to Page Boy who received a 3 cell 2200mAh 40C lipo for his efforts. Told you it was worth entering!

As well as entering caption comps Page Boy has been busy building more models. He’s already completed two Mini Blitz club models and now has a Dawn Flyer almost completed. The four channel 48” span Dawn Flyer was a free plan in RCM&E, and was designed by Lindsay Todd for a motor that puts out around 300W of power. Page Boy is hoping the finished weight will be around 2-1/2 to 3 lb so a Turnigy 3536 1200kv motor, coupled to a Plush 60A esc and a 3s 2200mAh lipo should be ample. To make life a little easier he ordered a £23 CNC cut wood pack from SLEC which contained the ribs, formers, and ply parts. The fuselage will be mostly stained whilst the wing and tail feathers will be covered in antique Solartex so the final look will be something like this one:

A link I spotted whilst browsing the HobbyKing website recently provides some useful information on lipo safety. It’s well worth a read, personally I was unaware that the salt water treatment is a myth. You can read it HERE

The last new model to fly this month was a Prime Jet Pro that Kryten won in a recent club raffle.It’s a flying wing with fixed canards from the HobbyKing Glue-N-Go series and is made from laser cut foam board with some carbon fibre reinforcing rods. It looks very smart, Kryten certainly made a good job of building it and fitting a Turnigy 2826 2200Kv motor powered by an 1800mAh 3 cell lipo. He said the instructions were a bit rubbish.There was no indication of any reflex required and he was unsure about the C of G position. The instructions say it’s marked on the canopy but it isn’t so he so he used a position suggested on a forum. Having been asked to do the first flight I can safely say it was wrong! It was most peculiar to fly, the first thing being that it had far too much reflex so I had to use all available down trim. But even while I was adjusting the trim the model would suddenly tuck under with no warning, almost doing a half outside loop with no stick input at all! I quickly switched from mid rates to low rates in an effort to calm things down and more by luck than judgement I got it back on the ground safely.We decided the cause was a rearward CG so we added a lump of lead in the nose, guessing the amount required. The result was a transformation, the next flight was a pleasure, and I soon switched up to full rates. There was a large trim change when the throttle was opened but that can easily be sorted with some throttle/elevator mixing, and apart from that it flew very well.  I look forward to flying it again as, once the throttle/elevator mixing is sorted, I’m sure it will be a great little flier. Kryten managed to take a very short piece of video during the second flight, you can see it in this month’s video.

Kryten also snapped some quality stills with his decent camera this month including a great shot of a kite that followed my FunGlider around for quite a while… even kites like Multiplex!

Time now for the video:

Please watch the video full screen, it’s so much better with small models flying around. If the video won’t play for you CLICK HERE

A customer was really hassling the girl running the airline check-in desk, yelling and using foul language.

However, the girl was polite, pleasant and smiled while the customer continued to abuse her.

When the man finally left, the next person checking in said to the girl, “Does that happen often? I can’t believe how nice you were to him.”

The girl smiled and said, “No problem, I took care of it. He’s going to New York. His bags are going to Bangkok.”

Colin Cowplain

February certainly sorted the men from the boys, for much of the month the weather was very cold and very windy. We did also had a few reasonable days when it was just plain cold, days that seemed almost balmy without the biting winds. When I arrived at the field on Sunday 25 February my car thermometer was reading zero degrees but the wind chill made it a fair bit lower at the patch. I took the photo below of the six idiots that turned up to fly:From left to right they are: Dougal Entendre, Woody, Colin Cowplain, Bob the Builder, Captain Slow, & 1066. We flew but it did seem a bit bonkers and Woody said we should be known as The Certifiable Six!

This was taken one windy day earlier this month; note the models placed inverted to stop them being blown away:One midweek morning we packed up a little earlier than usual as we could see dark clouds rolling in. Just as we reached the cars we were treated to a couple of minutes of snow but fortunately it didn’t settle at all.But it could have been worse, looking back through my old photos I found this one from February 2012:It’s of my then almost new Multiplex Twister in the snow of the patch, looking pristine in its’ Blue Angels colour scheme. I still have it but it’s a bit tatty now. Unsurprisingly I was the only one daft enough to go flying that day!

The good news on the patch is that the sheep have gone again. They weren’t in the field long before being moved to the bottom field and they’ve now disappeared completely, presumably having been moved to lower ground because of the heavy snow that’s on the way. The patch is looking pretty good, the F.A.R.T.S. have rolled it a couple of times and an electric fence has now been purchased to protect it from the livestock in future.

Woody has been braving the strong winds a lot this month with his little Minimoa two cell electric glider and I snapped this rather blurry photo one day to prove he was capable of battling upwind in adverse conditions.It might not be terribly pleasant flying on days like that but it certainly teaches you a lot.

Bob the Builder has fitted electronic stabilisers to a couple of his models and they are a great help, they take out nearly all the bumps and stop the model being chucked around all the time. Bob uses OrangeRx ones which are usually available from HobbyKing although they seem to be out of stock at the moment. I have a couple of them myself and can vouch for their abilities. I fitted one to the Twister that I pictured above because, being of high wing configuration, it was almost impossible to fly steadily inverted, it always tried to roll back upright. The stabiliser transformed it and inverted flight became easy. For Spektrum users they are also available built into DSM2 compatible receivers, I believe Dwayne Pipe has some of these and is happy with them.

In the last Patch News I posted a photo for a CAPTION COMP but only three people have entered. There is a particularly good prize up for grabs on this one and I think it’s worth more than three entrants so here it is again:I realise it’s not a particularly easy photo to caption but please have a go. You can enter as many times as you like and I will choose a winner from the comments on both the January and February blogs. The prize will be awarded at the meeting on 22 March so get commenting!

PAM members were invited to attend the Alton Model Flying Club indoor meet on 13 February at Medstead Village Hall and five of us went along. The event is held every month through the winter and is run by my old mate Dave Durnford. He will be running two more before the summer break, on 13 March and 10 April. The hall is quite small, a typical village hall and not dissimilar to the larger of the two at Buriton, so it’s not really suitable for shock flyers unless you are really competent at prop hanging. But it’s ideal for smaller models and most of the Alton members were flying Parkzone Night Vapors or Mini Vapors. The Night Vapor is just under 15” wingspan and weighs around 0.6oz. It flies on a single cell 70mAh lipo and has three channels, rudder, elevator, and throttle.It’s called Night Vapor because it has lights so you can fly it in the dark. Goose Berry has one that he was flying at the event and he was kind enough to let me have a go with it. I could be tempted to get one but I think they only come as Bind ‘n’ Fly for Spektrum and I don’t think I could take the stick if I were to buy a Spektrum transmitter! On the evening we went they were running some light-hearted competitions, pylon racing, carrier deck landing, and balloon bursting. They set out four posts with balloons attached as pylons, and a couple of tables laying on the floor formed the carrier deck. Both the pylon racing and carrier deck landing comps went ok but the Night Vapors proved to be incapable of bursting balloons! You would have expected the props to have made short work of the balloons but they just couldn’t burst them! If we ran that comp at Petersfield you lot would be sharpening up the props for weeks beforehand but the Alton members are a more genteel crowd.Captain Slow took along a small electric helicopter to fly, and I took a couple of drones, one of which is fitted with a camera. They ran the pylon race with different slots for fixed wing and rotary models so when Captain Slow was competing with his heli I was flying a drone in the same slot. I very quickly discovered that while I’m ok at drone flying generally, moving slowly, hovering, turning etc I’m totally incapable of flying one quickly around a pylon course! I may as well confess now (he’s probably already told you 15 times anyway) that I managed to take out the Captain’s heli just as he was doing rather well in the comp. My new motto is ‘If in doubt knock ‘em out’!Dwayne Pipe flew a drone as well, and also a small electric biplane, both of which came from HobbyKing.The drone is a Mini X6 Micro Hexa-copter which is 130mm across (the website says ‘wheelbase’, maybe that’s how drones are usually described) and it comes complete ready to fly. The transmitter has two selectable flight modes, a basic super stable mode and a sport mode in which it can do flips and 3D tumbling. Not seen any flips or tumbling Dwayne, get out there and strut your stuff! The transmitter is also reversible from mode 2 to mode 1 with a simple gimbal rotation, the transmitter swivels across the stick centreline, you might be able to see it in this photo:It’s very clever but I’m slightly confused as Dwayne usually flies mode 3. Maybe he has to fly mode 2 with the drone, I will pay more attention next time Dwayne flies it.

His biplane is a Double Helix Slowfly which has a wingspan of 420mm and weighs 40g with the battery. Like the drone it comes ready to go, just charge the single cell 150mAh lipo and fly. Construction is from EPO and carbon which makes it pretty strong, Dwayne’s is in its third year of indoor flying and he says it takes a lot of punishment. It looks like a good introduction to indoor flying but sadly the HobbyKing website shows it as discontinued and as far as I can see it isn’t available anywhere else.

I also took along an old indoor model that I built several years ago and found damaged up in our loft. I repaired it and updated it to use 2.4GHz radio and a lipo battery but kept the original geared brushed motor. Unfortunately I have no idea where the centre of gravity should be and I can’t remember what caused the crash that damaged it.It’s a Pogo and is based loosely (very loosely) on the Convair XFY-1 vertical take-off and landing test aircraft.The Convair did take-off vertically, fly around normally, and land vertically but it was never considered a success and only one was built. The hall was really too small for mine but later in the evening, when nobody else was flying, I had a go with it. With the limited space all I could really attempt was to prop hang it and I’m not very competent at that anyway so all I managed was a few fairly out of control hops. But I didn’t break it so I’ll persevere.

The Alton club members made us feel very welcome and I intend to go to the next one on 15 March.

Sticking with Alton MFC events, I mentioned at our last club meeting that George Worley of 4-Max would be giving them a presentation on 2 March at Medstead Village Hall. But due to the forecast of heavy snow that day the event has been postponed until Friday 23 March. All PAM members are welcome to attend and if you pre-order something from George and collect it on the night you will receive a 10% discount if you pay in cash.

I took this photo of Bob the Builder recently and every time I look at it I’m reminded of someone else…but who?Oh hang on, I think I know, I recognise that mad, wide-eyed look! It’s Doc Brown from Back To The Future! There was an amusing moment at the patch recently; I was flying and heard 1066 ask the customary “Ok to launch?” as he came and stood alongside me. I was aware that Captain Slow was holding 1066’s model and was ready to chuck it. Then 1066 said “Oh, wrong model” and they both wandered off back towards the pits. I assumed that 1066 hadn’t switched his transmitter to the correct model but that wasn’t the case, Captain Slow had actually picked up the wrong model from the pits! As they walked to the patch 1066 hadn’t noticed as he was busy checking the switch positions on his transmitter. And I thought we called him Captain Slow because he likes to fly slowly…! Must add that one to the pre-flight Check List: Ensure helper is holding the correct model!

I’ve only spotted one new model this month but it’s certainly a good one. Catapult King is never one to do things the easy way and this time he has produced a Grumman X-29. Some of you will have seen it at the last club meeting but for those that weren’t present this is what Catapult says about it: ‘The model is a Grumman X29 USAF experimental plane of which only two were made. I originally found a build on the Flite Test web site but it was a little ‘boxy’ and I found this Steve Shumate plan on RC groups. This plan looked like it could contain an EDF so modifications were done accordingly. It turned out to be 1200mm long and 720mm wide and weighs in at a flying weight of 1.2Kg. It is made mainly from Depron though the control surfaces are balsa.  It’s powered by a Dr. Mad Thrust 64mm 10 blade EDF, a HobbyKing 80amp ESC and Turnigy 4s 2650 lipo which is drained in two minutes flat, I haven’t measured the current draw yet. All of the servos are HXT900’s and I’m using seven channels on the receiver mainly because I wasn’t sure if one servo would be strong enough to rotate both canards so they are independent which means I could mix in ailerons; at the moment they only compliment the strakes (elevators). I think following the maiden flight there may be need to improve the airflow both in and out.’ Dougal Entendre was tasked to do the first couple of flights and all went well. It only just got away from the first launch but once it got going it was fine. After moving the centre of gravity forward a little the second flight was more stable and Dougal started to look like he was enjoying himself. You can see both flights in this months’ video.Having a quick look at the figures shows there is something wrong with the powertrain. To drain a 2650mAh 4 cell pack in 2 minutes would mean pulling around 88A providing about 1300w of power. That equates to getting on for 500w/lb which the model certainly didn’t have! Also the battery would have been very warm if it had been delivering 88A for 2 minutes but it was barely warm at all. My first thought would be that the batteries weren’t fully charged but if they were and the motor really was pulling 88A then the ducting certainly needs opened up as it must be restricting the airflow. I expect by now Catapult will have measured the current draw, that has to be the starting point and will show what is going on. All in all it’s a brilliant plane, looks good, flies well, and is a rare and challenging aircraft to model.

We often moan about the lack of facilities at our field, we’d all like to have some sort of clubhouse where we could get warm, maybe have a cuppa or even a bacon sarnie, and of course, the all important loo. Wouldn’t that be great? But then I watched a video that convinced me that we should immediately bring in two new rules: 1. No FPV flying and 2. No toilet. The thought of finding 1066 like this… Urgh!Actually the photo is a screenshot taken from a Flite Test video and the video is well worth watching, they are planning some interesting developments, something amazing, something that would never happen in the UK:If you aren’t familiar with the Flite Test website I can thoroughly recommend it, there’s lots of information and fun stuff to be enjoyed, find it here: FLITE TEST

You might be interested in a new How To article about parallel charging that HobbyKing have added to their website, it should anwser any questions you may have. You can read it HERE

Time now for this months’ video which includes footage taken at the indoor event, some onboard stuff from my FunGlider, the X29, a Spit doing low passes, a Vampire, and more.Please watch the video full screen, it’s so much better with small models flying around. If the video won’t play for you CLICK HERE

‘It is generally inadvisable to eject directly over the area you just bombed.‘ – US Air Force Manual

Colin Cowplain