Patch News – April 2017
After the pretty lousy weather we endured in March things were much better in April, the winds that had been so prevalent in March eased a lot and there was virtually no rain.. Unusually even Easter had good flying weather. Of course nothing is perfect and we had the joy of a herd of bullocks join us in the field for part of the month.
They’ve gone again now although they will obviously return at some point, and I imagine some sheep will also make an appearance before too long. Don’t forget that the South Downs Green Fair is being held at the Sustainability Centre on Sunday 7th May and our field will be used as a car park so there will be no flying that day.
Congratulations are due to Mike Creamer who took and passed his ‘A’ cert on Good Friday.
Mike moved up a notch from flying his Pandora trainer to a Wot 4 and it took him a couple of months to get used it, otherwise I’m sure he would have passed earlier. Well done Mike, now you can learn to fly properly! I’m thinking that Mike needs a nickname so, as he passed the test over Easter and seems a good egg, how about Cream Egg? Other suggestions are welcome…
Several new models turned up at the patch in April, and we seem to have slipped into retro mode as both Dougal and I built models the 60’s and 70’s. First up is Dougal’s Ghost Rider 50, a David Boddington design from 1974.
It was originally designed for galloping ghost radio systems and if you don’t know what that was you’d better Google it! This is what Dougal has to say about it: When I first joined Epsom Radio Flying Club in 1977, all the expert fliers seemed to have Ghost Rider 50s. The tricycle undercarriage certainly helped on the rough strip at the Boxhill field. I think the original David Boddington design was for 25-size engines, but the Epsom crowd seemed to favour flat foam wings and 40-size power plants, which made it very neutrally stable (if a bit overpowered). One of my instructors gave me a go on his when I was getting confident with my 3-channel trainer, and I found it a real handful, but it gave me a lot of confidence. I went on to build two of the smaller Ghost Rider 38s for my Enya 19BB, and they were a lot of fun, but I always wanted a ’50, and somehow never got round to it.
So 40 years on, here I am with one at last. The wings are cut from white foam, with poplar veneer (obechi is getting hard to come by) attached using Gorilla Glue. They seem very strong. I enlarged the fin, rudder and elevator a bit, and also beefed up the fuselage with 1/32″ ply doublers at the front. I knew from my Fun 3 that a 35mm 1000kV motor on a 4s lipo would give similar power to a 40-size IC, so that’s what I used. However, the CopterX motor I found on Ebay seems a bit rough and noisy, so I may replace it with a Turnigy motor identical to the one I used in the Fun 3. It’s got tons of power though, and my 4s 3300mAh packs last about 5 and a half minutes.
The model flies really well and you can see it in action in this month’s video at the end of this Patch News.
The other retro model first flown in April was my Sharkface that I pictured part built in last month’s edition.
The original was a single channel (rudder only) model designed in 1965 by Eric Clutton and in those days many people fitted them with Cox .049 glow-plug engines, although the design says for up to 1.5cc so some modellers fitted one of the small diesel engines that were popular in the sixties. In March this year RCM&E re-issued the original plan along with an article by Shaun Garrity and also added a Mk2 version of the plan which updated it for modern radio by adding an elevator. To be honest I couldn’t spot any real differences between the two plans apart from a line indicating the elevator hinge point, the plan still shows an I/C engine even though the accompanying article features electric powered models. Mine is electric powered of course and I simply copied Shaun’s choice of motor and used a HobbyKing Donkey ST2004-1550Kv which costs less than a fiver and is suitable for 2 or 3 cells.
I gather many people are flying their Sharkfaces on small 2 cell packs but I have lots of 3 cell 1000mAh lipos so I’m using those. I added a hatch to save having to remove the wings when swapping batteries, something that is shown in the article but not on the plan, but otherwise it’s built pretty much to the plan. I didn’t bother trying to save weight at all and it came out at 11.3 ounces (320 grams) including the lipo. The article mentions 9 ounces for modern ones and I would imagine mine would be around that if I used a smaller 2 cell lipo. The original single channel ones weighed around 15 ounces, the radio was bigger and heavier in the sixties despite only having one channel! To be properly retro it should be tissue and dope covered of course but I used Solarfilm instead. As the model is only 22” span, and pretty nippy with it, it makes sense to use bright colours so when I rummaged through my box of film and found some very garish pink and bright yellow that seemed ideal. There have been comments about it being a little bit gay; I have no idea how anyone could have got that idea!
It’s very quick and simple to build, mine only took a week to complete and it flies extremely well. I don’t think anyone could tell it doesn’t have ailerons from the flying performance, it rolls pretty quickly on rudder alone although I must admit I struggle to fly it inverted as it constantly tries to roll itself back upright. I’m far too tight to buy the magazine so Basher Bob lent me the article and plan. On the day I returned it Dwayne Pipe promptly borrowed it again so I think there will soon be at least one more Sharkface in the club. I know I won’t get away without mentioning a small epilogue to the tale. I first flew mine on 2nd April and have already had many flights with it, but later in the month I got disorientated and performed a slightly heavy landing. OK, I admit it, I crashed!
Fortunately the damage was easily repaired and I flew it again the following day but it does highlight the importance of making them brightly covered and keeping fairly close in when flying.
While I’m on the subject of retro models, I recently stumbled across a photo of ten PAM members holding their Top Dawg models. In the photo, from left to right, back row: Reg Street, Ian Hewlett, Viv Burgess, Ken Boucher, and Don Hoolahan. Front row: Dave Rice, Mike Upton, Don Eades, Andy Palmer, and Harold Bolwell.
The Top Dawg was a 36” span Ken Willard design from 1966 and it was in the period when radio sets were changing quickly so it was capable of being flown with either single channel radio, galloping ghost, or multi-channel reed sets.
It was intended for engines ranging from the little Cox .049 (0.8cc) up to .15cu in. (2.5cc) and PAM chose it for their Club Build model one year using .15 engines. If I remember correctly about fifteen were built, all three channel, rudder, elevator, and throttle, no ailerons, and they all flew well. Like the Sharkface they all rolled well and didn’t suffer from the lack of ailerons. Most were fitted with the cheap and ever reliable OS15 but a couple, including President Don’s, used a Taipan 15 rear exhaust engine that was more powerful although proved to be less reliable. Oddly, despite their Japanese sounding name Taipans were actually designed and manufactured in Australia.
My Top Dawg was the last I/C powered model that I built, before building my first electric model in August 1991 so I would imagine the group photo was taken in 1990. Oddly enough my Top Dawg was the only plane I’ve had catch fire! I was starting the engine one day when it backfired and ignited some unburnt fuel in the silencer that promptly set fire to the film covering on the wing. Fortunately I was able to immediately throw a damp cloth onto the wing and the only damage was a small burnt patch of the wing covering. That’s not the best photo I’ve ever seen of me!
Basher Bob has been at it again. No, this time I mean balsa bashing, although there wouldn’t have been much of it to complete his latest model, a balsa built Wot 4-E Mk2 ARTF. This one is slightly smaller than original size Wot 4 at 47” span. Ripmax say it’s 80% scale but that would mean the original was 58.75” span, I thought it was 53”. Not sure, anyway this one is designed specifically for electric power using 3 cell batteries of around 2200mAh capacity.
It uses a lighter wooden construction method than the larger one, a fibreglass cowl, an aluminium undercarriage and, being specifically for electric power, an easy access battery hatch. I’m not sure what motor Bob originally fitted but it didn’t sound very well so he’s now swapped it to an ex-Calmato motor and that seems much better. It pulls about 400 watts on 3 cells but, Basher being Basher, he sometimes uses 4 cells for a bit more fun!
It goes very well, in fact it flies just as well as all the Wot 4s fly. I’d love to know how many Wot 4s have been made since Chris Foss designed the original in 1977, there are now more versions available than ever before so my guess would be in the tens of thousands. Hang on, 1977, does that mean Basher’s Wot 4 is yet another retro model?!
The next new one is definitely not a retro model, it’s Catapult King’s new FT-3D or as he calls it The Bug. The FT part of the name is Flite Test which is an American web-based company that produces a large range of models, either plans or kit form, mostly made of Depron or foam board. The website has lots of videos, articles on equipment etc, and as well as the models they also sell lots of the electronic parts we use, in fact almost everything you are likely to need to build a model. It’s well worth a look at their website: Flite Test
Back to the model; it’s virtually all Depron construction, with just a balsa spar to provide some strength to the wing.
The motor is a Turnigy 2830-1000Kv, and Catapult drives it with a 3 cell 1300mAh Zippy battery and it spins a 10×4.7 prop. So that’s basically the same set-up as many of us use in our Hummers. The symmetrical wing is made using one piece of Depron that is folded over to form the leading edge and only glued at the spar position (there is no leading edge as such). Catapult added the packing tape covering before folding the Depron back on itself to prevent it from snapping. The whole model is covered in the same tape and the overlaps produce the stripes that look so good. I don’t imagine it was very easy to get the stripe pattern nice and even like that.
The Bug is also unusual in that it uses a Flite Test Power Pod, a Depron structure that holds the motor, battery, and speed controller, which can slide out of the model and then slide straight into a different model. Look at the website, it will make more sense! Catapult decided it needed a bit more character so he added the eyes and mouth and transformed it into The Bug. I like it, it looks like something out of a Disney cartoon! 1066 did the initial flight tests and I’ve also flown it. The finished model is very light and needs fairly calm conditions but seems good so far. It is supposed to be capable of all the basic 3D manoeuvres so we shall soon be seeing great things from Catapult.
The last new model that I captured was The Squire’s new Wingnetic, the prize he won in the last big raffle.
Not much to say about the Wingnetic, except they are a flying wing development of the Kinetic mini glider and, like the Kinetic, they fly extremely well. There are several in the club, including my own, and they are great to just chuck in the car and fly. In this month’s video you’ll see that 1066 did the initial trimming and The Squire happily flew it from then onwards. Would you like one? Well like so many other things the prices are going up but right now the Plug’n’Fly version is cheaper from Rapid RC Models than from HobbyKing.
The highlight of April occurred when Gentleman Jim turned up at the patch with a combined rucksack and seat. It’s actually called a Dunlop Fishing Stool and Rucksack but it suits our purposes as well as fishermen and costs just £19.99 from Argos. I liked it immediately and bought one for myself, then a few days later Basher Bob joined in.
Since the photo was taken Woody has also succumbed, and then there were four! I see that online there are similar versions available from other manufacturers, so if you’d like to join the Stool Club search online and take your pick.
Catapult was good enough to send me several photos that he took during April, here’s a selection for you to enjoy:
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
This month’s joke was provided by Dougal so any complaints should be directed to him please. If you don’t understand it either watch Top Gun or ask Woody:
“I got kicked out of karaoke night for singing “Danger Zone” six times in a row…
They said I exceeded my maximum number of Loggins attempts.”
Colin Cowplain
Patch News – March 2017
Well March certainly lived up to the old rhyme “March winds and April showers…” Let’s hope the April showers aren’t as prolific as the March winds have been. We still managed to get some flying in although on the really windy days it was left to the more experienced fliers. As usual the Sundays seemed to get the worst of the weather.
Whatever happened to the ‘good old days’ when we would fly in virtually any conditions? I found this old photo of one such idiot, no idea who it is but he’s flying a Splot with what looks like an OS 4-stroke.
I’m not sure if he’s wrapped up against the elements or if he’s expecting a chemical warfare attack!
We heard a couple of bits of sad news during March; firstly that Mick Preedy had passed away on the 19th February. Mick was a long term modeller and had been a PAM member for quite a few years. I first met him back in the sixties when he was flying control-line stunt models along with our President Don Eades. In those days he lived in Madeline Road in Petersfield and later he moved to West Meon where he lived for the rest of his life. Mick is probably best described as a ‘character’; he could turn his hand to anything and was always willing to help anyone who needed it. Several current and ex-members of PAM attended his funeral on 9th March, which, although it sounds a bit odd, was the most enjoyable funeral I’ve attended. I’ve certainly never been to one where the processional music was by Jimi Hendrix, excellent!
The other piece of sad news we heard was the death of Ralph Hubbard who died a week after crashing a toboggan on the Cresta Run in Switzerland on 15th February. Ralph was the pilot who used to fly over our patch in either his Tiger Moth or Yak and would often treat us to aerobatic displays. He even landed the Tiger in the field a couple of times and came to say hello. I spoke to him of the last occasion and he said he’d tried flying radio control models but it was too difficult so he stuck to full-size!
When Basher Bob built a Tiger Moth last year he finished it in the colours of Ralph’s Tiger G-APMX, so his memory will still be flown at the field. Although none of us could say we knew Ralph we all appreciated his impromptu displays and he will be missed.
March didn’t see much in the way of new models, one of only two I spotted was Gentleman Jim’s Red Eagle electric glider. The Red Eagle was designed by Ton van Munsteren and featured as an RCM&E article along with a free plan.
My photo editor has an ‘enhance’ button to improve the quality of photos. Sometimes it produces odd effects, this is what happened when I enhanced the one above!
RBC Kits in the Netherlands produce a laser cut kit of the model and that’s the route that Jim took. It’s a 2 metre span 3 channel model, so it doesn’t have ailerons, just rudder, elevator, and throttle controls. There has been quite a lot of magazine coverage and forum features of the Red Eagle and there have also been some comps specifically for them so it’s a well rated design. Jim has made a lovely job of his Red Eagle and has fitted it out with a 28-30 1000kV motor with a 10 x 6 prop, a 30A esc, and a 2200mAh 3 cell lipo pack.
I was looking forward to the test flight but then spotted that one wing had developed a warp. It was strange as I had examined the model when Jim was assembling it down by the cars and it all looked straight, but having sat in the sunshine for a hour a twist had developed in the right hand wing. We decided to fly it anyway and it duly took to the air. All was well apart from the twisted wing making it a bit difficult to keep straight so having proved the power train etc. was ok we called it a day and Jim went off to do some straightening. He said the trailing edge wood provided in the kit had been very soft and thinks it wasn’t up to the job, so he has now stripped off the covering and stiffened the structure somewhat. Once he’s got it all covered again we’ll have another go and I’m sure it will be a good performer so look for a full report in the next Patch News.
The other new model that flew was Basher Bob’s Bitty. The Bitty was a free plan in RCM&E and is billed as ‘perfect for the slope or piggy-back launching’. It’s a tiny two channel glider that in Basher’s case is launched from his Seagull Swift. The original plan shows a conventional built-up balsa wing with a lifting section but Basher has modified it by building a Depron wing with a Kline Fogleman section featuring two steps. It has balsa leading and trailing edges and a carbon spar to provide the strength.
Other than the wing the Bitty is as per plan and features rudder and elevator controls with the servos and receiver being powered by a tiny single cell lipo via a voltage booster. Basher has constructed a Depron cradle that is simply rubber banded to the Swift wing and carries the Bitty. The Bitty is held in the cradle by a rubber band that hooks over a servo arm. Once a suitable height is reached, the servo releases the band and the Bitty glides back to earth.
Well that’s the theory anyway, although in practice it hasn’t worked quite that perfectly so far. The main problem seems to be holding the Bitty in place firmly but not too firmly that it won’t release. The Swift flies faster than the Bitty’s flying speed so it tries to lift out of the cradle and tends to tip to one side or the other. On some flights it released itself, presumably the forces pulled the band off the servo prematurely, but every flight was completed safely and neither the Swift nor the Bitty suffered any damage.
So Basher has gone back to the workshop to make a few changes to the cradle, and hopefully the next time out will be better. The glide angle of the Bitty wasn’t too good so while he’s in the workshop Basher is also building a wing with a lifting section as per plan. You can see the very first flight in this month’s video at the end of Patch News.
1066 has invested some of his hard earned cash in a piece of new technology that has just become available. It’s the Hitec HUD System, the HUD standing for Head Up Display. It uses the telemetry capability of the transmitter but instead of having to glance down at the tx screen the information is projected onto the inside of the goggles.
It’s a bit like FPV but rather than looking at a TV screen mounted inside goggles the user is looking at the model in the usual way but through the goggles. They use something called Polar Foil to display the information but they just looks like tinted goggles from the outside. The system seems to work very well and as you can see Steve loves it.
Time for another old photo now, not sure how long ago this was taken or what the event was but the hard hats make me think it was a pylon race competition. I was flying electric, my Two Fun-Eee, so it must have been within the last 22 years or so! How many can you name? Answers below the photo.
Standing, left to right: Ken Boucher, Ian Hewlett, Don Eades, Mick Harper, Frank Buckland, Keith Garner, Den Figgins, Reg Street, Graham Head, Doreen Palmer, Don Hoolahan, Dave Rice. Kneeling, left to right: Mike Upton, Andy Palmer, Geoff Berry, Chas Butler.
Those of you that have been to the patch this month will be aware that I have bought another piece of incredibly useful technology (toy). You’ll be aware because it’s probably annoyed you with all the bleeping and talking! It’s a multi-function telemetry sensor, a UniSens–E made by SM Modellbau that simply plugs between the esc and lipo.
It will display on the transmitter screen and, if you wish, speak the same functions as the Multiplex current sensors that I sometimes use i.e. motor current, mAh consumed, and voltage reaching the receiver. But in addition it also senses the motor rpm, the lipo pack voltage, and it has a vario and an altimeter. The vario is similar to that used in full-size gliders, it beeps rising tones when the model is climbing, and descending tones when it’s sinking. The altimeter speaks the height of the model above the launch point in metres. There are many settings, alarms etc. that can be programmed and various things that can be switched on or off during the flight. The beeping of the vario can be a bit annoying after a while if it’s not actually being used for search out lift so I can switch it off if I want. I have been using it in my ASK-21 motor glider and after a few flights with the transmitter speaking every piece of info it was receiving I changed on it to just tell me how many mAh I had used from the battery, and the altitude.
By using a spare receiver channel it’s possible to switch between ‘live’ reading, max readings, or min readings. So I can fly around listening to the ‘live’ readings of how high I am, how much I’ve taken out of the battery, but can switch at any time to hear the maximum height I reached during the flight, even after I’ve landed, right up to the time I switch off the transmitter. I tried to video the screen and record the beeps and speech whilst flying but the quality was very poor so you are spared that little pleasure. But here’s a photo I took of the screen after I landed from one flight during which I went about as high as I dared.
388 metres is 1273 feet, pretty high with a 2 metre span glider. The sensor will work with a variety of radio systems, not just Multiplex. So if you use Futaba, FR Sky, Jeti, Graupner, JR, or Spektrum (with an adaptor) that is telemetry compatible you too could use this very clever bit of kit. Note that it is not compatible with Hitec, presumably the Hitec operating system is very different and that’s why they have chosen to go for the HUD system that 1066 has purchased. Obviously the Unisens-E is most useful if your transmitter has speech capability but that’s not essential. It’s available with a variety of connectors, not just XT60’s and costs just 65 Euros.
Apparently nobody spotted that the blurry photo in Patch News last month was of Dougal Entendre (AKA Mark Agate). It’s not really surprising, even his wife Angie didn’t recognise him! Perhaps this equally blurred photo of Dougal from a similar era will be more recognisable.
Judging by his nostrils it was taken during the coke snorting years!
I’m a bit short of material this month so I’ll show you what I’m building at the moment. It’s quite a while since I actually built a proper balsa model from a plan but this one shouldn’t tax me too much, it’s a 22” span Sharkface.
It was a free plan in a recent RCM&E but was originally designed for single channel radio in 1965 by Eric Clutton. I was flying single channel models in1965 and remember the Sharkface very well. I didn’t build one but my flying mate Bill Carter did although I don’t remember how it flew. Bill’s was powered by a Cox 049 and used RCS Guidance System radio. Mine will be the updated version, electric powered of course, and will have an elevator and throttle, not just a rudder! It’s much further along than in the photo and I’m hoping to fly it on the first Sunday in April.
Kryten has been busy taking quality photos again this month and I’ve included some below. They are Basher Bob’s now deceased Splob, Colin Cowplain’s Raptor, Dwayne Pipe with his glider, Basher’s Walrus, and finally Dwayne’s Spitfire dropping its undercarriage, great shots, thanks Kryten.
OK, it’s 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
No joke this month, instead I leave you with a couple of photos. Woody decided he owed me a favour and ordered a couple of printed T-shirts, one for each of us. They pay homage to Woody’s favourite film!
Thanks Woody…I think!
Colin Cowplain
Patch News – February 2017
February is a short month and I’m off to Marrakech at the end of it so I’m making an early start on Patch News, I’ve begun writing this edition on 18th February. Hopefully I’ll be sprawled out by a pool in the sun when you read this.
The first couple of weeks of the month were not good for flying, wet and windy with quite a lot of low cloud and fog thrown in for good measure. But it seems to be improving now and today is absolutely glorious, let’s hope it lasts. (It didn’t). But some Sundays still saw a good turnout at the patch despite the gloom.
I’ll begin by following on from a couple of disasters I had in January. If you read the January blog you’ll know that firstly, I managed to lose my Spirit mini-glider when it disappeared into cloud (at great height) and I didn’t see it emerge so had very little idea where to look for it. And secondly, my new F-22 Raptor failed to get away from its very first launch and the two second ‘flight’ ended abruptly with a very broken nose.
Well February was much more successful. Firstly, I found the Spirit. Or I should say my wife found it. Almost a week after it vanished we were driving towards the field from the Old Winchester Hill direction when Doreen suddenly said she could see it! It was on the far side of the valley, about 2/3rds of the way up. I can’t work out why we didn’t spot it earlier; it was certainly visible from the road alongside the field and probably from the patch. Anyway I hiked off and retrieved it and found that, although the airframe was a not repairable, the electronics seemed basically ok.
In the time it had been lost the weather had been foul so everything was very wet, but after a thorough drying out of all the parts everything worked perfectly. So that’s the motor, esc, 4 servos, and receiver that have lived to fly another day. Unsurprisingly the lipo seems to have developed a dodgy cell so that’s been binned. I salvaged all the usable airframe fittings and scrapped the rest. I’ve already used one of the carbon wing spars, the Depron fuselage of my Euro Fun-Fighter was too flexible so I cut a slot and glued in a Spirit wing spar, it worked a treat.
The second success was with the Raptor. I managed to make a reasonable job of the repairs once I’d worked out how to straighten out crushed polystyrene. The hot water trick that works well with EPO foam seemed to do nothing at all to polystyrene but steaming the parts and gently pulling them back to shape worked fairly well. I ended up gluing pieces of crushed fuselage to Depron sticks so I could hold them over the spout of a kettle for long enough to heat them through! Eventually I jig sawed it all back together and added a little extra strength where possible. The end result wasn’t too bad, especially from the top, and it was certainly good enough for another attempt at flight.
For the second attempt at flight I used an 1800mAh lipo instead of a 1300 which brought the C of G forward a bit, and I reduced both aileron and elevator rates a little. Success! It went away from the launch pretty well and I was able to get it trimmed out fairly quickly. At the time of writing it’s had 19 flights with no more problems. It’s got pretty good power for an edf model and will do large loops without falling off the top. It’s nice to fly now I’ve sorted the rates and expo to comfortable levels and looks good in the air. Also, importantly in these sensitive times, it’s pretty quiet for an edf, not nearly as noisy as some, and it’s actually quite a pleasant sound. Some of the first successful flight was recorded by Dougal Entendre and it can be seen in the video at the end of this Patch News.
Also in the video is part of the first flight of Catapult King’s Pulse’ish back in January, as recorded by Modelling Clay.
This month has seen lots of success stories. Last month I reported that Dwayne Pipe’s Mk19 Spitfire had flown successfully although I hadn’t seen it myself and had no photos or video of the event. But now I have, it’s flown several times and very nicely too. At first Dwayne had no undercarriage fitted and had to rely on hand-launches, but wanting to be able to take-off he retro fitted a non-scale one.
This worked well enough but really didn’t look too good in the air. So now he has developed a drop-off undercarriage that is servo released, so he can take-off, drop the U/C on the first pass over the patch, fly around looking like a Spit should, and then belly land when the time comes. It works a treat and the first take-off and U/C drop features in the monthly video along with some of an earlier flight and an ‘interesting’ landing. I think Dwayne didn’t want his landing filmed so he decided to try and scare the cameraman (me) out of the way!
Chris P Bacon has also had success, eventually, sort of…! I gave Chris P lots of stick last month for fitting his new Wot 4 with one of those dirty, noisy, smelly I/C engines, an SC52 4-stroke that he bought second-hand. At the beginning of the month Chris P brought it up to the patch on 4 occasions and took it home again each time without flying it. There were various problems, all engine related, but eventually he got everything sorted and flew it.
It flies well (of course it does, it’s a Wot 4) and performs much as you would expect. Chris P is having a few problems getting the tick-over slow enough to land nicely and on one flight he asked me to land it. I did a low pass and could see that the undercarriage had rotated about 45 degrees to the right! It seems that the vibration from the engine had shaken the retaining screws loose and one had fallen out. I came in to do a very gentle landing, expecting the plane to suddenly veer offline when the wheels touched but instead, the other screw came out and the whole undercarriage fell off!. Fortunately there was no other damage so with the help of a couple of screws and some thread lock it will soon be flying again.
Remember the tale of Captain Slow’s Art-Tech Diamond? In short, the motor threw a prop blade and the whole of the front of the model was torn apart by the vibration! The model was repaired but the supplied and pre-fitted motor continued to give fixing problems. So Captain Slow decided it had to go and fortunately, realising the Spirit nose was similar to the Diamond, he was able to graft on a Spirit motor mount.
Since taking this photo he has completed the repairs and fitted a Spirit motor and folding prop, and the model has had several successful flights. So you could say a deceased Spirit has returned from the grave…
Time for a quick competition: No prize, but can anyone spot which current club member is in this very blurred pic?
It was taken from a video that is several years old. Do you think he looks like the same young man in the red boiler suit in this photo? Well it’s not!
That is a very young Phil ‘Wonky’ Wiltshire, taken during a PAM pylon race competition many moons ago.
February 19th saw four new models being test flown; people must have been waiting for decent weather. First up is a new delta from 1066. It’s the same wing planform as the Delta Challenge models but this time he has gone for a three step Kline-Fogleman section and has fitted a 6mm square carbon spar.
As you can see it has a profile fuselage on the top of the wing but there’s a box underneath to house all the gear. The model is mostly Depron but has some Correx to strengthen the underside for landing. I made the mistake of taking one photo and then saying ‘Now show me the bottom’…
Oh dear! 1066 has fitted a larger motor than in his previous delta, this one has a 35mm 1400kv motor, the previous one had a 28mm 1200kv. He’s also upped the esc to a 60A and fitted a 9 x 6 prop. I think it looks much nicer than the earlier version; the multi-colour packing tape finish works well. It flew well but the testing was cut short by a so far undiagnosed radio problem (bloody Hitec…no hang on, they own the totally perfect Multiplex!). I didn’t manage to get any video of it flying yet but hopefully I’ll manage to take some to include next month.
John Warren brought along his newly completed Sunday Flier. John flew a Sunday Flier to death (literally!) for several years and he liked it so much that he decided to build a new one.
The first one was built donkeys years ago from a magazine free plan and was fitted with an I/C engine. When John joined PAM he swapped it over to an electric set-up and eventually added ailerons, the original design being rudder/elevator. The new model has proper inset ailerons on the lower wing, and a purpose-built battery housing in the top of the fuselage between the cabane struts.
Sadly the first flight didn’t go to plan (I blame the test pilot, some bloke called Colin Cowplain!). The model took off with virtually full right rudder to try to keep her straight and despite the application of full right on both rudder and ailerons the model went round to the left and crashed close to the pits area. Not good. Dougal Entendre recorded the whole short flight and edited ‘highlights’ are in this month’s video. The wings survived pretty much unscathed but I fear a new fuselage is required. I’m sure John will soon have it rebuilt and flying successfully.
Modelling Clay was given a pass-out (he’s a newly-wed you know) and brought along two new models, a Splot that be built from the plans, and a HobbyKing Extra 330LX that he was one of his many, many large raffle wins.
The Splot was built pretty much as per plan but converted to electric power of course. He fitted a 28-36 1400kV NTM Prop Drive motor, a 40A speed controller, and a 2200mAh 3 cell lipo. Using a 10 x 6 prop it pulls around 490 watts so with a weight of just 2.1lbs it’s got loads of power.
Modelling used Emax metal geared servos, and covered it in HobbyKing film. I reckon it looks really nice.
I get confused with all of Modelling’s raffle prizes, there have been so many, but this one is a HobbyKing Extra 330LX with a profile fuselage, a wingspan of 1200mm, and it’s mostly made from EPP foam. It has a lightweight ply frame to stiffen the fuselage and carbon reinforcement in high stress areas.
He used a 12 x 6 prop on a 42-35 750kV NTM Prop Drive motor for the first flights but says he’s going to swap to 13 x 8 prop for more power. The motor is powered by a 3000mAh 4 cell lipo via a 70A speed controller.
At the moment he’s getting around 600watts but that will increase with the larger prop, and with an all up weight of 3.2 lbs he should have plenty of power for prop hanging.
I filmed quite a lot of the Splot first flight but only got the take-off of the Extra as I was called to help with the trimming. They both flew well and, as you’ll see in the video, Modelling did a very good first landing with the Splot.
While I’m talking about Modelling I thought you might like to see a photo I snapped of him at the AGM. It’s all in the reading material sweetie…!
Basher Bob has many friends in the club and one of them, Chris P Bacon, was kind enough to send me something he spotted on the HobbyKing website. Chris P is now convinced that Basher is secretly producing his own lipos…
As you will have realised I’ve been looking through some old photos and I found was this one of our President.
You might want to ask him why he’s wearing a dress and what on earth ex-member Ken Boucher is doing to him???
OK, it’s time for this month’s video, turn your sound up for this one. 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
Three of the more senior PAM members were walking up to the patch one morning:
Gentleman Jim said ‘It’s windy isn’t it’?
Dwayne Pipe replied ‘No it’s Thursday’
Basher Bob said ‘So am I, let’s go for a beer’
Colin Cowplain
Patch News – January 2017
I must begin this month with the very sad news that Frank Buckland’s wife Pam passed away on 8th January. I’m including the news here because I know many ex-members read Patch News and they may not have heard of Pam’s passing. Many of you will know Frank, he was one of the club’s earliest members and served on the committee for many years in various positions including Chairman. Pam was always on hand to support him and attended many of the club social events including the dinners, barbecues, and quizzes that we used to hold annually. Pam’s funeral took place at Chichester Crematorium on 30th January and was attended (among others) by myself and Doreen, Don and Lizzie Eades, Peter Turley, and another ex-member Ken Boucher and his wife Jill. After the service many of us went back to The Five Bells at Buriton for refreshments and a chinwag. Frank asked me to thank the club for the card and all it’s good wishes.
Moving on to happier matters now, many club members managed to fly in January although, as expected at this time of year, the weather made some Sundays un-flyable. One weekend the forecast was bad for Sunday so Dougal Entendre sneaked up to the field on the Saturday. He sent me this photo of his models in the chilly conditions:
There were a few lovely (but cold) midweek days and on one of them the Midweekers present took the opportunity to mow the patch. Captain Slow pushed the mower while I had the much more important job of giving directions!
Several new models appeared in January, I’m not sure if they were Christmas presents or simply the result of the lousy weather forcing people to spend more time in the shed. Probably a bit of both I reckon.
Musical maestros (or should that be Guitar Gits?) Chris P Bacon and Mike Creamer saved up their pennies and ordered a pair of wood Wot 4 Mk2’s. This version of the Wot 4 is constructed from lightweight balsa and ply and comes ready built and covered. Unlike the 47.4” span Wot 4 Foam-E the wood version is 52.6” span, the same size as the original Wot 4 that was designed by Chris Foss back in 1977 and available as a plan. It was first kitted in 1981 and has since been produced in a variety of versions and sizes. There are optional I/C or electric ‘power packs’ available for this latest wood version, simply choose the route you wish to take.
Mike sensibly chose the electric route and fitted his model out with a Turnigy 1000kv motor, an Aerodrive 3542 I believe. This is coupled to a 60A speed controller and is powered by a Zippy 3300mAh 4 cell lipo battery. Using an 11 x 8 prop Mike gets plenty of power and the battery has around 35% remaining after a 6 minute flight.
The plane’s first take-off and landing can be seen in this month’s video at the end of the blog. The model has now had several flights and Mike is getting on well with it, it’s an ideal follow-on plane to his Freewing Pandora.
On the other hand Chris P Bacon had a major brain fade and fitted one of those dirty noisy smelly things to his new Wot 4! Apparently it’s an old fashioned internal combustion engine, an SC52 4-stroke.
He said something about a bucket list and wanting to get it out of his system. He’s already bought the sporty convertible and plays a guitar, let’s just be thankful he’s too old to ride a motorbike or chase women these days!
Don’t you just love the blue rubber Marigolds? Wait until Ursula finds out you’re using them for something other than the washing up Chris P! So, how does it fly? At the time of writing we’re still waiting to find out. It’s passed the noise test ok and Chris P got it running and handed me the transmitter to do the test flight but I found only one aileron was working. Once we got the obligatory “Bloody Spektrum” etc. comments out of the way we found the problem was actually a broken aileron link, so there could be no test flight that day. The linkage has now been fixed and no doubt it will fly well as soon as the weather produces a decent day.
I think Chris P is having trouble justifying the money he’s spent on an electric starter, a lead acid battery to power it, a glow clip powered by a NiCad battery, and a trolley to carry it all on. It obviously wasn’t worth all the expense and hassle for just one I/C plane, so he’s also fitted an I/C engine to an Acro Wot, this time a Laser 70 4-stroke. The first I knew of this was when I received and email from Chris P with the subject line ‘A really dirty picture’. Obviously I clicked to open the email as quickly as possible, only to be met with this:
Never mind, it looks nice apart from that big lump of iron sticking out the front, the bits of fuel tubing, the needle valve, the exhaust, and the hacked about cowl. But I’m sure it will fly well and I look forward to having a go with it.
Not strictly new, but certainly heavily modified, is this flying wing being beautifully modelled by Basher Bob.
It started life as a Multiplex Xeno, a moulded foam pure flying wing with a centrally mounted motor that drives a pusher prop via an extension shaft like this one (not Bob’s).
It’s intended to be used for thermal or slope soaring and is unusual in that it folds in half so it can be carried up the hills in a rucksack. But Basher didn’t really like the flying characteristics, he felt it always seemed a little unstable, and he found it was all too easy to bend the extension motor shaft. So he built a detachable fuselage with an NTM Prop Drive 28-36 1400kv motor mounted at the front and a large central fin behind the wing. He uses a 40A esc and a 3 cell 2200mAh battery. The extra fin area has improved the stability and with a 10 x 6 folding prop there’s little possibility of bending the motor shaft. The all up weight is now around 40 ounces and, although the glide probably isn’t as good as before, it’s still good and Basher wants the model to be a sports flier rather than a soarer.
The fuselage can be easily removed if Basher wants to take it slope soaring and the wing still folds if necessary. So all in all the conversion has been a great success. Bob always likes to get a B into his model names so he now calls it a Beno. Personally I felt the B should have gone at the other end but I was banned from calling it that…
Next up is Catapult King’s new model, the Pulse’ish. Catapult was impressed by a magazine article on the E-Flite Pulse and decided to build his own version of it. He studied the photos, took measurements, and scaled them up.
This is what Catapult says about it: Starting from a ply box to support the battery, ESC, receiver and support the wing etc. the plane is made mainly from Depron and took around six months to complete due to lack of technique and know-how. It has been covered with PVA and parcel brown paper followed by HobbyKing shrink wrap. It currently flies on an NTM 35-30/1100kv motor (following the accident with the NTM 35-42 drive shaft) and a 10×6 prop on a Turnigy 4s 2650 battery.
It looks pretty smart even just in its brown paper covering and even better once the shrink film had been applied. Catapult opted for a tricycle undercarriage rather than the more common taildragger.
Gentleman Jim flew an E-Flite Pulse for a long time and found it to be an excellent model. Here’s a photo of Jim’s genuine E-Flite Pulse to compare with Catapult’s Pulse’ish.
I’ve flown the Pulse’ish a few times now and can vouch for its good flying characteristics. Kryten snapped this excellent action shot which shows off the very flat bottomed wing well:
January didn’t turn out to be a good month for me; I had a couple of minor disasters. The first one involved my new Raptor. Last month I included some photos of the untouched kit and here it is again with the all-flying tail feathers assembled and positioned, and all the wiring tidied up and glued in place.
The wiring needs to be glued in place to keep the duct clear and get the smoothest possible airflow. After thorough checks that the servos and speed controller worked correctly and the fan ran in the right direction the other half of the fuselage was epoxied in place, effectively sealing all the electronics away forever. Then I added the wings and fins and connected up the linkages. This was when I realised one of the ailerons servos wasn’t returning to centre correctly! I’d checked the servos moved and didn’t judder but without the output arms fitted I hadn’t noticed that the servo stopped in a different position every time. After an awful lot of head scratching I eventually managed to remove the servo, fit a new one, and re-glue the wiring in place. I’ve never done keyhole surgery before!
The finished Raptor looked good and I was confident it would fly well…wrong! I’m not sure what happened but basically it failed to get away from what seemed to be a perfectly good launch.
The polystyrene fuselage didn’t like the rapid arrival and the nose was quite badly damaged. Never mind, it’s repairable, although it will never be as pretty as before. Once it’s sorted I’ll try again, watch this space…
My second disaster occurred on Saturday 28th January when I was flying my venerable Spirit mini-glider. This photo of it was taken way back in the summer of 2014:
I often fly it up to a great height and then spin it back down again but on this occasion it vanished into the clouds. No problem I thought, it’s happened before, just put it in a spin and watch for it to re-appear. Only this time it didn’t! Both Basher and were watching the model intently when it entered the cloud but neither of us saw it come out again. I suppose it’s possible it got sucked up by a thermal and didn’t come out, but that seems very unlikely. It’s much more likely that we both simply failed to spot it, the Spirit is only 32” span and it was very high at the time. I tried various manoeuvres while scanning the sky but neither of us saw it again. The wind would have carried it north towards East Meon but I really have no idea where it’s likely to be, and despite both Doreen and I traipsing around the hills for several hours we didn’t find it. I’ve had hundreds of flights with the Spirit and it had been repaired a few times but I still enjoyed flying it and I don’t like losing it. On a slightly more cheerful note I’ve just checked the HobbyKing website and both the Spirit and similar Kinetic are in stock in the UK warehouse…tempted!
Returning to happier things now, Dwayne Pipe has built another Spitfire. His earlier Spit flew reasonably well but was rather overweight which did nothing for its flying characteristics.
Some of you may have seen the new one when Dwayne brought it along to a recent club meeting but for the rest of you here are some details. Dwayne drew the plans himself and based it on one of the last operational Mk19 reconnaissance Spitfires based in Malaysia in 1954. It’s 43 inches wingspan and weighs just over 3lbs, so it’s a little smaller but much lighter than his previous Spit.
He’s fitted a 1000kv motor, a 60A speed controller, an 11 x 8 folding prop, and a 3 cell lipo to provide the power. Dwayne confesses to have lengthened the nose a little so he can get the CG in the right position without the need to add weight. I wasn’t at the patch on the day of the first couple of flights but all went well and apparently the Spit is very well behaved. At the moment the Spit is hand launched but Dwayne has built in undercarriage mounts so he can add an undercarriage later if he wants.
Hopefully I’ll get some flying shots and video for the next Patch News, in the meantime you’ll just have to enjoy the static shots. I’m sure you’ll agree Dwayne has made a lovely job of it.
January 2nd was a cracking flying day and Kryten took these superb shots of Woody’s E-Bandit, 1066’s Grasshopper, Modelling Clay’s Acro Wot, and Mike C’s Pandora:
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
A blonde lady is a passenger in a light aircraft when her pilot collapses.
She grabs the mike and calls out: “Mayday! Mayday! My pilot is dead, help me!”
Air traffic control responds “Don’t worry, I’ll talk you through this. What’s your height and position?”
“I’m 5 foot 4 inches and I’m in the plane,” she says…
Colin Cowplain
