Patch News History

This will be rather an odd edition of Patch News as I’m off on holiday (yeah yeah, I know…again!), so it won’t include the last week of September. My aim is to complete this before I leave and, wi-fi permitting, to publish it on the website on the first of October. Hopefully others will make notes and take photos of what I miss which will mean I’ll have plenty to write about in October.

The much hoped for Indian summer hasn’t really materialised and we have had some truly awful weather. But there have also been some good days and we’ve managed to fly quite a lot, both midweek and on Sunday mornings.

I’ll start will an update on my Cri-Cri. I have moved the main wheels forward even further and added more up thrust to the motors, both in an attempt to cure it’s reluctance to take-off. It seems to have worked although the wheels are probably a bit too far forward now as it has a tendency to sit on its tail rather than the nose wheel! But it manages to get off every time which was the aim. I have added a rudder as, having given up on the supplied nose wheel steering, I couldn’t steer it on the ground, and it also needs rudder to keep it on track in looping manoeuvres.Of course the tendency to sit on its tail has not been helped by the weight of the extra servo, linkage, and the rudder itself. However, it is now flying much better and it’s growing on me…slightly. JP kindly took some flying photos for me this month so you are rewarded with seeing the Cri-Cri in the air.I have since added a pilot as the huge cockpit looked ridiculous empty, especially on those low fly-bys. It’s just a profile pilot but it looks much better in the air than before. When making the pilot I decided only the best would do…JP also took a couple of photos of young Monty doing his landing practice; both Monty and dad JP are doing very well. These photos show just how accurately Monty is landing now.

Wonky Wiltshire made a welcome return to the field this month and trotted out all the usual excuses, wife, kids, work etc. but we know the truth, it’s all to do with lots of holidays, an Airstream caravan, and a new rib (that’s a rigid inflatable boat to you landlubbers).Phil has bought a Durafly EFX Racer, the same as Modelling Clay’s, but fortunately in the alternative yellow colour scheme. Like Tim’s, it flew well from the start and is a good, smooth, fairly fast sport flier. I suspect it won’t be too long before Wonky feels the need to fit it with 4 cells instead of the 3 cells it’s flying on at present.The EFX can be seen flying in THIS MONTHS VIDEO.

I featured Richard King’s F22 Raptor last month, details of which were supplied by Dougal Entendre. Dougal said it was made of Correx but I was convinced it was the Flite Test F22 which is supposed to be made from foam board. Richard (BarracKing?) kindly supplied some information on the model and it turns out that both Dougal and I were correct. It is built from the Flite Test plan but rather than use foam board BarracKing used some Correx he had left over from the Delta Challenge. That made it rather heavier than the foam board versions but it flies well.He’s added working twin rudders so should be able to do lots of strange manoeuvres once he’s got used to flying it. BarracKing was using a 1000kv motor with a 9 x 6 prop and it flew fine but needed a little more speed, so he’s now fitted a 2000kv motor and a 6 x 4 propeller. It is faster now but certainly not ballistic, I wonder if a 6 x 6 prop might be better? I’ve no idea what battery or speed controller he is using so maybe a 6 x 6 would be too much for it. Anyway, he was good enough to let me have a go with it with the original motor and I thought it handled nicely, much better than I expected really. I look forward to flying it with the new motor soon.Like Barracking, I have a sheet of Correx left over from the Delta Challenge, I could just get tempted. Good on you Richard, it’s good to see something a bit out of the ordinary, keep on experimenting, we love it! Want to see it in action? Watch THIS MONTHS VIDEO.

Jeremy Stuttard sent me a link to a weather station in Clanfield that belongs to the Hampshire Astronomical Group. It’s not one I’ve seen before and is especially useful if you want to know what the current wind speed is at Clanfield. I assume the weather station is at the same site as their telescopes on Hinton Heights, and if that’s correct it’s fairly high up on the downs and within a couple of miles of our patch so it’s likely to give a good indication of the conditions at the patch. It should be handy for all of you but will probably be especially useful to members on the Petersfield side of Butser hill. To view it CLICK HERE

You are probably all bored with reading about the many Spirits/Kinetics that are being flown in the club now but here’s a little more info for you. The Spirit motors don’t seem to last too long and aren’t available as spares from HobbyKing. But Kinetic motors are available and seem more durable, although you need to buy the Kinetic folding prop at the same time, the Spirit prop won’t fit. It’s also a good idea to buy the Kinetic motor mount, it makes it easier to fit the Kinetic motor to the Spirit and it strengthens the nose and adds some cooling holes at the same time. Dougal Entendre has tried a variety of motors and speed controllers in his Spirit, most of which haven’t lasted very long at all because they overheat so badly. However, he’s now fitted a Kinetic motor but didn’t buy the Kinetic motor mount (they cost about £2, obviously too much for Dougal!) so he has made up his own alternative nose strengthening/cooling pieces.I’ve seen neater jobs but they work well at both nose strengthening and cooling so I won’t complain too much. Dougal simply cut the pieces from very thin ply (milliply, about 0.015” I think) and glued them round each side of the nose. Cheap, simple, and effective, job done.

He also added a larger rudder in an attempt to be able to perform Hanno Screws and suchlike. If you don’t know what a Hanno Screw is you probably can’t do one!

I mentioned at the start that the weather has been pretty bad and it’s meant that even on sunny days the field has been very wet underfoot. This has produced some interesting variations of sartorial elegance! Here Captain Slow demonstrates his solution to the hot knees/wet feet problem.I probably shouldn’t say too much, my own crimes against fashion occur all too frequently!

Basher Bob has been at it again! In September, not only did he collide with Dougal Entendre, he caused another mid-air at the same time! Yet again Basher was flying his Kinetic and this time he came into contact with Dougal’s Slick. Both models suffered some damage but fortunately both were repairable. But the amazing thing was that as Bob and Dougal collided, Captain Slow and 1066 tried to see what the bang was whilst avoiding the bits, and they too collided! Fortunately the damage was minimal to both models and they landed safely with no further damage.

I included a photo of Basher Bob’s Parasail last month and this month I took one of the ‘workings’. The original design doesn’t have any elevator control, it relies instead on the speed of the motor to make it climb and descend. This obviously has limitations, especially in windy weather, so Bob has added a sliding bar mechanism to imitate the weight shift control used on full-size hang-gliders.It’s never going to be as precise as the elevator on a normal model but it certainly gives much greater control than previously and allows Bob to fly it in stronger winds than was possible before. It can be seen in action in THIS MONTHS VIDEO.

The big news of September has to be the Delta Challenge. Steve H (1066) came up with the idea of members building deltas, the only rules being that they should use a flat plate wing of a set size and shape, and that they must not be revealed to others until the club meeting on 10^th September, before being flown on 13^th September. It turned out to be a hugely popular challenge and 15 deltas were brought along to the meeting. Most were the correct size and shape but a couple were definitely undersized! A form was passed round for everyone to vote for their favourite model in various categories and the winners were:

Most creative – Dan Bennett           Best Finish – Andy Palmer            Why Did You Bother – John Warren

Most Scale – Alan Wood               Probably Won’t Fly – Dan Bennett              Most Effort – Nick Sivertsen

And the winner of the trophy, the Best Overall – Tony Neal.  Congratulations to Tony, he produced a great model.

Incidentally, the trophy was a build it yourself kit of parts cut from Correx!

So the next stage was the flying on the following Sunday. Unfortunately Dan Bennett, Keith Evans, & Ron Vears couldn’t make it but the other 12 were there and they all flew (or at least made a fair attempt!). Woody was late arriving with his Vulcan delta so missed being in the photo.The main problem seemed to be having too much reflex so some only flew a circuit before landing for adjustments but all except Stanley Knife (Viv) and John Warren flew pretty well. Stanley’s seemed to need the movements reducing and the centre of gravity moving forward but I’m sure it will be fine when sorted. John’s probably just needs trimming by someone more experienced, and then it will be ok. 1066 damaged his delta later with some over exuberant flying and has now modified it into a Mark 2 version. The big surprise for me was Woody’s Vulcan lookalike which flew very well, very steady and nice to fly. Dougal Entendre’s delta was fitted with a retractable nose wheel which worked perfectly. The plane took-off well, retracted the wheel, and flew very well before lowering the wheel again and landing back on the patch. I videoed some of the first flights and attempts, if you’d like to see it click on DELTA DAY.

On the Sunday following the first delta flying day Desperate Dan turned up to test fly his fearful looking twin motored biplane delta, remember he won the Probably Won’t Fly award. Before the attempt we were laying bets as to how far it would get before crashing, my own guess was about eight feet.Well, we were all proved wrong, it just went away from the launch beautifully and flew perfectly with no trimming required, amazing! I have decided that in honour of his remarkable achievement Desperate Dan should be renamed Top Man Dan. I have included some of Top Man’s flight and also some more video of the initial Delta Day in THIS MONTHS VIDEO. Some of the material was provided by BarracKing, thanks Richard. There will be more photos and video of the event available at a later date and will be given out on CDs to anyone that would like one.

We were pleased to be joined at the patch one Sunday by Tim Clay’s dad Shaun. As well as being Chairman of the Eastbourne and District Model Flying Club Shaun and is a very experienced modeller and flier, it was good to meet and fly with him.As Tim’s nickname on here is Modelling Clay it seems only appropriate that Shaun should be nicknamed Play Doh! We look forward to having him fly with us again in the future.

“Dad, what’s the propeller on the front of the plane for?”   “It’s a fan to keep the pilot cool son”

“I don’t think so Dad!”   “Well watch him sweat if it stops going round!”

Colin Cowplain

I’ve made a quick video of some of the Deltas flying on Sunday. I didn’t film all that flew but you’ll get the idea of the fun! Other members filmed all the models and used ‘proper’ video cameras (I was using my phone) so there will be a better and more complete video at a later date.
To watch the video CLICK HERE
Colin Cowplain

I am writing this on 1st September which is classed as the start of autumn but frankly August seemed like winter much of the time; it was mostly cold, windy, and very wet. However, some days weren’t bad (as you can see in the video) and most fliers managed to get some flying in at some time during the month.

I’ll start with the model I ended with in the last Patch News, my HobbyKing Cri-Cri. I bought it in the recent sale where it was discounted by 75% and the cost including postage was a mere £30.40. The model is a Plug’n’Fly so the ‘build’ was pretty straight-forward, the main problem was that, with the battery secured by the pre-installed strap, the CG came out much further forward than the position given in the instructions. So I moved the both the strap and the battery as far rearward as possible but the CG was still a little too far forward. Other than that there were no major problems, just a few small niggles that were easily sorted. OK, so it still looked like a bargain but this month I had to fly it.The Cri-Cri is a scale model so it has tiny scale sized wheels and spats, not an ideal combination for our grass patch. When I tried to take-off for its first flight I opened the throttle fully and the plane didn’t move an inch!So Steve 1066 gave it a chuck and away it went…sort of… The elevator was very sensitive and it needed some up trim but at least it was flying. Then I throttled back and the nose went up really violently and the model promptly tip-stalled. Not good. After a few minutes I decided to land but each time I throttled back the nose shot up and I had to add a load of down elevator to hold level flight. Fortunately she landed without damage other than stripping the gears on the nose-wheel servo. Some of the eventful first flight can be seen in THIS MONTH’S VIDEO.

Over the next few weeks I added some up thrust to the motors, moved the battery pack as far forward as it would go, cranked up both ailerons a few turns to help stop the tip-stalling, replaced the nose-leg completely, moved the main undercarriage forward 30mm, fitted larger wheels, and ditched the spats. The flight before last it managed to take-off, just, but the following flight it didn’t make it again. I think I need to move the main wheels even further forward.But overall it’s not flying too badly now, there is no pitch change when I shut the throttle, it has heaps of power and is pretty fast (as is the full-size). It rolls well and is very nice to fly inverted, but with no rudder the loop isn’t too good as it’s not possible to correct any skew out, and it doesn’t really do much other than fly around. I may add a rudder to make more manoeuvres possible. So was it a bargain after all? Well even without the airframe and one stripped servo I’ve still got two motors, two speed controllers, and three servos so I suppose the answer had to be yes. But will it ever be my favourite flier? No.

In the same HK sale that I bought the Cri-Cri Steve H (1066) bought a Wingnetic which turned out to be a much better choice. Most of you will know that the Kinetic and the Spirit mini gliders are virtually the same thing, the biggest difference being a different motor although the performance of the two is almost identical. On balance the Kinetic seems to be the better choice as the motor is more durable and has a stronger mount. The Wingnetic is a flying wing version of the Kinetic, the front of the fuselage, motor, motor mount, and prop appear to be exactly the same. But instead of ‘glider’ wings and normal tailplane/fin arrangement the Wingnetic has a short stubby wing, two vertical fins, two ailerons and an elevator.

It’s available an ARF, ARF plus motor, or PNF, so you can choose whatever suits you best. How does it fly? Absolutely brilliantly! It’s like a hairier, even more aerobatic version of the Kinetic but without such a good ability to soar of course.1066 was good enough to let me have a flight with his and I immediately felt comfortable with it. It’s very good value even when not at a sale price, I thoroughly recommend it.

We were joined in August by father and son JP (John-Paul) and Monty Bland. Both had been learning to fly at the Elmbridge Model Club in Surrey but a recent house move to Petersfield has brought them to PAM.They come fully equipped with an ST Discovery (electric powered of course) and a Futaba buddy box set-up, ideal. They’ve had a bit of a layoff due to the relocation but both were soon happily flying again although the winds we endure up on the South Downs seemed to be a bit of a shock, and our small patch is concentrating their minds. Both are doing well and I don’t think it will be too long before they take their ‘A’ certs, Monty seems very keen to beat dad to it!

Captain Slow recently maidened his BFG 1600 electric glider. It’s yet another EPO foam model from the HobbyKing stable and is very much like a larger (1600mm span) version of the Spirit in appearance. Like the Spirit it comes with a pylon motor mount so you can choose between a nose mounted motor and folding prop or pylon mounted with a fixed blade prop. Captain Slow chose the former.The model comes ready equipped with a 1300kV 2208 motor, 20A speed controller, and 4 x 9g servos. It’s ‘flap ready’ and includes the hardware but not the servos for flaps, an option John has chosen to go for and they seem to work well. It uses the small 3 cell lipo packs that many of us are using in the Spirits; the specs say 1100-1300mAh although John is using some 1500mAh packs with no problems.It flies well, and is fairly sedate on the 3 cell pack, but will perform mild aerobatics if you get bored with thermal hunting. You can see the model flying in THIS MONTH’S VIDEO.

Gentleman Jim spent some of the bad weather days refurbishing his Eflight Pulse. It’s had lots of flying and was starting to get a little tatty around the edges so Jim stripped off the old covering and replaced it with a fresh new scheme. As you can see he’s made a cracking job of it and it looks very nice in its non-standard colours. It flies as well as ever; the model doesn’t seem to mind its change of clothes.

Richard King (still looking for a nickname, he wasn’t keen on my last suggestion!) has built an F22 Raptor. I was away on the day he brought it along but Dougal Entendre sent me some photos. I don’t have any details but I’m sure it’s built from a Flite Test plan/kit. Dougal said it was made of Correx but if it’s the Flite Test one it’s actually foam board.If you aren’t aware of Flite Test you need to check it out so CLICK HERE  It’s a great, fun, site with loads of very good information and an ever growing line of models that can be purchased in various forms, with or without the electronics pack etc. Mark test flew the Raptor and says it was a little marginal on power with a 9×4 prop. A 9×6 prop improved things a bit but Richard hopes to try either a 9×7 or 9×8 for more speed, or maybe a higher kV motor, the current one being a little low at 1000kv.Anyway, it looks fantastic and I’m sure Richard will give us the full details later. In the meantime I want a go with it mister, please, pretty please!

Modelling Clay has been splashing the cash again. Having learnt to fly in a ridiculously short time on his ST Discovery (despite 1066’s best efforts to bin it!) he progressed to a Wot 4 Foam-E which he mastered in a couple of outings. So now he’s gone for speed with a Durafly EFX Racer.Durafly is one of the HobbyKing ranges and at 1100mm span the EFX Racer is designed as a kind of club flier pylon racer that will take either 3 or 4 cell lipos. Tim is using 3 cells at the moment but I don’t suppose it will be long before he tries it on 4 for a bit more speed. Mind you, it’s far from slow on 3 cells and I think Tim is finding it plenty quick enough for his skills at the moment.The EFX Racer can be seen in THIS MONTH’S VIDEO.

Tony Neal brought his new Pilatus PC9 to show us at a club meeting a few weeks back. It’s from…yes I know this is starting to sound like an advert for HobbyKing but if you keep buying them…! I think Tony bought it in the recent sale as he said it was only £79, at the moment it’s showing as £127 from the UK warehouse although I’ve just had the ‘one time offer’ at £118 pop up. The Pilatus PC-9 was an improved version of the earlier PC-7, but it featured a larger cockpit with ejection seats, a more powerful engine, and a host of structural improvements. It has been used by numerous countries as an advanced trainer aircraft. It was even built under license by Beechcraft and used by the United States Air Force as the T-6A Texan II. The model is 1200mm span and is Plug’n’Fly so comes ready fitted with 6 servos, a retracting tricycle undercarriage and a 3648 650kv motor coupled to a 45A esc. All you need is a 6 channel radio and a 4 cell lipo of around 2200-2600mAh. It has a rather unusual feature, you have to plug the battery pack into a socket on the outside to open the servo controlled canopy so you can then put the battery inside the fuselage and reconnect it. Tony didn’t like that at all, partly because the canopy servo operation restricts access considerably, so he did away with that system and simply removes the canopy manually.It’s finished in an Australian colour scheme, that of No2 Flight Training School of the RAAF and looks very smart. The first time Tony brought it to the patch the retract sequencer packed up despite working perfectly until then. He thinks it may have been due to having removed the canopy system which is also run from the sequencer. After a couple of weeks a new sequencer arrived and all was well once more so he brought it along again.With everything working he went for the first flight but the model didn’t quite get away, it lifted off (just) at the end of the patch but appeared to be lacking speed and it did a mild cartwheel. Fortunately the only damage was a neatly removed fin which will be very easily mended. I’m not sure what Tony’s plan is for the next attempt; possibly change the scale 4 bladed propeller? No doubt he’ll soon get it sorted; it’s a lovely looking model and needs to be up in the air where it belongs.

August seems to have been Wot 4 month, Woody bought a Wot 4 Foam-E which flew very nicely, as expected, and he managed to remove the undercarriage after a few flights, also as expected!Don’t feel bad Woody, it happens to all of them, easily fixed.

John Warren splashed out on a proper wooden Wot 4. Actually I think it’s the HK Student 64E Intermediate Trainer but to you and me it’s a Wot 4. I’ve no idea what the 64 is, the span is 1200mm not 64 inch.John got me to test fly his new pride and joy and it shot off the ground at a remarkable rate on just under half throttle. It flew perfectly, just didn’t need more than about third throttle at any time during the flight so I asked John a few questions about the power train. It was on 4 cells as that was the packs he wanted to use but he hadn’t checked the wattage or current draw. So after the first flight we put a watt meter on it and found that at full throttle it was pulling about 80A and over 1000 watts!John has gone off to try some smaller props to reduce the power to a more sensible level and tame the beast somewhat. I think the answer is to use 3 cells, it probably needs a different kV motor really but it might be possible to sort it with a prop change.Otherwise John’s best bet is to flog it to Smiffy, although he’d probably still say it’s under powered!

Norwegian Nick flew this lovely little Tiger Moth at Buriton before one of the recent club meetings. I’m afraid I didn’t get any information about the model other than that Nick won it in a club raffle. Obviously it isn’t going to be a suitable model for windy conditions but in the calm evening weather before the meeting it was great, flew beautifully and looked very much the part.

Last but not least this month, Captain Slow sent me some photos of Basher Bob’s parasail as I was away the first time it flew this month. I thought it was a new model but Bob tells me it’s his six year old Hawkeye that he hasn’t flown for a couple of years.It was designed for aerial photography before the days of quadcopters and is made from lightweight kite material and carbon rods. It has a wingspan of around 2300mm, a 230watt motor, 25 amp esc and a 2200 3s battery. The controls are throttle, rudder, and CG shift (a Basher mod). It doesn’t have an elevator, more power makes it climb, and another servo operates the camera shutter. Flight times are 15 minutes plus. Basher reports that it’s very docile and easy to land, just shut the throttle! It’s a problem in high winds as increasing the power to make it penetrate increases the angle of attack and makes it climb instead, hence the CG shift mod. It’s always good to see something different from the norm at the patch, nice one Basher.

On Bank Holiday Sunday I went to the Wings & Wheels show at Dunsfold with Jim and Woody. It was a great day and I might include a few photos in the next Patch News.  I was a little short of video this month so I’ve added a couple of minutes of Wings & Wheels at the end of THIS MONTH’S VIDEO.

After boarding the plane at Heathrow Airport for New York and taking his seat, the businessman noticed a very beautiful woman boarding the plane. He realized she was heading straight toward his seat and bingo – she took the seat right beside him. “Hello”, he blurted out, “Business trip or vacation?” She turned, smiled enchantingly and said, “Business. I’m going to the annual nymphomaniac convention in the United States …….” He swallowed hard. Here was the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen sitting next to him, and she was going to a meeting for nymphomaniacs! Struggling to maintain his composure, he calmly asked, “What’s your business role at this convention?” “Lecturer,” she responded,” I use my experience to debunk some of the popular myths about sexuality…”

“Really”, he smiled, “what myths are those?” “Well,” she explained, “one popular myth is that African-American men are the most well-endowed when, in fact, it’s the Native American Indian who is most likely to possess that trait. Another popular myth is that French men are the best lovers, when actually it is the men of Greek descent… We have also found that the best potential lovers in all categories are the Irish.”

Suddenly the woman became uncomfortable and blushed. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I really shouldn’t be discussing this with you, I don’t even know your name!”

“Tonto,” the man said. “Tonto Papadopoulos, but my friends call me Paddy.”

Colin Cowplain

Summer, what summer? July was really mixed up weather wise, we had some lovely weather at the beginning of the month but then it turned more like late autumn with wind and rain. Fortunately the last few days slowly improved so hopefully August will be much better for us.

I was away at the start of the month so Dougal Entendre kept me up to date and sent me some photos.

It seems the main thing I missed was a pair of Nicks. DoughBoy (treasurer Nick Squire) flew his Cougar 2000.This was significant for two reasons, firstly it’s I/C powered (a rarity in the club now) and secondly he remembered where the field is!

Nick Sivertsen also made an appearance after an absence of a few months. Nick is a ‘proper’ modeller and he brought along a P39 Bell Air Cobra that he had built from a Clive Smalley plan.The plan was a feature in the June 1983 edition of RCM&E and Nick built most of it not long after but never got round to finishing it. It is 31.5” span (800mm) and in those pre-electric days it was designed for a glow or diesel engine of .10 – 15cu in.Nick had made a lovely job of it and it looked great with its airbrushed spray job complete with panel lines etc. Unfortunately Dougal reported that it nosed in straight from the hand launch and removed the nose very neatly. Undaunted, Nick returned a couple of weeks later with the repaired model and the addition of some lead in the tail. This time I got to launch it and I decided an underarm launch would be easiest…oh dear! On the first attempt the model half rolled hard left and knocked the fin clean off. This was soon replaced with the help of some cyano and we tried again. This time I launched it overarm (more height=more time to sort it). It seemed to leave my hands ok but almost immediately rolled hard left again, and this time, with the extra height and speed, the result was an awful lot of damage.Sadly Nick says he won’t bother repairing it. We don’t really know why this happened; certainly Nick had built it straight and true. I commented at the time that it felt heavy. I think the motor Nick used was well over the power of a .15cu in I/C equivalent so maybe a smaller and lighter motor/battery combination would have been better. There was loads of power but if the wing loading was too high maybe I couldn’t launch it at the flying speed required. I guess we’ll never know but it was certainly a shame to see such a nice and unusual model destroyed in seconds.

On a happier note Nick also brought along a new model that he’s putting together, a Kavan Bird of Prey EDF glider. It’s very unusual, I’ve certainly never seen a tail mounted ducted fan on a glider, but Kavan are known for producing quality things so I’m sure it will turn out well.The wings are foam with obechi covering and the fuselage is fibreglass, it’s all beautifully made. It has a conventional tailplane and the fin mounts on top of the fan housing. This is certainly one I’m looking forward to seeing fly.

Some of us have been flying at Buriton before club meetings and taking advantage of the calm evenings.The HobbyKing Hummers are ideal for this, they are extremely manoeuvrable so are good for park flying, and they fly so much better in calm conditions than they do in even a light wind. Dougal Entendre and 1066 were flying on the evening that I took the photos, both Tony Neal and I have also flown our Hummers there but weren’t that particular evening. The pair managed to get very close to each other a couple of times whilst honing their prop hanging skills.

Steve’s is actually a Hyperion Sniper, probably what the HK Hummer was copied from but the Hummer has been improved somewhat. At one point 1066 managed to touch the wingtip on the ground and proved the fuselage is very flexible, amazingly it didn’t break!

Chris Hard has been flying his wings again; these are two of his favourites, a Great Planes Slinger at the back and a Ripmax Wild Wing at the front.Launching can be a bit of a problem with flying wings but Chris shows how he does it with the Wild Wing.You can see the Slinger flying by clicking on THIS MONTHS VIDEO.

The video also has just a snippet of Dwayne Pipe landing his Vega electric glider. I covered it in Patch News last month but since then Dwayne has made some changes. The original design was rudder/elevator but Dwayne wanted ailerons so he guessed at the size they would need to be. It turned out that they were pretty ineffective so Dwayne has now doubled their size and they work much better.

A couple of weeks ago Bob Hill and I were flying our Spirits one midweek morning, with the whole sky all to ourselves, when he ruthlessly smashed his Spirit into mine! I saw something fluttering down from mine but I still had some control so I did an emergency landing without any further damage. Bob meanwhile was sniggering away, saying his was all ok, but suddenly his canopy detached and fluttered away (haha!). The piece he had ripped off my poor Spirit turned out to be one of the tailplane halves, hence rather reduced control. Luckily we managed to find both Bob’s canopy and my tailplane half fairly easily so Bob could fly again and I was able to complete repairs at home. I’m sure you’ll agree that as Bob’s canopy hit my tailplane it was obviously totally his fault, so from now on he’ll be known as Basher Bob. Basher Bob actually features quite a lot in THIS MONTHS VIDEO but unusually he’s behaving himself.

Several months ago Tony Neal arrived at the patch with a very nicely built De Havilland Chipmunk.He had built it from a Chiltern Models kit that dated from around 1985. It was designed by John Camlen as a Semi-Scale sports model for 25 to 40 size glow engines. Wing span is 53 inches, which makes it approx. 1/7th scale. Tony had converted it to electric using a 500 watt motor running on 3 cells. It looked good, he’d made a very nice job of the build, and it looked as if it should just fly with no problems. Wrong, Tony just couldn’t get it off the ground! It wouldn’t lift off cleanly, kept dropping a wing and acting peculiarly in general. Tony took it home, made a few changes, brought it back and tried again, but it was still much the same. This happened several times, always with similar results, it simply wouldn’t fly but there didn’t appear to be any good reason.But finally, earlier this month, success at last! Once Tony had got it into the air he learnt more about the trim, the correct control movements etc. and he was able to improve it greatly for the second flight which was much better. I’m not sure how it felt to Tony but it looked good in the air and I think he’s pretty much tamed it now. Some of the second successful flight, including take-off and landing, can be seen in THIS MONTHS VIDEO.

Also in the video is Modelling Clay flying his Wot 4 Foam-E. When watching him fly, completing rolls, loops, bunts, and low inverted passes, it’s difficult to imagine that he’s only been flying for around 3 months. He’s already passed his ‘A’ certificate and I’m sure he’s destined to be a very good pilot in the future. But, to stop him getting too big headed, he had a bit of a problem last week. Tim was flying his first model, an ST Models Discovery trainer, practising low inverted passes (no mean feat itself with a trainer) when he had, in his own words, ‘brain fade’ and discovered that a bunt from inverted requires down elevator not up! The result wasn’t pretty, a bit beyond a call for help from dad!

If you were at the last club meeting in July you will have seen my latest purchase. The HobbyKing website had a 4^th July sale but I didn’t see anything that really appealed so I didn’t buy anything. However, a couple of weeks later I had an email from them saying ‘HK Sale Reloaded’ and one of the offers was a little foam Cri-Cri reduced by 75% to just under £24.This scale plane is a twin engined EPO foam model of 1050mm span that is classed as PNF (Plug N Fly) so comes almost complete, and is fitted with 2 x 2825 1850KV outrunner motors, 2 x 20A speed controllers, and 4 x 9g servos, and a pair of counter rotating props. Even with the postage and the $/£ conversion the total price was only £30.40 so I couldn’t refuse!

The full-size Colomban Cri-Cri is the smallest twin-engined manned aircraft in the world, designed in the early 1970s by French aeronautical engineer Michel Colomban. The aircraft is made from aluminium sheet glued to Klegecell foam and is capable of mild aerobatics. It’s just 4.9m span (16ft 1in) and 3.9m long (12ft 10in), and the empty weight is 78kg, considerably less than me!There have been various versions built including several with 2 x 15 horsepower (11kW) electric motors.

Another electric one with 25 horsepower motors set the world speed record for electric powered aircraft at 162.33mph. The electric ones use lipos, just like us!EADS (who build Airbus airliners) produced one with 4 electric motors.

There are even turbine ones, I wonder if they are using model turbines?

It only takes a few hours to put the model together and I’m hoping to fly mine on 2^nd August. It definitely needs a very large but very light pilot, perhaps I’ll attempt some foam carving…Like the full-size, the models appear to fly fast and as they only have tiny wheels and are fitted with spats take-off from our small grass patch may be a challenge. Hopefully it will slow up for landing, time will tell.

Q: What separates three whores from two alcoholics?

A: The cockpit door!

Colin Cowplain