Patch News History

As I was away at the end of October this edition will cover the things I missed as well as the November highlights. The same applies to the video, it’s a little longer than usual but I think you’ll enjoy it, lots of exciting stuff featured.

November could be called the mucky month as early in the month Farmer George decided the field needed muck spreading. The spreading appeared to be much heavier than we’ve experienced before (it usually happens every third year) and was pretty horrendous the first couple of times we flew.But there was a lot of rain over the following couple of weeks which helped to quickly wash the muck in and the situation soon improved. Fortunately George avoided spreading on the patch and that remains in great condition.Captain Slow is ridiculously fastidious, one day I caught him trimming the edges with his nail scissors. As I write there’s still plenty of muck around the field but it’s nothing like as bad as it was and it’s getting better each week.

The weather was…er…Novemberish! There were some sunny days but also plenty of wet ones, and we struggled with lots of misty days, windy days and most unusually, some days that were both misty and windy.Never mind, the hardier members still managed to fly quite regularly and several new models were test flown.

Starting with what I missed towards the end of October, Catapult King brought along his repaired Grumman X-29.The model had flown successfully a few times earlier in the year but lacked the thrust that it should have had considering the power the motor was consuming. The model was damaged when Catapult managed a very rare bad launch so he took the opportunity to improve the ducting and add some very neat ‘cheater’ air intakes. The changes certainly improved things and the X-29 went away from the hand launch more positively than it ever had previously.See what you think of how it flies in this months’ video, I think it’s superb for such a challenging model.

In Patch News last month I featured Dougal Entendre’s new Velox but I wasn’t able to include it in the video.That’s been corrected this month and you can see how well the Velox flies, it even makes Dougal’s flying look good!

While I was away Dougal snapped a few photos for me to use. First up is the repair that Captain Slow has made to his Multiplex FunGlider using some carbon strips. The FunGlider appears to have a weak spot towards the rear of the battery access hatch and Captain Slow’s broke when he cartwheeled it on landing one day. He’s added four carbon strips, one each side of the fuselage and two above the wing area and they have strengthened the weak section a treat. Next time it will break at the back of the wing (don’t ask how I know!).

But Captain Slow’s no fool, he’s has figured out a way to stop damaging fuselages, build flying wings! I snapped a sneaky photo of a new Zagi he’s building at the moment. It’s actually a JP SI 480 EPP Flying Wing from Sussex Model Centre but as far as I can tell it’s just a Zagi manufactured by Perkins.It’s 48” span and should end up weighing around 860g but the important thing to note is that on the SMC website it states “Quick to build – Buy today, fly tomorrow”. I took the photo on 9th November and he’d already been building it for about a week so by my calculations we should see it at the field around mid-December….2021.

The other photo Dougal sent me is of Nick Weatherley with his Max Thrust Lightning. I know both Nick and Matt Takhar owned Lightnings but both damaged them a few weeks ago and I think I’m right in saying that Nick has made one decent model out of the broken remains of the two.

A few weeks ago Gorgeous Gary sent me some photos of his latest project. The model is a 68” span Seagull Models Edge 540 for .61-.91cu.in 2 strokes or .91-1.00cu.in 4 strokes and the finished weight should be around 8 1/2lbs. As a long-term club member Gary is one who is still allowed to fly I/C models but of course they have to pass the BMFA noise test. I’m not sure what engine he’s fitted to the Edge but it’s definitely a 2 stroke and it looks like a .90cu.in to me. Personally I have my doubts that it will pass the test without a serious add-on silencer.Gary is the only member who still flies I/C reasonably regularly although we don’t seem to have seen him for a while, maybe he flew while I was away? Unfortunately I/C models definitely go against the ethos of the club these days and it’s a great shame he has turned his back on electric models after a couple of bad experiences with them. Compare the Edge to Dougal’s slightly larger Velox and you can see there is no reason at all to fly I/C these days and risk losing the flying field because of noise complaints.

Of course if you like the sound of a ‘real’ engine you can add a sound system to your electric model and have the correct engine noise of the original aircraft. That’s exactly what Woody has done with his Art-Tech Texan.Woody originally bought the Texan at the Blackbushe Show back in 2013 and added the sound system after the first few successful flights of the model. The system is specifically designed for the Texan so it will only reproduce the sound of a Pratt & Witney Wasp but some of the more advanced system will produce a variety of different engine sounds. Click HERE to see and hear the sound system in action. Woody has recently revamped the Texan as it was becoming a little tatty around the edges and he’s repainted it in the black scheme of one that’s based at Goodwood.

I was a little concerned about it being all black following my difficulties with orientation of Bob the Builder’s all black Dragon so Woody added some yellow highlights and a chequered cowl to help out. The Texan/Harvard is renowned for its’ tip-stalling tendencies and the Art-Tech model is no exception, it will bite if slowed up too much although Woody has managed to tame his model to a large extent with a few adjustments. Following the refurb he asked me to test fly the model and all was well although there were signs that it needs a little lateral balancing. Everyone present watched the flight with interest until I came in to land, the most critical part of the flight. As the model was on the final approach I was watching the speed intently for any sign of the tip-stall when suddenly the sound of a full-size Spitfire grabbed the attention of everyone else. I couldn’t look away and completed the landing just as the Spit roared directly over the patch at fairly low level. Typical! Obviously my landing, that not a single person other than me saw, was absolutely perfect, so smooth and scale like in its perfection, the best ever…ahem!

Bob the Builder has been at it again. No, not crashing, he’s been building, and this time he’s produced Bob’s Bitsa.Bob tells me the fuselage comes from a crashed Splot but I think it was Bob version of the Splot as I can see several differences. He’s added a battery hatch to the top of nose, good idea, it’s much the easiest way of swapping out batteries. The motor is a HobbyKing PropDrive 2836 1400Kv outrunner and that’s linked to a 40A speed controller from RobotBirds. It’s very musical and plays lovely tunes when powered up, mostly to annoy everybody else in the pits I think. Bob uses both 3 and 4 cell lipos but says it’s better on 4 cells. In this month’s video I was flying it on 3 cells and it seemed plenty to me but I’ve since flown it on 4 cells and it had a bit more vertical performance. 3 cells produce about 300W and 4 cells around 500W so as the weight of the model is around 3lbs either should be plenty.Bob has fitted a tricycle undercarriage instead of the standard Splot taildragger arrangement. The fin and tailplane look like standard Splot items although Bob has enlarged both the rudder and elevator. The wing comes from a broken 5 year old Kyosho Calmato and he’s removed the centre section and re-joined the panels with no dihedral, this gives a wing area about 15% larger than a standard Splot. I hate to be complimentary but he’s made a great job of the covering and the Bitsa looks very smart. The choice of different parts is obviously a good combination as it flies really well, I thought it felt like flying a small pattern ship, it’s very smooth and it grooves well. Bob is still fine tuning things but at the moment the flight time is about 8 minutes so it’s a good model all round.

Jeremy Studdard sent me lots of information about his latest models. We don’t often see Jeremy at our field as he is also a member of the Chichester club (CADMAC) so he mostly flies at Thorney Island where they enjoy the use of the runway, although there are strict rules as to when and where they can and cannot fly.

The first one is definitely my favourite, it’s a 59” span Freewing Venom which is pushed along by a 90mm 12 bladed fan powered by a 6 cell 6200mAh lipo. Look at these excellent flying shots. The model is equipped with flaps and electric retracts with sequenced front gear door and sprung oleos. The weight including battery is 6lbs 9oz (just under 3kg) and there is around 6lbs of thrust. Jeremy says the fan produces a great jet like sound and isn’t too noisy. He also says this: For my powered aircraft on Thorney I go OTT with receivers, the main Rx has two receivers and I add two satellite Rx’s.  Blimey, that 3 more than any of my planes have, I wonder if that’s because he’s had problems or if he’s just playing extra safe? I won’t mention what make of radio he uses…

I’ll let Jeremy tell you about his next one: My other new aircraft this year, I was given it last Christmas but did not assemble & fly it till the summer, is the Sebart Katana 50E. Span 57″, 6lb 7oz including 5S 5000. Sebart have gone to extremes with the lightening holes. The whole thing is very fragile, including around the U/C. I’m even frightened to just pick it up, I have to do so carefully. While it can fly slowly it would not survive my landing skills on the patch, I’m too used to a 50m wide runway. I would want to fit Tundra wheels before trying the small grass patch.Jeremy also sent some video of his Olympus which you can view by clicking HERE. Thanks Jeremy, great stuff, I’m very jealous of the Venom…I reckon I could fly one from our patch ok…

Matt Takhar turned up in mid-November with a very special new model, an Aerotech Velox Revolution II.We all thought Dougal’s Velox was big at 70” span and weighing almost 9lbs but sorry Dougal, Matt’s got a bigger one than you! Matt’s Velox is 81” span and the weight is around 15lbs, a seriously impressive model. It was assembled for Matt by ProBuild and they fitted it out with all the powertrain, radio, batteries etc. The motor is an Xpwr 40cc (obviously an electric motor equivalent to 40cc) and is 200Kv which means when run on a 12 cell lipo it’s able to swing a 22×10 Xoar Electric beech wood propeller. The speed controller is a Castle Phoenix Edge HV120 and the batteries are two 6 cell Gens ACE 3700mAh 22.2v 60C packs wired in series to give 12 cells (44.4volts).According to the specs the set-up will pull around 90A and uses 4.1kW of power. Matt is using Futaba radio gear and the model is fitted with a Futaba R7008SB (S-Bus) (HV) receiver driving five Savox 1270 HV (30kg) servos. That lot requires a decent receiver battery pack so ProBuild have fitted a Gens ACE 5000mAh 7.4v lipo. Matt had two flights the first time out with the Velox, the first one being understandably cautious but no problems showed up so, after a thorough check that everything was as it should be, he had a second flight that was more adventurous, although mostly at a sensibly safe height. As you’ll see in the video the model performs beautifully and has loads of power so, as Matt gets used to it, I’m sure we’ll be treated to some top class aerobatics.

Back to much more mundane stuff now!

Following the success with my foamboard HK Sukhoi SU-27 I splashed out £16.40 on a Mig-29 from the same range. The Mig is similar but a bit smaller and easier to assemble than the Sukhoi and only has tailerons, no ailerons. One of the reasons I liked the Mig was the colour scheme, it’s much brighter and more colourful than the Sukhoi and also, unlike the Sukhoi, the colour is printed on the underside as well as the top, it looks good in the air.I’m using the same motor/prop/lipo combination as in the Sukhoi and it flies well, lots of fun. Being smaller the wing loading must be a little higher so it’s not quite so good at the high alpha stuff as the Sukhoi and without ailerons it’s not quite so responsive at low speed but overall it’s a great plane for very little money. Woody, Captain Slow, and Bob the Builder have also bought Migs but as I write so far only Woody has finished and flown his. He’s using the same motor as me but has fitted a 7” prop instead of 6” and it sounds much better so I’ll change mine to a 7” as well. I did the initial trimming of Woody’s and found it was bit unstable in pitch so Woody added some weight to the nose which made it much better. I then added some weight to mine as well and now they fly pretty much identically. Woody is getting on really well with his although the fact that they can be blown backwards when landing in any sort of wind is proving a little testing and this was where his third landing finished!But as it was at almost zero speed there was no damage at all so he’s happy. Both mine and Woody’s Migs can be seen in this month’s video. No doubts Bob’s will fly soon and Captain Slow’s sometime in the next year or two!

Video time at last: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

Get your kids into aeromodelling when they’re young, they’ll never have any money for drugs!

STOP PRESS 30TH NOV: PETERSFIELD AERO MODELLERS CAME THIRD OUT OF NINE TEAMS AT THE SOUTHERN AREA BMFA BALSA BRAIN! Team members were Mark Agate (Dougal), Alan Wood (Woody), Andy Palmer (Colin), and Doreen Palmer (SWMBO).

Colin Cowplain

As I was away towards the end of October this Patch News will be a little shorter than usual and it won’t include any events that occurred in the last ten days or so of the month. No doubt other members will keep me informed of anything I missed and I’ll be able to add them to the next edition. Thanks to Dougal Entendre, Captain Slow, Catapult King, Dwayne Pipe, and Kryten for their photo and video contributions this month.

October saw the expected changeable weather and we missed flying one Sunday morning and a couple of Friday afternoons due to some pretty heavy rain and strong winds. But there were also some absolutely glorious days so we still managed to fly a fair bit, especially the Midweekers. The friendly bullocks that had returned towards the end of September were moved out to the lower field in mid-October which made life much easier for us. But the fence has done its job and the patch is in great condition, just needing an occasional mow now.I don’t imagine the existing bullocks will be back in the field again as they’ll be off to a supermarket soon, but we’ll no doubt be joined by some much younger ones in a few months time. I expect they’ll prove to be really inquisitive at first and will probably be a pain until they get used to us.

I’ll begin with an event that actually happened on 30^th September, too late for me to include in the last Patch News. Dougal Entendre was flying his HobbyKing Edge 540T and Cream Egg was flying his nearly new HobbyKing Voltigeur when there was a sudden bang, they’d had an unfortunate coming together. As is almost always the case when a mid-air occurs nobody was really to blame, it was just one of those things. Although…Bob the Builder (previously known as Basher Bob due to his fondness for mid-airs) was also in the air at the time of the collision. Just saying…! Cream Egg was definitely the winner of this skirmish, the collision pulled out the Voltigeur’s right hand aileron but, despite the aileron fluttering around still attached to the servo, he managed to land safely back on the patch.On closer examination we couldn’t find any sign of the impact, not a mark on the model other than the detached aileron. Presumably just the Voltigeur’s propeller made contact with the Edge, and even the trailing aileron was unmarked. Dougal however was not so fortunate, the impact tore the right hand wing clean off the Edge and despite Dougal’s best efforts at knife-edge flight the damage was too severe and the inevitable ‘hard landing’ occurred. It was quite impressive, the wreckage was a long way from the ripped off wing, he managed several hundred yards of ‘flight’ before it reached its final resting place! Cream Egg had the Voltigeur back flying again a few days later but sadly the Edge has made its way to the big hangar in the sky… Never mind, it was a lovely day and there were plenty of members present to witness and enjoy the event!

Staying with Dougal, he sent me this photo of his Laius last month and it just happens to include his ill-fated Edge.The point of the photo was to show off the huge new rudder he’s fitted to the Laius in the hope that he’ll be able to prop hang the model. I’m not sure if it’s done the trick or not, but I do know he managed to snap the undercarriage and it’s now been replaced with an aluminium one, maybe that was the result of some failed prop hanging?

Stanley Knife has always had a penchant for larger models and during October he flew his 68″ span Black Horse PZL Wilga on a couple of the nicer midweek mornings. I really like this photo of it.I’ve covered the Wilga in Patch News previously but it was a long time ago and it’s worth repeating. The full-size Wilga was produced by Polish company PZL from 1962 until 2006 with over 1000 being built in many different versions. The version Black Horse have modelled is a 35A (no, that’s not how much current it pulls!) which was a mass-produced basic variant for sports aviation. It was fitted with glider towing hook, and was produced from 1968. It was fitted with a radial engine and the wingspan was just over 11M (36½ feet). The Black Horse model spans 1,720mm (67.72 in) and weighs just under 4kg (around 8½ lbs). Stanley has fitted a Turnigy Aerodrive SK3 motor from HobbyKing and says it produces almost 1300W on 8 cells swinging a 16×10 prop. It certainly has plenty of power for the Wilga, the model takes off rapidly and then stooges around beautifully on much less than half throttle for most of the flight, only requiring more power to perform some gentle aerobatics. I shot some nice video of Stanley flying the Wilga, but unfortunately the only landing I captured was the only one bad one he did. You can see the flight in this month’s video.

I got tempted by a HobbyKing promotional email a couple of weeks ago, it was offering a Sukhoi SU-27 kit for just £7.64! Alright, so it was only a Glue-N-Go profile model made of foamboard and with a centre mounted motor but at that price it was simply too cheap to ignore. Unfortunately the cheapest postage option from the UK warehouse was more than £5 which seemed a bit excessive when the kit was so cheap so the obvious thing to was to buy two and effectively halve the postage. After a few seconds listening to a ridiculous voice in my head telling me I didn’t need another plane I pressed the Buy button. 1066 has already bought the second kit for a future club raffle so pay attention, you might be the proud owner of your very own Sukhoi soon!The SU-27 has a wingspan of 750mm and is 1080mm long so is actually bigger than I expected. It also seems to be bigger than HobbyKing expected, the website says 650mm span and 900mm long, odd. The box contains nine pieces of pre-printed laser cut 5mm foamboard a plastic motor mount, a carbon tube, all the necessary linkages, and an instruction booklet. Oh, and 4 screws that are shown in the parts list but I have absolutely no idea what they are for! The builder has to provide a motor, 2 servos, speed controller, receiver, and 3 cell lipo. Unlike the stuff you can buy in art shops the foamboard is not paper backed and HobbyKing say it’s impervious to water. It all goes together very quickly, almost all with hot melt glue, and mine was ready to fly in just a couple of days. A servo on each side of the ‘fuselage’ drives one aileron and one elevator half, so up elevator also gives up aileron, and the elevator halves also act as ailerons. I would have expected up elevator to be combined with down aileron so it seemed rather odd. So would it work in practice and how would the plane fly? The short answer is yes, brilliantly! Despite my doubts about the way the control surfaces operate they proved to be perfect in the air and the Sukhoi is nicely responsive to both ailerons and elevator. The specs say 1300-2200mAh packs can be used and I’ve been using 1300 and 1800 packs with no problems. With a 3 cell 1300mAh graphene lipo mine weighs 450g and balances at the suggested C of G with no lead required. It does feel very light for its size and that shows in the flight performance, it will slow right down to walking pace and still remain easy to control. Open the throttle and it will climb away vertically but I have to say it does become rather noisy at full throttle so I spend most of the flight stooging around at high alpha low speed where it’s most fun anyway.The noise is a result of the centre mounted propeller, pushers that have the propeller close to the wing trailing edge suffer the same problem. I’ll try a few different prop sizes to see if I can quieten it down a bit but otherwise it’ll be a case of avoiding full throttle most of the time, not a problem.

Captain Slow spent some time visiting old friends in France during October. Knowing they were into modelling he took his Multiplex FunGlider with him and they managed to enjoy some flying on the land alongside their house. Captain Slow also discovered that his friend collects transmitters, he sounds like he could be Dougal’s new best friend although with only ten transmitters he’s not really in the same league yet!

1066 has been on a spending spree but not on new models, he’s recently relieved ex-PAM member Cyano Steve of his remaining modelling gear. From what I could gather he picked up a variety of top class 3D models (some in need of repair), batteries, and props for a bargain price. Cyano Steve used to buy top quality 3D models and 1066 has already started flying Steve’s old 51″ AJ Slick. The initials AJ stand for the designer Andrew Jesky, and Andrew is a world class aerobatic champion so he should know what he’s doing when designing a 3D model. 1066 seemed to be getting on very well with the Slick on the first few flights that I watched so we can look forward to some impressive aerobatics in the future. Right now he’s still being careful with it but I’m sure that will change!

In Patch News a couple of months ago I featured Dougal Entendre’s shiny new Freewing Moray that had an excellent first flight but crashed on it’s second flight. Last month I explained that the cause had turned out to be failure of the speed controller and in October Dougal had another go with the newly repaired model. He’d made a good job of the repairs and fitted a new motor and speed controller so all was looking good. Sadly it didn’t go well, the Moray rolled hard left from the launch and crashed. Presumably the motor torque caused the roll and Dougal’s application of right aileron wasn’t enough to stop it. Sadly, I’m not sure he’ll bother repairing it again.

Never mind, Dougal has a shiny new model to play with, or rather a shiny secondhand model. One of the models that 1066 bought from Cyano Steve was this lovely 3D Hobby Shop Velox and he’s now sold it on to Dougal.More details next month but for now, it’s a tad under 6ft span, weighs just under 9lbs, and Dougal flies it on 6 cells. It flies beautifully and I have taken some video which you’ll be able to see in the next Patch News.

Here’s a selection of Catapult King’s and Kryten’s excellent flying shots that I held over from last month: Video time now: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

An airline pilot dies at the controls of his plane and goes straight to hell where the devil takes him to the ‘arrivals’ area. There are three doors, marked 1, 2, and 3. The devil tells the pilot that he will be allowed to choose his own hell, but first the devil has to take care of something else, and disappears for a couple of minutes.

The curious pilot sneaks a look behind door number one. He sees a pilot going through pre-flight checks for all eternity. He looks behind door number two, and he sees a pilot that forever finds himself trying to resolve emergency situations. He looks behind the last door, and sees a Captain being waited on hand and foot by scantily-clad stewardesses.

The devil returns just as the pilot gets back to his waiting position but he only offers the pilot a choice of door number one or two. The pilot says, “But I wanted door number three!”

“Sorry,” replies the devil, “that’s stewardesses’ hell.”

Colin Cowplain

It’s autumn time again and September gave us a mix of some really lovely and some really terrible weather, but I suppose that’s what we should expect in autumn. The patch is getting better and better, it was mown regularly in September but it shouldn’t need many more cuts this year. I snapped this shot of Dougal Entendre, Norwegian Nick, and Woody all trying to stay awake while waiting for Captain Slow to finish one row with the mower.Farmer George moved the bullocks out early in the month so we haven’t had any problems with them but he’s recently said that they will be back shortly. Stop press: 26th Sept – bad news they’re back!

We were walking back to the cars after flying one midweek morning when we heard the distinctive sound of a Chinook. It sounded close but we couldn’t see it at first. The sound grew louder and louder and we suddenly spotted it. We’d made the foolish mistake of looking upwards but it was actually below us, down in the valley south of the field! It had climbed a bit by the time I got my phone out to take this photo:It went eastward, not over the field, but it was scarily low and could just as easily flown right over the patch. We enjoyed seeing it and I know we are always careful but it does serve as a warning to be extra vigilant if we hear a full-size aircraft heading our way. I managed to take a short snip of video which I’ll include in this month’s video.

Last month I featured Dougal Entendre’s new Freewing Moray that had suffered some damage when it crashed on just its’ second flight. Dougal had climbed to height to check out the stall but having stalled the model inexplicably failed to recover. Well Dougal is now pretty sure he has found the problem, an overheating speed controller. He says the model felt down on power as it was climbing so it seems likely the controller was overheating and when the model stalled there was little or no power to recover. Dougal sent me a photo of the offending controller, explaining that this was how it came out of the model, he hasn’t cut the heat shrink afterwards.He also confessed “That’s the last time I buy a sub-£5 40A (supposedly) ESC on eBay”.

A couple of months ago I pictured Norwegian Nick with his new EDF Hawk which looked great but didn’t have enough thrust to fly. Nick was using a 12 bladed ChangeSun fan and a 3 cell lipo pack and the consensus was that 3 cells weren’t enough to drive the ChangeSun fan, so he swapped it out for a 5 bladed Lander fan.He’s now using a 4 cell lipo and a 4000KV motor which flies it beautifully as you can see in this month’s video.Nick currently only has one 4 cell pack so needs to raid the piggy bank to get more than one flight per patch visit.

Nick has also built a new Depron flying wing type model called E-Shark from the designer Graham Dorschell.It was free plan in RC Model World and this is what the Traplet website says about it: This is a simple sports or slope (using a folding prop) 41 in. span model design by Graham Dorschell built up from 5mm Depron using the ‘folding wing’ method, with some balsa and Correx board and using basic tools with two 9g servos for delta mix. With just a few parts to cut it turns into a quick model to fly with a 35mm 1500kv brushless motor, 60 Amp ESC, 8″ x 6″ prop and a 3S 2200-3000 mAh lipo.

Norwegian Nick has fitted his with a 3536 1400kv outrunner motor, a 60 amp esc, and is using an 8×6 prop. It flies extremely well on a 3 cell 2700 lipo, only requiring around third throttle for stooging around so the flight times should be long. It failed to climb away from the first launch but then Nick realised the elevons were slightly down with the stick centred so he adjusted those and it went away beautifully from the second launch. I took some video of the E-Shark that you’ll be able to see in the next edition of Patch News.

There seem to have been some very strange fashions on the PAM catwalk at the field recently. Last month I pictured Woody’s refurbished Seagull Swift in its’ new Blue Angels colour scheme and this month I snapped the man himself with the model… ‘Built the model, bought the T-shirt’!Whilst Woody’s T-shirt is understandable some other fashion statements on the PAM catwalk are less so, here we have Dwayne Pipe modelling a rather snazzy pink bin liner that is usually reserved for carrying his crashed models.And Captain Slow (AKA Billy No Mates), feeling rather lonely, tried his “I’m hoping to become a Freemason” look!At least they made the effort and got to the field, 1066 just stayed at home and napped on the couch.Perhaps I should explain that he’s had an operation for a torn retina…ouch! I bet he’s really pleased that his wife Jen put the photo on Facebook for me to copy. Not sure what that odd lump on his head is though, maybe Jen clouted him for being so lazy! But don’t worry, he’s fine now and back flying again.

New members Nick and Matt are continuing their trend of having almost identical models! This month they both bought Sbach 342s but they aren’t the same, Nick’s is manufactured by Dynam and Matt’s is from HobbyKing. First, a bit about the full size: The Sbach 342 is a two seater unlimited aircraft manufactured by XtremeAir GmbH, it’s the first ever certified all composite aerobatic aircraft. The lightweight aircraft features the solid Lycoming 6 cylinder air cooled motor and massive control surfaces to provide it with the low speed aerobatic handling needed in the most advanced and testing aerobatic schedules.

This is what Dynam say about Nick’s model: Straight out of the box you will find that this Dynam Sbach 342 model is lightweight, rigid and features a fabulous showroom finish using quality paint and decals that will look great at the airfield and in the air. Efficient and affordable power supply is guaranteed with the pre-installed quality ESC (with ample reserve capacity) and oversized 900kv brushless motor, driving a reinforced two blade nylon propeller will readily translate into an impressive flight envelope. Knife edge loops, 1 roll circles, flat spins, harrier loops, snaps, point rolls and prop hanging are performed with accuracy and grace that belie its compact 1250 mm span. Dynam have chosen an exceptional aircraft to replicate; they have delivered a lightweight EPO foam airframe in a quality finished, classic bold colour scheme and provided a near perfect power-train partnership. In short, it’s a model that can proudly and deservingly display the Sbach 342 badging.

So there you have it, we shall expect to see Nick performing knife edge loops, one roll circles etc. every Sunday… Nick is using 4 cell 2900mAh lipos and the model had loads of power. You will see in the video that it appeared to have a slightly rearward centre of gravity but other than that it looked really good, a promising start.

I think Matt said he bought his HobbyKing Sbach second-hand from someone on Hayling Island. HobbyKing say this about it: The Sbach 342 is made from tough EPO foam, it is a really quick and simple build that requires no glue, the tail plane simply bolts on and the 2pc wings are a plug in set up, also ideal for transportation. The servos are pre-installed, the elevator/rudder servo’s being standard size with plenty of torque for aggressive 3D manoeuvers. Also pre-installed is the powerful brushless motor and ESC, for maximum performance and efficiency, a 2 blade prop is supplied. This fantastic looking Sbach 342 offers both the 3D pilot and sport pilot a very capable model with tons of performance and a whole load of presence, the large control surfaces are perfect for just about any manoeuver you care to throw at it. This superb Sbach 342 will keep you grinning from ear to ear, just make sure you have plenty of lipos to hand, prop hanging the Sbach is addictive!

According to the specs the wingspan and length are both 1400mm and the flying weight is around 2.3kg. Being second-hand I’m not sure if Matt’s has the standard set-up but it should have a 4250 800kv motor, a 70A speed controller and two standard size servos on the elevator and rudder plus two 9g servos for the ailerons.Matt is using 4 cell 5000mAh lipos so his model should have had a similar performance to Nick’s but it didn’t, vertical performance was very poor for a 3D style model. It has a lower kV motor so will need a larger prop than Nick’s model but in fact it had the same diameter but a lower pitch. So the next stage is a larger prop or maybe more cells. Other than the lack of performance the Sbach looked good and I’m sure Matt will soon have it performing well.

Dougal and 1066 are both happy flying low inverted and also both competitive so it was easy to wind them up with shouts of ‘Lower’ at every pass. I snapped a photo of each of them, not at their lowest points but you get the idea. On this occasion I think 1066 came out on top…or should that be underneath???

Chris P Bacon was getting to grips with his new Ripmax Bolero during September when disaster struck.He was rather unlucky, it wasn’t even a real crash that caused so much damage, it was just a relatively minor hiccup on a landing approach. The problem nowadays is that the 3D models are so lightly built in order to give the best possible performance that a relatively minor mishap is harshly punished. The damage probably isn’t actually as terminal as it looks and I think it will repair fairly easily, I hope so anyway.

Two years ago a group of PAM members visited Vulcan XM655 at its’ home in Wellesbourne and were treated to a tour of the aircraft including the cockpit. This year on Sunday 16th September the 655 Maintenance and Preservation Society (MaPS) held a Members Day and, as both Percy Vears and Captain Slow have become members, they were present to see and hear the Vulcan’s engines being run up. When Percy built his lovely EDF Vulcan model he finished it in the XM655 colour scheme so he took it along on the day and found there was another Vulcan model there as well. Captain Slow took some photos and I downloaded some from the official website.

Norwegian Nick was given a part built model recently but had no idea what it was. Most of the model structure is built but it’s missing a fin, cowling, and cockpit so Nick decided to ask if anyone could identify it on the RCM&E forum (modelflying.co.uk). It took just 8 minutes for someone to identify it as a Chorus Gull designed by Brian Peckham and featured in RCM&E in February 2002. The design was loosely based on the Percival Mew Gull and was originally designed for a 60 size I/C engine but of course Nick will be using an electric motorto power this one. Various posts on the forum provided photos and a link to a company selling the plan, cowling & canopy. Another post had a link to a build blog on different forum. Nick has already ordered the plan. He says the model is beautifully built and he’ll now get on and complete the model. Isn’t the internet a wonderful thing?

Thanks to Dougal and Captain Slow for their video and photo contributions this month. Kryten has also sent me lots of great ‘in air’ photos, here a selection, I’ll use some of the others next month:

Video time now:

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

On an airplane, I overheard a stewardess talking to an elderly couple in front of me. Learning that it was the couple’s 50th wedding anniversary, the flight attendant congratulated them and asked how they had done it. 
“It all felt like five minutes…” the gentleman said slowly.
The stewardess had just begun to remark on what a sweet statement that was when he finished his sentence with a word that earned him a sharp smack on the head: 
“…underwater.”

Colin Cowplain

August saw a change in the weather and we’ve gone from moaning ‘It’s too hot, I’m sick of this heat, we need some rain’ to ‘What’s going on, it’s supposed to be summer but it’s like winter’! The patch greened up very quickly when it rained and the speed of the transformation from dry dust bowl to lush green grass was quite incredible.The FARTS (Friday Afternoon Rural Trimming Society) sprang into action and gave it a good cut on Friday 17th but even by the Monday it was growing rapidly and when it was cut again on Friday 24th there was a lot of grass taken off. With the fence doing its job of keeping the bullocks away the grass is now in first class condition and the patch is better than it’s been for a very long time. The bullocks have learnt not to go near the fence and they leave the fliers alone most of the time so we have rarely needed to use the pen round the pits area. I took this photo one midweek day when we had just arrived and were busy lowering the fence, that’s not how we had the pits set up! We had an ‘incident’ this month, John Warren managed to run his Albatros into himself whilst connecting the battery and the propeller did an excellent impersonation of a bacon slicer on his arm. He was extremely lucky that the cuts were not too deep and with the application of pads and a bandage the bleeding was soon stemmed. Initially we thought John was fine and we rang his wife to come and collect him but then shock kicked in, the blood drained from his face and he briefly passed out so we rang for an ambulance. John was laid down on a groundsheet with his arm raised and was looking much better by the time the ambulance arrived. The ambulance service was excellent (both the staff on the phone and the crew) and, once they’d checked his blood pressure etc., they soon had his arm cleaned up and re-bandaged. They said it didn’t need stitches and a trip to A&E wasn’t required so John’s wife drove him to Petersfield hospital where he was given a thorough check over, the wound redressed, and his arm put in a sling. Several things came out of the incident. Firstly, we must never get blasé about the dangers of an electric model once the battery has been connected. Secondly, the club first aid kits issued to members proved to be very good and we must all keep them with us whenever we fly, they are no use at home or in the car. Thirdly, it took several members to manage the situation, caring for John, directing the ambulance, replacing the fence and so on. Fortunately the bullocks stayed at the bottom of the field and didn’t need to be kept at bay, had they been more inquisitive the situation would have been much more difficult. I don’t want to be unsympathetic but John had been warned several times that he was not being careful enough with a ‘live’ model, hopefully he has learned from this. The incident should also serve as a warning to all of us not to be complacent, a model is dangerous from the moment the battery is connected and must be treated with the utmost respect.

Lecture over, onto more pleasant things now. Despite it still being summer there was a slight lack of new models in August but Page Boy turned up one morning with a very nice little North American AT-6 Texan.The British version is the Harvard but they are basically the same plane. Page Boy’s Texan comes from FMS and it’s an 800mm span model moulded in EPO foam. He actually bought it second-hand (but unflown I think) on eBay about a year ago but has only just got around to finishing it. Page Boy has fitted 1900Kv bell motor in place of the stock 1300Kv motor and uses a 3 cell 1000mAh lipo. At full throttle it’s giving 185W and as the Texan only weighs 450g (1lb) that’s an awful lot of power! The rest of the gear is as it comes, a 20A esc and four 9g servos. As you can see in this month’s video the Texan flies really well. Page Boy was flinging it around at pretty high speed when I was filming but I had a flight with it afterwards and it is also well behaved when flown much more slowly, I was really impressed with it, a lovely little model.

 At Buriton recreation ground, before the last meeting of August, Dwayne Pipe flew his the latest version of his indoor/very light wind model, appropriately named Mark 3. Unfortunately I was busy flying my Hummer so I didn’t get to video the Mark 3 but it looked to be flying well, certainly much better than either the Mark 1 or Mark 2 did. I asked Dwayne for some details of the model and this is what he sent: The Mark 3 is my latest attempt to home build an indoor flyer that uses my standard Spektrum transmitter. I have a couple of HobbyKing indoor planes already, which always come with their own low spec custom transmitter. The Mark 1 was a 15″ Depron Blitz that flew round in circles. The Mark 2 was a 15″ Depron Splot that was too heavy and could barely fly.

The Mark 3 is a 15″ own design based on the Splot planform. It flies on rudder, elevator and throttle control. The wings and tail feathers are made of 3mm Aero Depron. The cambered wing is heat moulded to a Clark Y section using a process I found in a recent RCME article. This construction makes a very stiff wing that requires no spar. The two wing sections are assembled with dihedral and then epoxied to a couple of 2mm carbon fibre tubes which form the fuselage, with the tail being sheet Depron. The whole thing including battery I estimate as about 30 grams.The electronics are a Bang-good 2.4G Micro DSM2 compatible receiver with built in brushed ESC. This was bound to my transmitter (eventually) and unlike most “blocks” comes with 4 servo micro sockets. It turns out that only HobbyKing make servos to fit these sockets. These are HobbyKing HK-282AS ultra-micro analogue servos at 2.2 grams each. The motor is a Bang-good coreless brushed motor fitted with gearbox and 5.5 inch propeller. Most importantly I discovered that these tiny aircraft require no down thrust or side thrust when setting up the motor. The battery is 1S 300mAh positioned to balance the model. The model is designed to take the wire wheels from another indoor flyer and will take-off from the ground.From initial flights it is very stable and should be ideal for indoor flying at Havant but probably too cumbersome to fly at the much smaller Medstead. Thanks Dwayne, I’ll try to get some video of the Mark 3 for a future Patch News.

It finally happened, Cream Egg eventually ran out of skill luck and crashed his Wot4…big time! He had to search for a replacement and this is his story: I spent a lot of time considering what model to purchase following the demise of my WOT4 through stupid pilot error! I ended up with a very extensive shortlist and then Steve Hastings (1066) kindly came over one evening for us to go through the choices and finally settled on the Voltigeur.Cost: £142, including motor, 45 Amp ESC, servos, prop and everything necessary other than the receiver. Assembly instructions: None. Simply 10 pictures on the box, which were very easy to follow. The servos and linkages are pre-fitted. These feature very nice ball joints and the servos are metal gear versions. The entire model is foam construction. Carbon fibre rod through the wings, which is typical. The wings are secured by small plastic bolts for easy disassembly. All one needs is some good Gorilla Glue to install the elevator/rudder/tailplane assembly. Connecting the linkages was reasonably straightforward. The worst operation is assembling the wheels and the fairings that surround them. This took more time than any other operation. Wheels are small and one already has a partial flattened surface and so I am inclined to change these and indeed increase the size slightly as the fairings will accommodate a larger diameter. The plane is designed for 3S batteries and demonstrations by Michael Wargo of Hobbyking show this to be a high performance aircraft with this size of battery and the 1000Kv motor/45Amp ESC. However, my 3S batteries were originally used in my Pandora when I started out and, as they have not been charged/discharged very much over the last year or so, I found them to be quite weak. Accordingly, I thought I would try my 4S batteries, which I have been using in the WOT4. A full load test with Andy‘s assistance showed a maximum power draw of 500 Watts at 40 Amps. Accordingly then, the 45 amp ESC supplied should in theory be adequate, but I plan to use the 60 Amp ESC out of my WOT4 instead. My last flight lasted eight minutes and came down with 57% on the 4S battery flown in fairly high winds of up to 17 mph. All up, I am delighted with the model and especially the way she handles, especially when landing. She is very light and when climbing vertically, it is really impressive. I believe it will be a great aerobatic model to further develop my skills. The Voltigeur certainly looks good both on the ground and in the air, it’s a very pretty model that performs really well. You can see 1066 doing the maiden flight and some of Crème Egg’s latest flight in this month’s video.

I mentioned in last month’s Patch News that we had been visited by ex-PAM member Peter Mason and he’d promised to organise a quiz night for us. He duly came along to the first meeting in August and ran what turned out to be a very successful quiz consisting of 50 wide ranging aviation questions. The questions were well thought out and I was pleased that there were none of the ‘How many rivets were used to construct Mk.9 Spitfire’ type. Some questions were comparatively easy while others made our tired old brains whir quite a lot! Peter provided some very nice prizes for the first three places and I’m pleased to say that I won with just 25 points and Dougal and Woody tied for second place with 24 points each. I’m sure all those present thoroughly enjoyed the evening and we pass on our thanks to Peter.

Woody bought himself a new Wot4 recently and has been getting along well with it in August.It’s an ARTF wood E version, not the Foam-E and is identical to the one being flown by Bob the Builder. There could be trouble ahead…! Kryten snapped a couple of lovely flying shots of the Wot4. Woody has also finished a renovation job on his old Seagull Swift trainer. I think the Swift was Woody’s first model and it served him well but as it’s now around 5 years old it was starting to look a bit tatty.He decided to give it a US Navy Blue Angels colour scheme in the hope that the bright yellow underside would show up well even at 5000ft where he usually flies! It certainly works, looks very smart, and flies as well as it always did. Although Seagull sell the Swift as I/C or electric it’s really just an I/C plane that’s easy to convert. Woody has fitted an old Thumper motor and runs it on a 5 cell lipo which gives it ample power to do all the aerobatics that you can expect from a trainer. Good one Woody, well done.

Having buried his original Kung Fu 1066 decided he missed it and has built another one.The first one was built for the annual club model event although 1066 seemed to have trouble counting fins as his only had one rather than the two shown on the plan. The club models were built from Depron and most flew very well, 1066’s being vastly over-powered as usual. He has built the replacement Kung Fu from foam board, the paper faced/foam core stuff that can be found in art supply shops etc. It’s very easy to work with although 1066 found the paper is easily damaged by tape when trying to hold it together while glue dries. I imagine cyano would melt the foam so UHU Por, Gorilla Glue or epoxy would be the obvious choices. The new one is to the plan apart from only having one fin (again!) and a slightly lengthened nose in order to achieve the C of G without requiring nose weight. It seems to fly just like the original which is unsurprising as 1066 has fitted the same motor etc.

Dougal Entendre has finally got around to finishing the Freewing Moray that he bought some time ago from Alibaba in China. The Moray is intended to be flown on a 4 cell 1600mAh lipo using a 1400Kv motor but Dougal wanted to use his 3 cell 2200mAh packs so he has fitted a suitable 1800Kv motor instead and it flies very well. Some of the first flight can be seen in this month’s video and all went well. Unfortunately the second flight didn’t!It was flying perfectly until Dougal decided to check the stall and, despite having ample height, the Moray didn’t recover as expected and crashed. At the time of writing the cause is undetermined but the damage didn’t look too bad so hopefully Dougal will soon have it repaired and flying again.

Chris P Bacon visited the BMFA Nationals over the Bank Holiday weekend and sent me some photos of the event. He says the Vulcan had incredible presence in the sky but he didn’t feel the same about the Lanc. Maybe I’ve been flying electric too long but for me the petrol engines used in most WW2 models always sound terrible and with 4 of them in the Lanc I don’t think it would ever impress me. The jet turbines in the Vulcan just sound like…jet turbines.Chris P said the ailerons on the fun-fly model were the biggest he’s seen, I imagine they can be drooped a little to change the wing section for the Max Glide part of the competition, hence the size.He also said all the F3A aerobatic models were electric powered and used 10 cell lipo packs to give the performance. Nice! Thanks for the photos Chris P, more of us should make the effort to visit the Nats next year.

Thanks to Kryton, Captain Slow, and Dougal Entendre for pics & video contributions; here’s this month’s 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

This month’s closing chortle is a photo that I stole from Dougal’s Facebook page. ‘Two planes sharing a joke’ 

Colin Cowplain