Patch News History

Well it’s 1^st of February, a Sunday morning, and I’m sat at home writing Patch News instead of flying. Don’t upset yourselves, it’s not because I’m a slave to the ‘job’, it’s blowing a gale outside and very cold so I decided to give it a miss today, although I expect some hardy souls have ventured up to the patch. Overall January wasn’t too bad, we managed a fair bit of flying between us as you’ll see below.

I was away for a few days over New Year so I missed some flying but Dougal Entendre (Mark) was kind enough to send me some photos. His email was titled Flying in the Murk and you can see why! It seems there was some standing around waiting for the fog to clear but 1066 (Steve H) was able to fly a couple of his 3D machines, keeping them very close in.

Dougal also included some photos and info of his new X-Tech Laius, including a helpful note on the instructions. Good to know that Chinglish is alive and well!I asked for some more info on the Laius and this was Dougal’s reply: “I have virtually no info on the Laius I’m afraid! I got the kit on Ebay for just under £30, all surfaces built and covered, but it still took me most of the holidays to do the installation and set-up. The instructions say it’s made by X-Tech, but Google doesn’t give any other clues, so it’s probably obsolete now. It’s 38″ wingspan and seems to go nicely on a 3S 1800mAh, though as Steve H pointed out, probably needs a little more oomph for prop-hanging. I’m going to experiment with bigger props and speed controllers, but even with the current set-up it’ll be great for calm summer evenings.”I took some photos later in the month, the model was flying well and for £30 was a good buy I reckon.

Dougal has also been playing with the firmware on his transmitter. He bought a Walkera Devention Devo 12 around a year ago and has been very happy with it, but now he has changed the firmware to Deviation.Deviation is a 3^rd party software company and their programs are written specifically for Devention transmitters but can also be used on various others, including the Turnigy 9X. One of the things it does it enable the use of Spektrum receivers. Not being a Spektrum lover myself that wouldn’t appeal to me but of course Spektrum receivers are far more readily available, and presumably cheaper, than Devention ones. It allows the user much more flexibility in programming and even enables them to change colours, fonts, and bitmaps on the Tx screen.One thing that Mark has used it for is to make the numbers on the built in timer much larger so he is able to read the timer with just a very quick glance down, much safer. One drawback is that he has lost all the set-ups on his existing models so he has been working his way through all of them, treating each one as if it were a brand new model.It’s made for some exciting ‘first’ flights for the rest of us to watch! In the photos you can see the transmitter has spots of water on it, and here is my transmitter safely in its muff.I was trying to photograph the snow on it but it was still warm enough inside to melt the snowflakes almost instantly, that was one cold day at the field! Of course some people don’t seem to notice the cold at all; this is Desperate Dan on a slightly warmer day in full laidback mode!At the time he had his Phoenix 2000 electric glider well up at a safe height.

Another model that had its first outing in January was John Wheeley’s Durafly Das UglyStik from HobbyKing.The original plan for Das Ugly Stick first appeared in 1966 and it was designed by Phil Kraft. It was hugely popular and was soon kitted by a company called Jensen, followed by several others later on. There have been many other Stik offshoots over the years, bigger, smaller etc. Not sure why but Durafly say UglyStik as one word, maybe it’s a patent issue or something. It’s in their Retro Series and in keeping with that the model comes with a dummy I/C engine and a wooden prop. It’s actually powered by an electric motor fitted behind the plastic dummy I/C one, with an extension shaft running through to the prop.I’ve read reports of the shaft seizing so John is going to keep an eye open for any signs of problems. The 1100mm span model is all EPO moulded and comes ready fitted with the 3536 1000kv motor, a 30A esc, and 4 x 9gm servos. All you need is your usual transmitter and receiver and a bog standard 3 cell lipo of around 2200mAh. It has various hatches to access the necessary parts, the battery being fitted from the underside, below the wing. The HK blurb says there are just 8 simple steps needed to complete the model, it all goes together with screws/bolts, so it only took John about 4 months! It flies very well, I’ve had a go with it and I liked it a lot, I might be tempted in the future. The only thing I’m a bit surprised by is the price, right now the HobbyKing UK warehouse is showing £103.12, yet the Sea Vixen which comes with a ducted fan as well as a motor, a 45A esc, and 3 electric retracts is only £98.99, doesn’t make any sense. I thought the Stik was much cheaper than that when it was first announced about a year ago? Maybe they’ve bumped the price up because it’s very popular.

In Patch News in December 2013 I featured John’s Twinstar and included a photo of another Twinstar with ‘underslung totty’ that proved very popular. Well for your enjoyment this month I’m including a photo John that sent through of Dougal’s HK Sportjet with another fine example of ‘underslung totty’, I hope you enjoy it just as much.

Bob Hill has been flying his little HK Mustang again during January and it now has a slab-sided look.The profile fuselage model has had a great many flights and has suffered a bit over time so Bob decided to add sheet balsa around the front half of the fuselage to strengthen and tidy it up a bit. Seems to have worked well and it smartens up the whole thing.

I featured the Citabria Pro that Keith Evans was building in the November Patch News but at the time it wasn’t quite ready for its maiden flight.Well, I test flew it in January and am happy to report that all went well, with just a slight trim problem. Keith will be giving us a video presentation and talk about the build and first flight at the next club meeting (12^th Feb) so I won’t go into any of the model details for now.

1066 flew his relatively new HobbyKing Invictus a couple of times in January. I mentioned the model in Patch News last October and said that Steve wasn’t really happy with it at the time. He’s now made some changes, fitted a higher current esc, changed the prop, and a few other things, and is now much more pleased with it. It’s designed as a pylon racer and conforms to NMPRA (National Miniature Pylon Racing Assoc) specs for EF-1 so it’s never going to be a slow aircraft but neither is it scarily quick, just a good all round sports model.The changes seem to have made it much more manageable for our site and, as Steve bought it to be a rough weather model, I think he’s probably succeeded now.

Chairman Ron has built an ME109 from a David Boddington plan which was part of a Dogfight Duo, the other one being a Spitfire.The plan was first published in the July 2001 RC Model Flyer magazine and it’s fairly unusual in having a Jedelsky wing construction. If you don’t know what that is I recommend Google! The original was intended to be powered by a .15cu I/C engine but Ron has converted it to electric power and fitted a 2418/8 motor with a 40A esc. The all up weight is around 800g (28ozs) including the 3 cell 2200mAh lipo that he used for the first couple of flights. The pack still had about 65% remaining after a 5 minute flight so I wonder if it might be worth trying a lighter pack to reduce the wing loading a bit. It does have a tendency to tip stall if slowed down too much but I don’t think it will be a major problem. Maybe lateral balance needs to be looked.It has a very small (presumably scale) tail plane, not sure if that is a contributory factor. The model has a good turn of speed and as it’s only around 30″ span it disappears pretty quickly so Ron will have to keep his eyes peeled. Ron has made a really good job of both the build and the finish.He recently brought the model to club for us to admire and said he intended to build the Spitfire if the 109 flew well. Time to get building then Ron, it flew well!

In last months’ edition I ran a caption competition in an attempt to find out if anyone actually reads Patch News. There were quite a few entries but mostly from the same old contributors. Comments are always welcome, good or bad, please add your thoughts. Anyway, the competition winner was Scare D. Cat with a particularly cutting caption and I presented the prize, a Vulcan mug, at the AGM last week. If you don’t know who Scare D. Cat is… you should have been there!

A supposedly true story about Muhammad Ali:

Ali was once on a plane, awaiting take-off when the flight attendant asked him to fasten his seatbelt. He replied “Superman don’t need no seatbelt”. She responded “Superman don’t need no plane”.

Colin Cowplain

Happy New Year to you all, let’s hope 2015 is good to us and we have a lovely year of warm windless days. No doubt Santa will have brought some aero modelling goodies to some of you and I look forward to reporting on them here over the coming months.

December turned out to be muck spreading month at the field. This has happened a few times over the years but I don’t remember it ever being quite as mucky as this time. The farmer was good enough to avoid our patch but all around it there was a very good(?) covering. This increased the desire to land on the patch for obvious reasons, there were a few that landed just short or ran off the far end and they soon discovered they really were in the sh*t!

It didn’t matter where we chose to put the pits, there was a pretty uniform covering and it was impossible to avoid the stuff. Fortunately some fliers carry a plastic sheet to put their gear on and rest of us managed to cadge a corner or two for our transmitters etc.

Obviously the winter weather has meant less flying than in the summer months but many of us have still flown fairly frequently. Despite some blustery winds Dougal Entendre (aka Mark Agate) was pictured practising inverted passes with his Max Thrust MX2, not easy in the conditions on that particular day.

However, Dougal did have a bit of a problem on another December day. I could serve up my usual course of abuse and mutter about poor landings and so on but on this occasion the damage occurred when he gave his Sportjet a duff launch.It really wasn’t his fault though, as Dougal took a step forward to release the plane he slipped in the aforementioned ‘muck’ and fell over!

Steve 1066 Hastings showed us how it should be done in a similar incident but sadly I didn’t get a photo. He was flying one of his many 3D machines and doing his usual impossible manoeuvres with zero airspeed at waist height when he got the plane a little too close to himself for comfort. In taking the necessary backward step to avoid disaster he ‘did a Dougal’, slipped in the sh*t and fell over! Unlike Dougal he did a sort of 360 degree parachute roll in an attempt to spot the model and managed to regain control. He was then able to get to his knees and back onto his feet to complete the flight. It really was ones of those times when somebody should have been videoing! The model was fine but Steve was comprehensively covered from head to toe…

John Wheeley was good enough to send me a couple of photos of my Yak 52 on an overshoot. The Yak is now sorted to my satisfaction and makes a great flier for the winter weather. He also included a pic of me and Woody braving the elements.

Dougal Entendre snapped this photo of 1066 at the last club meeting before Christmas (subs night). The fire alarm in the room went off unexpectedly and Steve was trying to muffle the din but I reckon the photo is ideal for a caption competition.So, in an effort to see if anyone actually reads Patch News I propose to offer a prize for the best caption in the Comments section at the end. I’ll start the ball rolling. If you’re unsure of how to comment, just put your name (or a nickname), your email address, and the CAPTCHA code shown. Your comment must be at least 15 characters long. You can leave the Website box empty.

The last time I remember the clubroom fire alarm coming into play was when the then member John E gave us a soldering lesson. As most of you will be aware John E is expert at pretty much everything including, it turned out, how to burn huge holes in your trousers with a soldering iron! As you can imagine we barely mentioned the incident… hardly at all…

We know that people across the world look at the PAM website and Steve 1066 received an email the other day from Nick Marson in Houston Texas enquiring about a Splot plan. Nick had lived in the Cotswolds prior to moving to the USA and in the 80’s & 90’s he’d built three Splots, powered by an OS26FS. Nick refers to it as the SMC Splot to presumably he’d bought a kit when Sussex Model Centre kitted them for a few years. Desperate Dan Bennett is on the case and is currently sorting out the best way of getting a plan to Nick. We’d love to hear how it goes Nick, it would be great to receive a report and some photos in due course.

A rather unusual bit of damage occurred one Sunday when Desperate Dan lost power on a landing approach with his Acro Wot Foam-E. He was coming in over the track at the bottom of the field and just caught the top wire of the barbed wire fence.It chewed off the underside of the foam cowl a treat but left the rest of the model pretty much unscathed. He had a lucky escape really, that fence has comprehensively shredded a number of models over the years.

Ever the one to invent new ways of causing mayhem Nigel Baker managed to do something I’d not seen done before. During an attempted take-off with his Wots Wot the prop ‘pecked’ the ground hard enough to break it and throw muck all over the top wing. To add insult to injury the broken blade then chopped off the top of the rudder, surely that’s a first!

Nigel was also involved in an incident that happened to me on Christmas Eve. Ever the thoughtful, selfless one I decided to take myself out of the way of the last minute Christmas preparations and the flying field seemed the obvious place to go. I emailed my intentions to the usual suspects but nobody else could make it apart from Nigel who said he’d come up as soon as he could escape from work.

I only took the little Spirit glider to fly and I had five lovely flights accompanied only by some kites that were soaring over the valley. Between flights I watched the kites, hoping to get some photos but they didn’t come close enough. Needless to say, once I was flying again they flew straight over me a couple of times at about 20 feet!

Part of the reason for choosing the Spirit to fly was because I’d stuck a couple of reflective foil patches to the underside of the wing in the hope of increasing the visibility of the model. I’ve managed to lose sight of it several times, especially in grey wintry skies, and hoped the shiny patches would improve things.

Nigel duly appeared while I was enjoying a sixth flight and, being the friendly chap that I am, I started chatting to him, and pointed out the kites. When I looked back to the Spirit I couldn’t see it! The patches did nothing at all, I had barely seen them on the previous flights, and they certainly didn’t help me now. Usually when you lose sight of a model it reappears after a few heart stopping moments but not this time. I had been gliding out over the valley of death so I started the motor in the hope of hearing it but to no avail (damn those quiet electrics!). Oddly I couldn’t remember with any accuracy where the plane had been when it disappeared! The Spirit is not a stable floater type of glider so after about 30 seconds I knew it would be down but hadn’t got a clue where. I went over to the valley expecting to see white wreckage but saw nothing. The wind was roughly north-west so it should have gone south east.

I spent the next 40 minutes or so checking out the east end of the valley and then the field that used to be the HMS Mercury sports field but had no luck. Then my mobile rang and it was my wife saying that Nigel had rung her (he had my home number but not my mobile) and he’d found my plane. Turns out it had circled back over our field and landed near the lane, about halfway down towards the barn.Fortunately there was only minor damage and she’ll soon be flying again. Moral of story: don’t be a prat!

I couldn’t resist snapping this photo of John Wheeley the other day. Sign of a confused pilot? It just seemed a bit odd to be wearing camouflage trousers with a high viz jacket, contradiction of terms!

Santa Claus, like all pilots, gets regular visits from the Federal Aviation Administration etc, and the CAA examiner arrived a few weeks ago for the pre-Christmas flight check.

In preparation, Santa had the elves wash the sled and bathe all the reindeer. Santa got his logbook out and made sure all his paperwork was in order. He knew they would examine all his equipment and truly put Santa’s flying skills to the test…

The examiner walked slowly around the sled. He checked the reindeer harnesses, the landing gear, and Rudolph’s nose. He painstakingly reviewed Santa’s weight and balance calculations for the sled’s enormous payload.

Finally, they were ready for the check-ride. Santa got in and fastened his seatbelt and shoulder harness and checked the compass. Then the examiner hopped in carrying, to Santa’s surprise, a shotgun.

“What’s that for?!?” asked Santa incredulously.

The examiner winked and said, “I’m not supposed to tell you this ahead of time,” as he leaned over to whisper in Santa’s ear, “but you’re gonna lose an engine on takeoff.”

 

Colin Cowplain

It’s already that time again. November seems to have flown by but it hasn’t included a lot of flying. It’s only to be expected that over the winter months we’ll lose some flying due to bad weather and that’s been the case in November, but we’ve also had some cracking days and some of us have taken full advantage. Not too many new models have been flown and we haven’t had any disasters worthy of Patch News so I’m a bit short of material. Come back Mick Harper, Mick could always be relied on to do something worth a mention! I can make up lack of material by waffling on about my own models, yes, it’s all about me!

First up is a model that’s never been to the patch, John Wheeley’s new indoor Extra. It’s another model from E-Flite, this one being Bind and Fly so all you need is a Spektrum transmitter to bind to the pre-installed receiver, and a 1s 150mAh lipo. Its full title is the UMX AS3Xtra, the AS3X part being Air Stability 3 Axis, a ‘system agility with flight mode flexibility’. Basically it has a 3 axis gyro that can be switched (using the Gear switch on the transmitter) to various flight modes that give you gyro assistance to prop hang, knife edge, and torque roll.The model itself has a laser cut foam structure that has been covered on one side in plastic film, so it’s a bit like building an open structure profile model entirely from ¼” square balsa and covering one side of the fuselage and the top of the wing with film. Dougal Entendre was kind enough to send me a photo of John looking very pleased with his new toy and reported that after just a few minutes flying John was prop hanging with the experts. I, of course, was rude and exclaimed that the electronics were a miracle maker! The gyro system is a developed version of the one MMM (alias Cyano Steve) has in his E-Flite UMX Sbach 342 3D that I featured in Patch News in March this year, I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot more gyros used in our outdoor flying machines soon. Keith Evans is using one of the HK Orange combined receiver/gyro units in his little EPP combat Mustang and holds it in high regard. Speaking of Cyano Steve, where are you, we haven’t seen you at the field for ages. I really do recommend you have a look at the Horizon Hobby video of the Extra here

This year the trend at the patch has been the little ‘warmliner’ gliders from HobbyKing, either the Spirit Mini Sport or the Kinetic. The two models are almost identical, there are some very minor differences but nothing very significant and they seem to perform just the same. They are fitted with different motors but neither seems better than the other and I think any difference in performance is due more to the type and age of the battery being used than anything else. Certainly there is a performance difference with mine depending whether I am using one of my newer or older packs. I seem to get flights of around 10 minutes with mine without trying and have had over 15 minutes a few times when I’ve concentrated a bit more on gliding rather than careering around, and I reckon considerably longer would be possible if that’s what you’re into. On one flight Dougal flew for so long his transmitter screen went into screensaver mode, fortunately that doesn’t affect the model control! November saw another Kinetic purchaser, Bob Hill. I think Bob has the rates/expo turned down so it’s not too lively for him and he seems to be getting on well with it. I’ve lost count of the number of these in the club now but off the top of my head I can think of six. There are probably more, it would be fun if we could get them all in the air together one day, although that would require a one off dispensation of the ‘max four in the air’ rule. Maybe it’s something to think about for next spring?

John Warren is one of the real builders left in the club and he’s just built and flown his latest masterpiece, this one being a Mudry CAP 20L. John built it from the Peter Miller plan in the March 2014 issue of RCM&E and it was designed to have a .25-.32cu in I/C engine. John has converted it to electric and used the motor that came from his old trainer and a 3 cell lipo. I had the pleasure of doing the maiden flight and am pleased to report that it went very well. The full-size CAP 20L was designed by Auguste Mudry as a single seat aerobatic version of the two seat CAP 10, basically it’s a CAP 10 with a greatly slimmed down fuselage. John’s model performs well and, like the full-size, is fully aerobatic and it should serve John very well and in particular it should improve his aerobatic flying lots. Now you know it flies well John you must add some trim and registration marks to make it look more scale.

I have a CAP 10 that I last flew about three years ago when I was using the LiFe cells and I need to do some conversion work so I can fly it on a 6 cell lipo pack. LiFe cells are much safer than lipos and can be charged at up to 10A whilst still in the model as they don’t catch fire. Mine were buried in the nose of the model and I used to recharge in about 20 minutes at the field from a leisure battery. My switch to lipos will mean I have to cut an access hatch somehow. I must get around to it as it’s a nice model and flies well. This airborne shot was taken by Gentleman Jim.

One of the problems with converting models designed for I/C to electric power is working out what motor/battery/prop to use. There are various calculation programs on the internet that can help you. Usually you put in basic model details and then you can play around with motor parameters and the program will predict how the model will fly and suggest propeller sizes. Some list many motors so if you have a particular one in mind you can see how it will suit the model. Keith Evans is another real builder and he uses a program called Webocalc which works well for him. It’s a free download and if you Google it you’ll see there are two versions, imperial units or metric. It’s a fairly simple program so it’s very easy to use, unlike some of the more complicated programs which seem to be too complex although they presumably give more accurate and detailed results. Find Webocalc here

Keith was good enough to send me a couple of photos of his latest model, a Citabria Pro based on a Tim Hooper plan from RCM&E.

It looks as if it’s almost finished now so should be gracing the skies over Chidden Down very soon.

Last week I bought one of Viv Burgess’s cast off models, a Yak 52. Viv built it a couple of years ago and I’ve flown it once or twice, it always seemed a nice flier. Viv had offered it to me a couple of months ago and I declined without really thinking too much about it. But Steve 1066 Hastings bought it and when I saw it again it reminded me of how nice it looks, and Steve kindly sold it on to me. It’s a VQ Models ARTF from HobbyKing, although Slough Models also sell the range in the UK. I know this as my CAP 10 that I mentioned earlier is a VQ model from Slough. It’s the relatively unusual TW (Tail Wheel) version; most Yak 52’s have a tricycle undercarriage. Some have been converted to tail-draggers but the factory did produce some like it as well. It’s a fully aerobatic aircraft capable of every manoeuvre in the Aresti catalogue. The VQ Yak 52 comes ready for either I/C or electric power and Viv chose the electric route using a 4260 motor of 500Kv fitted with a 14 x 10 prop. The model is 1500mm (59”) span and weighs just under 2.9kg (6lb 5oz) so it’s no lightweight. Steve reckons Viv flew it on 4 cells but 500Kv seems very low for 4 cells so I did some checks and found it was pulling around 440W, which equates to around 70w/lb. That would probably fly the model ok but I thought it might be a bit marginal for decent aerobatics, although I don’t remember it being underpowered at all when Viv owned it. I tried a few different props and found I could increase the wattage with a larger prop but the thrust seemed worse (the revs were dragged down too much). I wondered if Viv had been using 6 cells rather than 4 but I don’t know. After much dithering I swapped the motor for a 4250 6 turn 900kv Overlander Thumper that I bought in Mick Harper’s auction and decided to test fly with a 13 x 5 prop which appeared to provide loads of thrust. Because the new motor is 10mm shorter and a bit lighter than the original I had to drill more holes in the cowl to shift it back 10mm, and of course all this meant the CG would be heading rearwards, especially if Viv had used 6 cells rather than my 4. I was beginning to wish I’d just flown it as it came! I had no idea where the CG should be or what movements to set on the control surfaces and failed to find any answers on the web, so I taped a piece of lead to the cowl and guessed the control movements for the test flight. All went well apart from being very twitchy on the elevator (CG or too much movement?) and the stall seemed pretty tame. The telemetry recorded that I had pulled over 78A at full throttle so I decided to avoid that if possible! The second flight with reduced elevator movement and more expo was much better, it leapt into the air after a very short run and I didn’t get anywhere near to full throttle. I’m now even more convinced I should have just left the set-up alone! Thanks go to John Wheeley for the photos.

Since Sunday I have filled the redundant holes in the cowl and ended up repainting the whole thing. I’ve also extended the battery mounting plate so I can have the battery much further forward and ditch the lead. I’m going to try a 12 x 6 prop next time in the hope of reducing the amperage. It’s kept me quiet for a few days and I think it should be a great flier once I’ve sorted it to my liking, watch this space.

The last new model I saw in November was Desperate Dan’s new Acro Wot. He must have been impressed watching Nigel Baker flying his and decided he’d like one. Like Nigel’s it came with the usual ARTF (Almost Ready to Fail) undercarriage and it duly departed with almost no help from Dan. Chris Foss designs are great fliers but why can’t the manufacturers make stronger U/C mountings? It’s not just the Wot series; many ARTFs have pathetically weak U/C mountings. I think they are only test flown by expert pilots on huge billiard table tarmac runways. Come on guys, think of us poor lot flying from a small circle of (sometimes) rough grass.

One final photo, our Chairman Ron and Vice Chairman Alan enjoying flying together in the November sunshine.
 
Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher, and Nick Clegg are all killed in a plane crash. They go up to heaven and face God sat on a great white throne, He addresses Nick Clegg first “Nick, what do you believe?”
Nick Replies “I believe the internal combustion engine is evil and should be banned, we must cut CFCs, and if any more Freon is used the world will become a huge greenhouse and everyone will die.”
God thinks for a second, and then says “OK, I can live with that, come and sit at my left side”. He then addresses Tony Blair “Tony, what do you believe?”
Tony replies “I believe in the power of the people, I believe people should be able to make their own choices and nobody should be able to dictate what others must do.”
God thinks for a second, and then says “OK, I can see that, come and sit at my right side.” He then addresses Margaret Thatcher “Margaret, what do you believe?”
“I believe you’re in my seat”
 Colin Cowplain

I’m writing this halfway through the month as I’m off to Vietnam on 22^nd October and don’t get home until 4^th November, so by the time you are reading this I will have missed anything that happened later in October. I would be grateful for any photos and info on things I missed, I’ll include them next month. I’ll finish and upload the blog on my return.

This month I’ll start with my latest model, a little Boeing PT-17 Stearman of just 32” span. I won it in a club raffle a while back and I ignored it for quite a time as I really wasn’t sure it was my sort of model, but now I’ve completed it I’m really happy with it and it flies beautifully. As it’s mine I know all the details of motor etc so I can bore you will loads of info on it. It’s a Wattage kit, I don’t know if the company still exists but I remember Wattage being a US kit manufacturer back in the nineties. It comes with a ready painted blow moulded plastic fuselage and built up and covered wings. There is still enough work left for the builder to feel they achieved something, various undercarriage fairings, cabane struts, and a 16 piece dummy radial engine all need to be sorted. Wattage supply a Cobalt 400 brushed motor that was good in its day, and the instructions call for a 7 cell nicad pack. I did a quick search on the internet and found some comments from many years ago that said the model was overweight and a bit marginal on power. This confirmed my thoughts that it would be best to use a modern brushless outrunner and a lipo battery. Wattage quote a ready to fly weight of 26-28 ounces so 1.75lbs at worst and I decided a 175W motor should be enough. But then I found 200W motors were only half the weight of the supplied Cobalt 400 and a 3 cell lipo is much lighter than a 7 cell nicad so I would end up having to add nose weight to compensate. After a few calculations I bought a Turnigy 2836/8 1100kv motor. It’s quoted as giving 336W max and is still an ounce lighter than the original. The motor mounting was designed for the Cobalt 400 of course and the dummy radial also fixed to it so there was a bit of work involved in mounting the outrunner inside the dummy radial. The nicad battery was supposed to be slid forward horizontally into the nose after removing the bottom wing but I managed to fit a 1000mAh lipo vertically though a small hatch I cut under the nose. This means the weight is as far forward as possible and I don’t need to remove the bottom wing. The final weight came out at just 23 ounces and even if I use a 1300mAh lipo it’s still only 23.5 ounces, 2½ ounces less than the minimum quoted. As I don’t need anything like the maximum power of the motor I use an 8 x 3.8 slow fly prop (same as we use on the EPP Mustangs) and that provides plenty of power and flights of around 6 minutes on the 1000mAh packs. It takes off our patch well even when the grass is wet and flies in a manner that belies its diminutive size, I like it! John Wheeley took some flying shots for me and Gentleman Jim did some videoing. The finished product can be seen here: Andy’s Stearman

Alan Woody Wood has given in to temptation and bought a Spirit Mini Sport Glider from HobbyKing. In the July Patch News I featured Spirits owned by myself, Steve ‘1066’ Hastings, and Mark ‘Dougal Entendre’ Agate so I won’t bore you again with the details. Suffice it to say they use the 800/1000/1300 3 cell lipo packs that many of us already use in the combat Mustangs & ME109’s and are great fun to fly, they will stooge around fairly sedately but will also climb vertically and do all the aerobatics you could want. Woody is getting on very well with his and thoroughly enjoying it. George Rose is flying a Kinetic, an almost identical model that performs just the same. The motor on my Spirit failed after quite a few flights and HK don’t stock it so I bought one for the Kinetic. It’s a bit bigger and isn’t quite a direct replacement but it’s easy enough to fit and the model now flies just as well (slightly better?). If anyone else has to do the same, be sure to order the Kinetic prop as well, you’ll need it as it uses a different adaptor to the Spirit motor.

Viv ‘Big’uns’ Burgess has got another large one, a Stinson Reliant from HobbyKing. The full-size Reliant was produced in various versions between 1933 and 1941 and this one is a sport scale model of one of the later gull wing versions and is built from balsa and ply. It’s 2160mm (85”) span and is intended to be powered by a petrol engine of between 26 & 35cc. Viv has of course electrified it and used a Turnigy G160 motor. The motor is listed as equivalent to a .160 glow engine, is rated at around 2.7kW, and uses 10cells to swing a 17 x 8 prop. HK state an all up weight of around 3.6kg and I don’t imagine Viv’s electric version is very different so the theory says it should more than enough power. And indeed it has, it shot into the air like a rocket and once throttled back it flew round very nicely. Viv said it had too much elevator movement but apart from that it was great, and he had loads left in the battery after a flight of around 5 or 6 minutes. I think it will prove ideal for our patch in winter, plenty of power for when the grass is wet and a bit long, and it’s large enough to handle blustery weather without problems. See a short video of the first flight here: Viv’s Stinson

John Wheeley has built a Hyperion Yak 55 which is so far having an exciting life! The first flight was ‘interesting’. I should explain that John doesn’t normally fly this type of aircraft and he set it up without any exponential on the surfaces which made it very sensitive on aileron and elevator. After a short very twitchy flight John ‘landed’ causing a bit of damage but nothing too serious. Having decided he didn’t like the model he passed it on to Tony Neal to complete the repairs. Tony duly completed the repairs and then had a flight and Mark Agate provided me with a report: “It took off and went straight into an unintended knife-edge! Tony started to fight it around a circuit, but it was clearly not very controllable, then the canopy came off just the other side of Harper’s Oak. Despite the sudden change of aerodynamics, Tony did an awesome bit of flying and got it down safely just the other side of the patch. He’s now taken it away to move the CG forward and play with the servo throws to try and make it a bit more airworthy.” So John should feel better in the knowledge that the model has problems that Tony also struggled with. The excitement continues, watch this space!

Behind Tony you can see Woody with his ex- Mick Harper Kalmato. In keeping with Mick’s tradition the Kalmato apparently decided to visit the bottom of the ‘Valley of Death’ last week. I understand that it’s repairable so it should be flying again soon, hopefully avoiding the other of Mick’s favourite spots, Harper’s Oak.

Another new model that Mark photographed for me is Steve H’s Invictus pylon racer. I missed it flying but apparently it wouldn’t take off with the spats fitted but once removed it got off ok. Steve tells me he’s fitting a higher current speed controller as the original was getting very hot and the motor was cutting in and out. The Invictus is yet another HobbyKing offering and is an out and out pylon racer of the EF-1 class. It has a built up lite ply fuselage and balsa skinned foam cored wings so it’s both light and strong. The cowl, spats, and canopy are made from carbon fibre reinforced fibreglass. Steve didn’t seem too happy with the way it flies when I discussed it with him but I’m sure he’ll sort it to his liking before too long. Personally I think it looks great and can’t wait to see it in the air.

I hear that Steve had a slight mishap with his MXS while I was away, one of the aileron servos failed in flight. I think it must have packed up somewhere near centred as Steve got the model down with what appeared to be minimal damage, although on proper examination later he found almost every joint in the fuselage needed re-gluing!

Nigel Baker obviously likes Chris Foss designs and following on from a Wot4 Foam-E and an Acro Wot Foam-E he’s now built a Wots Wot. This is quite large for a biplane at 50” span and it weighs around 7lbs. It’s all built up construction from balsa and ply, and it’s designed for a .70-.81 4 stroke glow engine or a 5 cell electric set up with a 5055 700Kv motor. When he bought it I don’t think Nigel had appreciated how much more power a 50” biplane needs compared to a typical 50” low winger, so it cost him rather more than he had planned by the time he had bought all the necessary running gear and some 5 cell packs! He’s made a lovely job of putting it all together and I’m happy to report that the test flight went beautifully. This is a typical Foss design, all very well thought out and with perfect flying manners, Nigel should be very pleased with this one.

Once upon a time BA and Virgin decided to have a boat race on the Thames. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach peak performance. On the big day they were as ready as could be and Virgin won by a length. BA were discouraged and senior management set up a project to investigate the problem. Its conclusion was that the Virgin team had 8 people rowing and one person steering. The BA team had one person rowing and eight people steering. Senior management immediately hired consultants to study team performance. Millions of pounds were spent and several months later they concluded that there were too many people steering and not enough rowing. The following year the team structure was changed to 4 steering managers, 3 senior steering managers and one executive steering manager. A performance/appraisal system was set up to give the rower more incentive to work harder and become a key performer. They concluded he must be given empowerment and enrichment. The next year the big day arrived and Virgin duly won. BA laid off the rower for poor performance, sold off the paddles, cancelled capital investment and halted development of the new boat. Then they gave high performance awards to the consultants and distributed the money saved among senior management.

Colin Cowplain