Patch News History

July was a typically British July, some glorious weather and some downright awful. Doreen and I were away camping for the first week of July when the weather was pretty much perfect. Coincidently at exactly the same time the bullocks were put in the field, just  for that week. I heard mutterings about me having influence over farmer George but it’s not true…honest guv! Fortunately, because the weather was perfect, the bullocks didn’t churn up the newly repositioned patch and, apart from a few deposits, it remained relatively unscathed.

The newly formed Friday Afternoon Gardening Club mowed the patch regularly and it’s now in excellent condition (considering its just part of a farmer’s field). I wonder if the name should be Friday Afternoon Gardening Society, the acronym is so much better…

The club meeting on 27th July was moved from Buriton to the field so the members could clear the parking areas of the undergrowth. Tony Neil used his brush cutter to great effect and others cleared while 1066 leant on a rake!Modelling Clay made short work of some dangerous branches overhanging one area and everybody mucked in with the clearing up. We even managed to do some flying and mow the patch. Thanks to all the members that turned up.

Although lots of flying took place during the month there seemed to be a dearth of new models. The only one I spotted was Kryten’s new electric glider, a Phoenix 2000 from HobbyKing.This is what the HobbyKing website says about it: This two metre wingspan glider takes 15 minutes to assemble and lasts a lifetime! The wings and tail are made from tough EPO foam. However, the fuselage is made from a really strong blow moulded nylon skin with plywood formers, making it almost indestructible, this is usually reserved for baby toys. The virtually indestructible fuselage is smooth and rigid, yet still light enough for the glider to perform. Both the main wing and tail are screwed into place and the two wing halves have a carbon fibre rod for added strength. The main wing includes one servo per aileron for strong control surface movement plus there is a pre-moulded slot so you can add your own flaps later. All four 9g servos, speed controller and brushless outrunner are included. Just add your own receiver and battery to be flight ready!

The pre-fitted motor is a 28mm 1050kv outrunner and the speed controller is 30A. All the purchaser has to supply is a suitable 3 cell lipo and a receiver. Kryten is using a Zippy Flight Max 1500 20C lipo with the transmitter timer initially set for a 6 minute motor run, and an Orange 620 receiver. The battery is pushed as far back as possible which results in a C of G slightly forward of the recommended position. He has also added a pair of 9gm HXT900 servos to operate the optional flaps which makes accurate landing easier.

Kryten asked me to do the initial trimming and I thoroughly enjoyed flying the Phoenix, it’s a good glider but is also capable of some nice aerobatics, a good all round performer.When I reluctantly handed the transmitter over to Kryten he handled the glider with no problems at all. You can see both of us flying the Phoenix in this month’s video at the end of Patch News.

Sticking with gliders, I recently brought one of mine out of retirement. It’s a Swing Plus produced by Kostka Model Centrum in the Czech Republic. I bought mine many years ago from Gordon Tarling, one of the early promoters of electric flight. I don’t remember exactly when it was but on the wing there is a BEFA (British Electric Flight Association) sticker with the year 2000 so I probably bought it in the late nineties. The Swing Plus was designed to be flown in one of the lesser classes of F5B competitions, a contest that consists of doing as many laps as possible between 2 poles 150 meters apart in 200 seconds followed by 10 minutes of thermalling, and then landing on a 30 meter landing circle. The laps must be made while gliding only, no motor allowed, so the motor is used to rapidly climb and power into the course. So, although being lightly built it’s also very strong and the wing spar has carbon sandwiched in it. Full blown F5B planes nowadays are mostly fully moulded machines that scream vertically at unbelievable speeds but mine doesn’t do that!It was built before the days of outrunner motors and lipo batteries so mine was fitted with a very expensive Keller brushed motor and it used 8 NiCad cells. Eventually the motor brushes wore out and I was unable to find any replacements so I fitted a tow hook and for several years used to bungee launch it (remember those strong wings) in club glider comps.But I’ve now fitted a Propdrive 3536 910kv outrunner and 50A speed controller at a cost of just over £22 for the pair and I can fly using either my 2200mAh or 4000mAh 3 cell lipos. I chose the 910kv motor as that enabled me to use the original Rasa 12 x 8.5 carbon folding prop. I had to fit a large lump of lead in the nose as the new set-up is considerably lighter than the original one but the overall performance is pretty similar to before.It will climb almost vertically (but not at the ridiculous speeds of proper F5B models) and it glides around pretty well. The Swing Plus doesn’t have ailerons, instead it relies on ruddervators on the V-tail. They work well enough and it rolls as if it has ailerons, and it also flies inverted pretty well. The wing has a relatively small central spoiler which doesn’t really appear to do much. Oddly the spoiler seems to make the controls more sensitive, must be something to do with being in line with that V-tail.

While I was away at the start of July Dougal Entendre decided to strap his GPS equipped watch to one of his planes just for a bit of fun, to see what it would record. He flew four circuits at roughly constant height and later he was able to upload the information to his pc and overlay the track onto Google Earth. This is what was recorded: Average speed 50mph, max speed 78.3mph, height about 132ft. I think it was an interesting experiment and hope Dougal decides to repeat it one day. Of course with modern radio sets equipped telemetry it’s possible to record the same information and more without having to strap a watch to your model but Dougal did it without forking out a penny, simply using equipment he already owned. While you are looking at the Google Earth photo take a look at the extreme right of the picture, just above the road. You can see a white splodge (chalk?) with trees on three sides. That’s the field where phase three of the new houses will eventually be built and you can see just how close to our field they will be, hence our concerns about the noise we make.

Now for a bit of nostalgia, a couple more photos from PAM days gone by, I’m guessing they’re from around 1990.The first is one of Doreen flying and me supervising. The radio she’s using is my Simprop SAM 35FM transmitter and the photo below is of the basic set with rubber blanks in the switch positions.The purchaser could choose which functions they required and fit the relevant switches and modules themselves.The second photo is from the same era and features (I think) from left to right: Viv Stanley Knife Burgess, Phil Wonky Wiltshire, designer of the Splot Graham Head, Peter Ford, and me. I’m appear to be test flying one of Peter’s vintage models. I still have another of Peter’s vintage models in my loft; I bought it in an auction many years ago but have never got around to doing anything with it. One day…

Last month I said that Dougal had fitted a helicopter gyro on his Hummer ailerons to reduce the workload when prop-hanging. Well this month Captain Slow has been playing with a Multiplex MultiGyro G3 on his Hummer.The Multiplex gyro works on ailerons, elevator, and rudder and is really intended to smooth out bumps in windy weather. But it also has ‘heading hold’ which basically means at the flick of a switch the model will stay in whatever attitude it’s in at the time i.e. prop-hanging. It works well in normal flight but when prop-hanging it maintains the attitude until the pilot touches the controls, at which point it then tries to hold the new attitude. So if the pilot pushes left rudder to keep the model vertical the gyro thinks the pilot wants to go to the left and off it goes! However, Captain Slow flew his Hummer in very strong and gusty winds the other day, conditions that would normally make the Hummer unflyable, and it handled the conditions very well. Woody has also fitted the same model of gyro to his new Edge 540T but only wants to use it for normal flying and it’s very good for that. That particular gyro has actually been superseded by the Multiplex Wingstabi gyro which, as you can see in THIS VIDEO, will handle prop-hanging correctly. Try not to enjoy the start of the video too much, you’ll go blind! The prop-hanging part is 40 seconds in. The only downside to the Wingstabi is that it’s very expensive.

I also decided to join the fun as I had an unused Orange Stabilizer kicking around.I fitted it to my Hummer and, like the Multiplex gyro, it smooths bumps well enough but it doesn’t have ‘heading hold’ so it’s no help at all for prop-hanging.

Last month I pictured the nose of my Wingnetic which was ripped apart when the motor threw a prop blade.I noticed that HobbyKing stock spare fuselage front sections so I ordered one along with a new prop and motor mount, and it’s now all repaired and flying well again.

Cream Egg had a bit of a moment while practising aerobatics the other day resulting in the damage seen below. Apparently the problem wasn’t Cream Egg’s fault, it was caused by the Friday Afternoon Gardening Club.When they fixed the new position of the patch they failed to lower it by about a metre! You need to practice your aerobatics a little higher Cream Egg. Fortunately it’s all straightened out now and flying again.

About a month ago 1066, Dougal, and I were discussing the possibility of flying electric powered control-line models. This is nothing new, it’s been done lots of times before, but it’s new to us. 1066 wanted to try it but without spending any money at all (sounds about right!). The only real problem was how to control the throttle, devices are available but oddly none of them are free. Eventually he decided to simply use a normal speed controller and RC set-up. So he knocked up a simple combat wing style model from foam, fitted a receiver, motor, esc, and battery.He chose to test it at Buriton at the same time that Dwayne Pipe was running the Chuck glider Competition; I reckon it was just because he couldn’t build a decent chuck glider. Anyway, ably assisted by Dougal Entendre in between chuck glider flights, he gave it a go. Several goes actually, gradually changing things such as centre of gravity etc. until finally it flew quite well. 1066 looked very odd with a control-line handle in one hand and an RC transmitter in the other hand but it did the job. Unfortunately I neglected to take any photos before it got broken.You can see the flights in this month’s video.

On several occasions during July we spotted large flocks of gulls over the field.  They didn’t seem to be thermalling, maybe they were catching flying insects. Sadly I missed the shot of Woody flying his model right through middle of one of the large groups but I did capture this photo of one of the smaller groups.I know you get a murmuration of starlings, is there a collective noun for seagulls? A sh**face of seagulls perhaps?!

Kryten took some more excellent photos this month, including all of the flying ones in this Patch News. No, not the one of the seagulls, all the other ones you idiot! After the first three we have a bit of a glider theme this month:

OK, time for this month’s video:

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

Heard as part of an airline passenger safety announcement: “In the case of sudden loss of cabin pressure oxygen masks will deploy from overhead. Please use these to muffle your screams”

Colin Cowplain

I must begin this month with the sad news that long-term PAM member Frank Buckland passed away on 19^th June. Frank had joined the club in its very early days and he served on the committee for many years in various positions including Competition Secretary, Vice-Chairman, and Chairman. Frank’s background was in Sevenoaks and he was a modeller for most of his life, long before he came to Petersfield in 1956.Frank always liked scale models and in the 1950’s had several control-line scale plans published in both Aero-Modeller and Model Aircraft magazines including a four engined 64” span De Havilland Heron. At the age of 65 Frank gained his Private Pilots Licence and went on to part own various aircraft over the next few years. Several PAM members enjoyed flights with him from Goodwood Airfield. Frank eventually left the club a few years ago following a garage fire that destroyed lots of his models and equipment but he never lost interest in PAM. Doreen and I visited Frank several times over the last few months and he always asked about the club, its activities, and the members. Frank’s funeral will be held at Chichester Crematorium on 11^th July at 11.45.

Moving on now, we had the hottest June on record…well it was hot for five days anyway. The rest of the month wasn’t bad and PAM members did lots of flying. The patch was in a really bad state after the bullocks and the rain had done their worst last month so it was decided to move it south east by around half the patch width. That meant we would avoid the really badly churned up part and also be a little further from the road. Farmer George cut the whole field at the time which made the job a little easier when the Friday Afternoon Gardening Club sprang into action. I lost count of the number of cuts it took to get the new part down to the same level as the original patch but we got there eventually and we now have a much flatter patch with the grass in pretty good condition; good work guys. The bullocks will return soon so let’s hope that they don’t mess it up again.

Last month I admitted to crashing my Wingnetic and pictured the damage. It was soon repaired and flying again but I think I must have failed to spot some damage to the folding prop as early this month it threw a blade mid-flight. The resultant imbalance tore the motor out, destroying the front of the fuselage in the process.Fortunately the front fuselage is available as a spare from Hobbyking so I ordered one along with a new folding propeller and motor mount, all I have to do now is to get round to repairing it. Captain Slow had an almost identical incident the other day with his electric glider, it threw a blade and the motor ripped out. The damage was not too bad so he too will soon be flying again.

When I order small low value bits and pieces from HobbyKing I often use the European warehouse as the untracked postage is much cheaper than from the UK one. Crazy but true. But recently the part I wanted was only in stock in the UK warehouse so I was forced to pay over £5 shipping for a £5 item. When this happens, as the package weight can be up to 2kg, I usually add a few extra bits and pieces to make the postage worthwhile, and on this occasion I browsed the Bargain Bin for something I couldn’t live without. I found a complete RTP (Round the Pole) set-up that includes a P51D Mustang fitted with elevator and throttle controls, the pole and base, the line, and 2.4 GHz transmitter for less than £12, ridiculous! The plane charges from the transmitter batteries (you do have to supply 4 of your own AA cells) and off you go. The transmitter is mode 2 so is the same as most of us use and there is a beginner or advanced setting which basically restricts the elevator movement. The only problem I’ve found is that our house is too small unless I start shifting furniture (that suggestion didn’t go down too well) so I ended up putting the base on the dining room table and taking off along the sideboard! The RTP system worked a treat but my ‘airfield’ proved to be less than ideal so I stopped before I broke anything. I think we need an RTP evening at club very soon, it would fit in our meeting room ok and we could all have a play. You can use two models on the same pole and do combat; they even come with little streamers, so if anyone fancies shelling out £11.77 we could try that.

I mentioned last month that Woody had damaged his Ugly Stik and while I was browsing the HobbyKing site I checked to see what Ugly Stick spares were available.Sorry Woody but I don’t think it would be an economical repair, you can buy a complete new model for £122.99 but you broke the prop and a replacement prop costs £184.73! I think HobbyKing still have a few glitches on their site…

Catapult King is the proud new owner of an F-16 Fighting Falcon, courtesy of Chris Hard. The model was built by Chris about four years ago from a no longer available Align RC kit and is fitted with a Turnigy 2826 2200kv pusher motor driving an APC 6×4 prop. Catapult is using 3 cell 1300mAh Zippy Compact lipos connected to a 40A speed controller. He gets surprisingly long flights so a 40A esc sounds a bit like overkill to me but too much is better than too little. Part of the reason for the long flights is that at the moment Catapult spends most of the time at less than half throttle. I can’t say I blame him, it’s a small model and it is very fast flat out, not something you’d take your eyes off for a second! As you can see the whole of the underside of the fuselage hinges open to provide access to all the gear. Catapult asked me to fly it one day as he was having trouble with the elevator trim and I also had trouble, it just wouldn’t seem to stay in level flight. When I landed we checked it all out and discovered the elevator servo had come loose, once that was sorted it flew perfectly again!

On some of the really hot days this month there was very little wind so all the Hummers came out to play. The Hummer is great for practising prop-hanging and some of the 3D stuff but is otherwise not really very nice to fly, and in anything above a very gentle breeze it’s just plain horrible. Anyway, when you’re practising prop-hanging the model tends to get into all sorts of unusual attitudes at very low level and sometimes you reach the stage where it’s just easier to dump it onto the ground than to fight to keep it in the air. I did exactly that on one flight, when it got almost uncontrollably out of shape I just dropped it onto the patch on its wheels and then simply took-off again to continue practising. I noticed the motor noise had increased a bit and thought that I might have damaged the tip of one of the prop blades. When I landed after several more minutes I saw that I had indeed damaged the prop… a lot!I’m amazed it didn’t shed the blade or shake the motor out of the model.

The other day Norwegian Nick brought along an unfinished model to show us, an Eze Twin.The model was built from a free plan by Nigel Hawes in the January 2010 edition of the RCME mag. It’s all balsa construction and glass clothed all over except tailplane and fin which is tissue covered. The wingspan is 40” (1015mm) and the all up weight is 2lb 8oz (1135gms). Nick has fitted two ChangeSun 64mm 12 blade EDF units with 3200kv inrunner motors, and two 60A speed controllers. He’ll power it all with two 3 cell lipos of between 2200 and 3700mAh, presumably whatever is best for the correct centre of gravity.Nick just has to make a foam canopy and install the radio, and then it’ll be ready to fly. The EZE Twin is an interesting model with an unusual fuselage and its two externally mounted fans, I look forward to seeing it fly.

I took this photo the other day as I felt it showed the courage and bravery that exists in the club.Yes, it’s three brave men flying at the same time as Basher Bob! From left to right we have Catapult King flying his F-16, then it’s Dwayne Pipe showing off his Jersey holiday tan and fashion style, next is Chris P Bacon who is still saving up for some sandals, and finally Basher Bob. Basher earned his nickname by having a series of mid-airs in close succession several years ago. I don’t think any of them were actually his fault but you can’t let the truth stop a good nickname! However, more recently he has produced several scratch built models and he hasn’t had a mid-air for ages so a change of name to Bob the Builder has been proposed. I’ll give it a go; let me know what you think.

So… Bob the Builder has built another new model, it’s called Trottel (that’s German for Fool!).He found it on the RCGroups forum while looking at this years’ Club Build. For a direct link CLICK HEREThe Trottel is actually designed to be a small, tough, fun/aerobatic/full 3D model but Bob decided to increase the moment arm a little to make it a bit more docile but otherwise it’s built to the plan. The construction is almost all from Depron and features a Kline-Fogleman wing section that so many of us are now used to using. For servos, motor, and speed controller Bob simply fitted the gear he had left after the demise of his Spirit/Kinetic. It flies really well and doesn’t seem to mind windy conditions too much so is ideal for our field.

When I was at the Multiplex Airshow recently one of the pilots was showing off by prop-hanging the model whilst holding the transmitter behind his back. I’ve seen it done a few times at other shows but never thought about trying it myself. I was flying my delta the other day and suddenly thought ‘I can do that’ so I gave it a go.I should explain that I was at a safe height, half throttle, with an almost indestructible old model that I don’t care about too much! It turned out to be really easy, I had no problems at all other than not being able to hear the transmitter speaking the time. I’m not very good at prop-hanging even with everything in my favour so I haven’t attempted that but for normal flying around I found it easy. 1066 then decided he’d try it as well and, like me, managed without any trouble, the only problem he found was that it made his shoulders hurt!

Dougal Entendre (our new Chairman) recently acquired a little delta from the estate of a late aeromodelling friend.It’s very light and is made of balsa and some sort of foam, and is powered by an old Kontronic Speedy 400 6v brushed motor. The esc/bec is mounted directly on the back of the motor, that’s how some of them were manufactured in early days of electric flying. The span is just over 25” (635mm), the length is 23” (584mm) and the wing is only around ¼” (6.35mm) thick. Dougal doesn’t actually know what the model is called, several of us think it looks familiar but can’t recall a name so let Dougal know if you can identify it.It would have originally been intended for a 6 or 7 cells NiCad battery but he tested the motor set-up at home on a 3 cell lipo and it seemed fine so he brought it up to the field only to find it wasn’t working. The motor is ok so presumably a 3 cell lipo was too much for the esc so when he’s fitted another one he’ll try it on 2 cells. It looks nicely put together and I think it should fly ok although it’s probably one for calm days.

During June 1066 has been flying one of the several models that he acquired from Cyano Steve (Montague), a Precision Aerobatics Katana MX.This is very much an upmarket model when compared to the usual foamy 3D models from HobbyKing and 1066 is treating it carefully at the moment. I believe the model came with the recommended PA Thrust 50 outrunner motor and matching 70A esc and it flies on 2 x 3 cells 2200mAh lipos which give a flight time of around 6 minutes.When Cyano Steve owned it I always reckoned it was the best flying 3D model he had and I think when 1066 gets used to it he’ll get on very well. During a recent flight with the model 1066 was complaining that the motor sounded odd and it was down on power. When he landed he found the cause, can you spot it?Please email your answers to: imanidiot@proponbackwards.plonker

The final new model to fly in June was Chris P Bacon’s newly acquired Junior 60. He bought a Ben Buckle Junior 60 kit a while ago but has never got round to building it, and then he spotted this one on eBay. It is beautifully built, tissue covered, and came complete, it even included a couple of 3 cell 3350mAh lipos. The motor is an Emax BL2820/07 which swings a 12×3.8 prop and using the lipos it came with the flight times are around 12 minutes. Chris P doesn’t know how old the model is, the guy he bought it from lives on Hayling Island but the original builder was from Newark in Nottinghamshire. It flies exactly as you’d expect for a Junior 60, slowly and majestically.

Thanks go to Kryten, Dougal, Captain Slow, and Catapult King for their contributions of pics and video this month.

Time for this month’s video:

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

Remember: Helicopters can’t fly; they’re just so ugly the earth repels them!

Colin Cowplain

May was quite an eventful month, we had baking hot days, storms with very heavy rain, and cows that came and went again. Unfortunately the cows were in the field when we had a couple of days of really intense rain and they appeared to have decided our patch was the best place to gather. It’s been churned up really badly and although they’ve now been moved to another field it will take quite a while for the patch to recover. Wonky Wiltshire send me this photo that illustrates the problem well, it ripped an undercarriage leg clean out of his Hurricane.The cows left us their usual ‘presents’ but this time it covered a large area of the patch completely. Catapult King’s Speedy has to be landed at speed to avoid tip stalling and he picked the wrong area to slide through. Yuk! The normally polite Gentleman Jim commented that it was a crap landing! There were several new models that had their first flights during May, so I’ve got plenty to talk about. First up is Tony Neil’s new Tundra which is yet another model that’s produced by HobbyKing.He spotted the Tundras were in one of their sales at a knockdown price and immediately snapped one up. It’s a Plug’n’Fly one so comes complete with everything, a 3636-950Kv motor, a 40A esc, the prop, 6 servos, flaps, and even floats in case you want to try flying off water. Tony said assembling the undercarriage was the biggest job. Tundras are 1300mm (51”) span so a decent size, plenty of space for a variety of batteries, and they look like a lot of fun. I’ve only seen Tony have one flight so far but it looked good and performed really well.You can see some of that first flight in this month’s video at the end of Patch News.

Last month I featured Dougal Entendre’s new Ghost Rider 50 when he’d said he may change the motor as it sounded pretty rough. Well he’s now changed it for a Turnigy 3542/6 1000Kv but initially found it was very noisy, he reckoned it sounded like a 40 I/C engine!However, at the suggestion of 1066, he then tried it without the spinner and the problem was immediately solved. So if you have a noisy model try removing the spinner, it may just make the difference. Some of the cheap plastic ones can be well out of balance, it’s not just props that can produce vibration.

While I’m on the subject of Dougal, he has become the latest member of the Stool Club. He found this one kicking around his garage and said it’s years old and has become a bit stiff to unfold, or as he put it, ‘a nice firm stool’!That should get the comments flying again…

Basher Bob has been at it again. No, not mid-airs this time, but he did manage to knock the nose off his Wot-4 when he cartwheeled it on landing. I’d blame the state of the patch Basher.Fortunately it was a clean break so it was easily mended and soon flying again.

One day in May as I was driving down the track I spotted this in the field:I’ve seen  a few hares over the years but never a deer in almost 40 years of flying there.

Woody has bought himself a nice new Edge 540T. Rather like Tony’s Tundra, Woody spotted the Edge on sale at a knockdown price on the HobbyKing site and hit the Buy button. We’ll have no ‘Cor, look at that pile of dung’ comments thank you!It’s one of the larger EPP/light ply ones at 1430mm span and needs a 4 or 5 cell lipo, with Woody opting to use some 5 cell 4500mAh packs he already has. It comes as airframe only and Woody has fitted a Turnigy Aerodrive SK4250-500kv motor driving a 14×7 prop. The speed controller is an 80A Turnigy Plush and the servos are metal geared Corona DV339HVs. It looks like there’s plenty of room to squeeze the lipo in somewhere. And then there were two. Dougal did the first take-off and trimming as he owns an identical model and was happy to report that it was just about perfect. Woody took the controls after a couple of minutes and headed for the stratosphere as usual! Better safe than sorry Woody, three mistakes high is never a bad thing.

It’s just as well that he’s bought a new model, as Woody recently managed to pull the wings off his Ugly Stick at an altitude of about 200 feet. As you can imagine the end result wasn’t pretty but to be fair it really wasn’t Woody’s fault so I declined to take any photos.

Catapult King wasn’t so kind to me when I buried my Wingnetic the other day. I have to admit that it was totally my own fault, I got carried away with multiple twinkle rolls and I had trouble deciding quite when to release the aileron. When I eventually did, I pulled full up only to realise that the plane was inverted!It went in flat out from about 40 feet and I was amazed at how little damage there was. It was soon repaired and is now flying again…rather more slowly and carefully!

Most of you will know by now that Doreen and I flew to Stuttgart in Germany in mid-May to visit the Multiplex Airshow at Bruchsal. I won’t bore you all any more about it but if you’d like to see the official Multiplex video just CLICK HERE. The Squire snapped this photo of me in all the Multiplex clothing I bought at the show.I might look a prat but notice he also caught the club drunk in the background!

Some of us flew gliders from the lower field (to avoid the bullocks) one Friday afternoon when the weather was turning stormy. I took two photos, one facing south and the other facing north. The storm clouds provided a lot of lift and my glider soon became a tiny dot so I spun it back down to a more manageable height. I was aware that the transmitter was speaking my altitude but was too busy straining to see the dot to pay too much attention. When I landed I photographed the screen showing the maximum altitude reached.520 metres is 1706 feet, certainly the highest I’ve flown since I bought that system. By the way, as we are not in controlled airspace and the model is not a ‘large’ model I didn’t break any rules, we are not height restricted.

Terribull has been flying an uprated version of his Weekender recently having built a new wing for it.The original 3 channel version flew well enough but Terribull decided it would be even better with the full 4 channels so he built a new wing without any dihedral and added ailerons. The model flew perfectly well with the new wing but it looked a bit strange, or in Terry’s words ‘horrible’. Shouldn’t that have been ‘terrible’? Anyway, he built yet another wing, they only take a couple of days apparently, but this time he added ¼” dihedral under each tip.With this wing the model looks much better, flies extremely well, and Terribull declared it to be a success. He is now thinking of producing a few kits of the model so if you’d like to build one for yourself speak to Terribull.

Dougal sent me this pic he took of me and said it looks as if I’m holding the transmitter upside down. It’s the future Dougal, the Multiplex future! The new transmitters have ‘ IOAT (Integrated Optimised Antenna Technology) an integral aerial with enhanced radiation pattern, optimised for model control, double the signal density transmitted to the model, offering a significant enhancement in security.’Yes, I must admit they do look a bit odd at first but you soon get used to them. Captain Slow was obviously impressed by mine as he has now sold almost all of his Spektrum gear and bought a new Cockpit SX 9 identical to mine. It performs perfectly but unfortunately it refuses to accept a charge and has to be returned to Lindinger in Austria. OK, just to keep you Spektrum guys happy I’ll say it… Bloody Multiplex…!

Last month I included a photo of Cream Egg shaking my hand having passed his ‘A’ certificate. The actual certificate is normally presented by the Chairman at a club meeting but in this case some pillock (me) forgot to take the certificate along to the meeting. So, a little late and in the wrong place, here is Cream Egg being presented with his certificate at the field by Vice-Chairman Dougal Entendre.Well done Mike.

Gorgeous Gary has built a gorgeous new model, a Black Horse Midget Mustang. This is what the Black Horse website says about it: Modelled on one of the most famous post war racing aircraft, the Black Horse Midget Mustang EP will turn heads wherever she flies. That stunning red and yellow colour scheme is both pretty and functional by making visibility good at most attitudes. Black Horse also produce a larger version.It certainly looks fantastic, a really pretty little model. I emailed Gary to request details about the powertrain and the reply came back “Sat in 29 degrees centigrade with a cold beer, back Friday”! So I don’t have any details of the powertrain other than that it has an OS electric motor and flies on a 3 cell lipo. The model is 1000mm span so isn’t big and, as you’d expect from scale model of a racing aircraft, it’s quite quick. Sadly Gary’s turned out to be very twitchy and although I thought he’d got the better of it, the first flight ended in disaster when it was time to land. I hope he repairs it, the damage wasn’t too bad and it looked superb in the air as you can see in this month’s video.

Time for a couple of ‘golden oldie’ photos now, firstly our President Don Eades with what at the time was his latest pattern ship, and secondly OMG look at those shorts, it’s Stanley Knife! Dougal Entendre tried to enhance his prop hanging skills last weekend by adding an old helicopter gyro to his Hummer. He linked it to the ailerons with the idea that it would be one less thing to worry about when prop hanging but apparently 1066 said he thought Dougal was better without it!Nice neat wiring there Dougal. Personally I would have thought the way to go would be to add it to the rudder but with the gyro mounted so that it controlled the rudder when the model was vertical? I’ll have to think about how to do that, if I figure it out I might try it on my own Hummer. Watch this crash space.

The last new model that I spotted during May was Gentleman Jim’s extremely nice new Pepperpot, a 1245mm (49”) span sports model produced by Phoenix Models. This is from the Phoenix Model Products website: The Pepperpot is a 4/5 channel stylish electric power sports aerobatic model that has a spritely performance. With a typical 4/500w 3542 size motor and using 3S 22/2700mA lipos the Pepperpot is both a delight to fly and build and will attract complements on both fronts. The all wood easy build construction follows the now well proven path of other models in our range in that it incorporates a fully sheeted built-up wing with a comprehensive collection of cut part and accessories. Jim says it’s definitely a ‘builders’ model and that is just what Stan Yeo of Phoenix intended. Jim has fitted it with a 3542 1250Kv motor, a 60A ESC, 9×6 Prop and a 2200mAh 3 cell lipo. He has made a very nice job of both the build and the covering and has finished up with a very pretty model. I was asked to do the first flight and am happy to report that the model was one of those that immediately felt right. We took-off and landed several times while we played around with the rates and expo a bit and discovered that it uses very little power from the battery.It really is a nice flier, loads of power and fully aerobatic but equally happy stooging around at less than half throttle and flight times of around ten minutes are easy possible.

Now for a few assorted photos from Catapult King and Kryten, thanks chaps:

It was great to see the return to flying of Chris P Bacon following his recent triple heart bypass operation. Personally I didn’t realise he had one heart let alone three!Good to see you back Nigel.

Time for this month’s video:

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

Did you hear about the airline pilot who bragged that when he was born he was offered the choice of either a large manhood or a fantastic memory? Apparently he can’t remember which one he chose…

Colin Cowplain

No flying this Sunday 7th May 2017, as the field will be used as a car park for the South Downs Green Fair at the Sustainability Centre.
There will be no flying for safety reasons.