Patch News History

In Patch News last month I explained that I would be away on holiday at the end of September and beginning of October so would be relying on others to keep me up to date with patch happenings. Everything worked out as hoped, I received updates from several members, and I was able to upload Patch News from my tablet on 1^st October while in my Singapore hotel room, isn’t technology great? So now it’s time to report on October and some of the report, photos, and video content has been provided by Dougal Entendre, Captain Slow, JP, and Barracking.

The weather hasn’t been too bad recently; in fact we’ve had some very good flying days, some with hardly a breath of wind. By the start of the month Chairman Ron had got the patch in really good condition, his hard work mowing over the summer really paid off and the grass was the best it’s ever been. But then, in mid-October, George put some bullocks in the field… Sadly now the patch has been badly churned up and is well manured. Initially the young bullocks were very inquisitive, a real pain to keep out of our way, and had a tendency to follow us from the barn up to the patch, as demonstrated by Dougal Entendre and Basher Bob in this photo.But happily, more recently they seem to have got used to us and now ignore us most of the time. The little presents (ok, big wet sloppy presents) they leave on the patch make landings interesting, it’s not easy to consistently land on the patch and much harder when you’re trying to avoid ‘obstacles’! See Wonky Wiltshire in THIS MONTH’S VIDEO.  At least most of the deltas people built for the Delta Challenge don’t have wheels so can be plonked down with virtually no running on. If the initial touchdown is on a clean bit of grass the plane should stay clean. But Basher Bob discovered the hard way that if the delta actually lands smack in the middle of a pat the result is not pleasant.Perhaps I should confess that it was actually me that landed it that time following a trimming flight…payback time Basher…payback!

While JP was on herding duties he got all artistic and snapped my Delta flying over the cows.How come his photos are so much better than mine? It must be something to do with him being a professional photographer I suppose!

Basher Bob tends to incorporate his name or initial into the models that he’s designed or heavily modified, so his delta is actually Belta, his Splot has become Splob, and his Calmato is Bobmato. The last one should be ‘was’ Bobmato, he heavily modified it rather badly recently and I don’t think it will re-emerge this time.

One thing I missed while away was a low level aerobatic display by a Yak. Woody says it’s our friendly local Tiger Moth pilot who also flies a Yak. Shame I missed it, by all accounts it was a very good display, but unfortunately nobody seems to have got any photographs of the event. Dougal managed to get a short snippet of video though and it can be seen in THIS MONTH’S VIDEO.

Following a coming together between Basher Bob’s Spirit and Dougal Entendre’s Slick last month both models have been repaired and are back flying once more. Basher managed to graft half of his broken Spirit onto half of his broken Kinetic (they’re almost identical models) and made one decent model from the two wrecks.Dougal has made a lovely job of repairing the Slick and even included a small insignia to record the ‘kill’!

A few months ago Chris P Bacon (Nigel Baker) brought one of his mates (no, I didn’t think he had any either) to the patch to find out what model flying is all about. The friend is Mike Creamer and Mike has now fully joined as a member. That first occasion wasn’t a huge success; Chris P let Mike have a fly of his Wot 4 Foam-E with me in charge of looking after him. I’m not quite sure what happened but Mike managed to crash in the valley and I managed to not save him from doing so! But things have gone much better since then, Mike has bought a Freewing Pandora, a 1.4M span ready to fly foam model that has proved to be excellent. It’s very unusual in that it can be configured in 4 different ways and it can be changed between the 4 at any time. It can have either a tricycle undercarriage set up or the more usual taildragger arrangement, and it can be either high wing or low wing. All the parts are included with the kit, and you can choose whichever configuration suits you to start with and change to another version later. It also comes fitted with flaps but they are fixed as standard, you must add two of your own servos and the linkages if you want to use them. Mike has wisely gone for the high wing taildragger set up without flaps at the moment and the Pandora is serving him well.It’s a good size so handles the wind well and is easier to see than some of the smaller trainers, and with the taildragger arrangement it has pretty large wheels that are well suited to our patch. Later, when Mike’s skills improve he can convert it to a low winger and even swap it to a trike undercart if he wants. I must say I was quite surprised to see that it looks very pretty as a low winger, it doesn’t like a lash up at all, Freewing have done a good job on the design.

Woody’s Vulcan delta is flying well, last Sunday he had recorded the ‘Vulcan howl’ on his phone, and played it as his Vulc did a low slow pass and climb out, magic! It looks surprisingly realistic when flying at high level which is where Captain Altitude does most of his flying.

Woody says he can’t hit anything up there, time he was introduced to Basher Bob methinks! See it flying in THIS MONTH’S VIDEO. He managed to break the prop landing on the patch the other day and duly searched for the broken blade, we don’t want them being eaten by the cattle. He couldn’t find the missing blade so several others joined the search before someone finally spotted it.What are the chances…?

Several new models had their first outings in October. First up is Chairman Ron’s Splot, a beautifully made example that Ron built exactly to the original Graham Head design other than converting it to electric power.Ron didn’t feel the need to lengthen the nose or add extra bays to the wings; he simply fitted an E-Max 2815/09 motor with an 11 x 7 prop, a 40A esc, and a 2200mAH 3 cell battery pack. He even used the original design of fitting one centrally mounted aileron servo, something of a rarity these days but of course it was the norm back in 1986 when Graham designed the Splot.Ron asked me to do the test flight and I’m happy to report that it flies like all the Splots do, brilliantly. There was hardly a click of trim needed and the centre of gravity proved to be spot on. Ron has now had several flights with it and it’s already become a firm favourite.

Modelling Clay won the Big Raffle again recently (I knew he was trouble right from the start) and chose the Wingnetic. This is a flying wing version of the Kinetic/Spirit and it shares the same fuselage front end, motor and motor mount.

I flew 1066’s Wingnetic when he bought one a few months back and was very impressed. I think Tim’s is the same version as Steve’s, so it comes with the motor and speed controller but you have to provide you own servos, 3 x 5 or 6 gram ones are recommended.At around £45 it’s a great little model.

Now for a new model that a little different. It’s Gary Houghton’s new Black Horse Models Edge 540. So what’s different? It’s got one of those strange, old fashioned I/C engines!It’s an ARTF built from balsa and ply, and is covered in Oracover. The wingspan is 62” and the model weighs around 7-1/4lbs. The engine is an OS65AX, which is 10.63cc. The model flies well and is capable of just about any manoeuvre in the book.Gary’s is fitted with the standard silencer and passed the noise test ok. It didn’t seem noisy to me, it’s certainly quieter than his Wot 4. But I see from the OS website that there is an optional silencer available that is both quieter and lighter than the one they supply as standard. Why on earth don’t they supply the quieter, lighter one as standard in these days of noise problems and lost flying fields? Anyway, Gary has taken the hint from the rest of the club and he has an electric powered model under construction.

We haven’t seen any new EDF models for a while but Wonky Wiltshire has just bought a Mini Katana EDF from HobbyKing. The name seems a bit odd, Katana is actually the name of a long sword, but in full-size aircraft it’s a 2 seat composite light aircraft, and model Katanas are mostly 3D aerobatic types on the lines of an Extra or Edge.This Katana is 600mm span and is pushed along by a 5 bladed 50mm fan unit coupled to a 30A esc and the usual 1000mAH batteries that most of us have for our Spirits etc. It’s all moulded from EPO foam so it’s strong and can be glued with normal cyano, not foam safe.It seemed to fly well once Wonky had recovered from my dodgy launch and it certainly moved round the sky pretty quickly, not one you’d want to let get too far away! I look forward to trying it Phil…

I had a surprise this month when a prospective new member arrived at the field and introduced himself as Graham Swan, one of my old friends from school! We built and flew single channel radio control models together back in the 60’s, and Graham actually still has one of his, a Wizard of Oz slope soarer, as featured on the cover of Aero Modeller in April 1966.

I can also remember that he built (for obvious reasons) a Swannee, also from an Aero Modeller plan, and a Mini Concord from a Veron kit.Like me, Graham has recently retired and he decided to return to modelling following a trip to Old Warden on what turned out to be a model flying day. He has already bought an E-flite Apprentice, the new version with a built in gyro called SAFE – Sensor Assisted Flight Envelope.It works well; Graham has had three flights so far without crashing despite me looking after him! From what I saw on those flights I don’t think it will take him long to learn, although it will probably take longer to get used to the club ‘characters’.

Finally, it’s time for another Caption Competition. There will be a prize so place your entries in the Comments sections at the end.‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’ is too obvious, think up your own insults!

A supposedly true story of a Scottish flight: 

After being airborne for approximately thirty minutes on an outbound evening flight from Glasgow, the lead flight attendant for the cabin crew nervously made the following painful announcement: “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m so very sorry but it appears that there has been a terrible mix up by our airport catering service… I don’t know how this has happened but we have 103 passengers on board and, unfortunately, only 40 dinner meals… I truly apologise for this mistake and inconvenience.” 

When passengers’ muttering had died down, she continued: “Anyone who is kind enough to give up their meal so that someone else can eat will receive free, unlimited drinks for the duration of our 5 hour flight.” 

Her next announcement came 90 minutes later: “If anyone would like to change their minds, we still have 40 dinners available.” 

Colin Cowplain

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