Patch News History

Last week Dougal Entendre sent me something he found in the April 1983 Epsom Radio Flying Club newsletter that seems appropriate for this time of year, he thinks it was written by the then editor, one Chris Hodson:

“In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish’d dove;

In the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.”

When Tennyson wrote this immortal verse, it is obvious that he wasn’t referring to an aero-modeller! Most hot blooded fliers that I have met certainly don’t need the spring to trigger off their thoughts of love. They attend to that during the winter months. When the spring comes there are far more important things to think about.

And here we are once again, with mother nature performing her annual miracle. The daffodils are already past their best – and the trees are alive with blossom to delight us all. So with the promise of good flying days ahead, it’s time to get those models down from the top of the wardrobe – check the radios, paint the airframes, and head for the flying field.

Had Tennyson been a member of our club, he might have written:-        

“IN THE SPRING THE SUMMER EVENINGS PROMISE DAYS OF PURE DELIGHT.

IN THE SPRING THE AEROMODELLER LIGHTLY TURNS HIS THOUGHTS TO FLIGHT.”

Sadly it’s been blowing a gale almost constantly since I received Dougal’s email but spring really is here and the weather is going to turn glorious at any moment…

March started much the same as it ended, very windy, and, as I mentioned in last month’s Patch News, on 1^st March I managed to video 1066 and Captain Slow braving the gale. Several others of us also flew but it was a bit of an endurance test at times! Steve was flying his 4 cell Speedy glider which proved to be the ideal model for the conditions. John flew his Zagi, which also seemed unperturbed by the gales. To see the video CLICK HERE

A few months ago I featured Captain Slow’s Ugly Stik (I think I could have put that better!) and mentioned that I quite fancied one myself but felt they were a little expensive. Well in early March HobbyKing had a sale and the Ugly Stiks were half price from the UK warehouse. That was too good to refuse and a couple of days later one duly arrived having cost just £47.15 plus postage. That is an amazing price as it includes the EPO airframe, motor, speed controller, four servos, and the dummy I/C engine. The electric motor is mounted inside the front of the fuselage with an extension shaft running through the plastic dummy I/C engine.Me and my new best friend Captain Slow with Ugly Stiks and Spirits!

The instruction manual is surprisingly good and assembly consists of just eight points, one of which is to fit the prop ‘with the Durafly logo facing outwards’. At the back of the manual is a Trouble Shooting section and one item is: Problem – Model moves backwards. Cause – Prop installed backwards. Solution – Turn the prop around. Err…no, fitting the prop backwards results in greatly reduced power but it still pushes the air in the same direction! In the ‘good old days’ before radio control and throttles we would sometimes fit a prop on backwards to reduce the power of an overpowered free flight model.

The suggested battery is a 3 cell 25C 2200 lipo and I was a little concerned that my 3 cell 25C 4000s might cause CG problems even if they fitted ok, but I needn’t have worried, I can report that a 3 cell 25C 4000 Zippy Compact fits snuggly and the CG is spot on. The extra weight probably reduces the performance a tad but it seems to go well enough to me and the flight times are ridiculous, I tend to land after around 12 minutes and usually have well over 30% left in the pack.

Captain Slow took this as I prepared for the first flight.

I had read reports of the bearing in the dummy I/C seizing and this can cause the esc to blow, possibly resulting in a loss of radio, so I was worried when mine suddenly made strange rev linked noises during the first couple of flights. I landed, checked all was ok, and took off again several times before discovering that the noise was caused by a piece of transparent film over the Durafly logo on the prop. The film had started to lift in the airflow and once these were removed from both blades the noise disappeared.I’m still wary of the bearing seizing and have oiled it several times but so far I’ve had no problems. Like Captain Slow, I managed to pull the undercarriage out after a few flights. The landing really was quite gentle but the plastic undercarriage mounting is simply trapped between the two halves of the fuselage and doesn’t appear to have any glue on it all. So on the first landing that is anything less than perfect the plastic just pulls through the foam underside. Mine was soon put back in position but this time with copious amounts of Gorilla Glue. It’s stayed put for lots of flights since (including a touch and go) so I’m hoping it will be ok now. Fingers crossed…

Away from aero-modelling the supposed highlight of March was the near total eclipse of the sun at 9.30am on 20^th March. Some of us Midweekers decided to go to the patch a little earlier than usual, hoping to get a good view of the eclipse from high up on the downs and then fly from 10am as usual. Sadly the 100% cloud cover meant we saw absolutely nothing of the sun but we were amazed by just how dark it got up there. It was very eerie, there was total silence as it grew darker and darker, and the birds obviously thought it was nightfall.But, unlike them, we weren’t fooled, after a few minutes the daylight returned and we enjoyed the rest of the morning, flying as usual. Needless to say, later on the cloud broke and we saw the sun, typical!

Last month I said that Woody (Alan Wood) had replaced his much loved Seagull Pilatus PC9 with a… Seagull Pilatus PC9, but I had forgotten to photograph it. Well here it is, having corrected the CG it’s now flying just like the first one and we have a happy Woody once again.

Chairman Ron also likes the Seagull PC9, so much so that he actually has two of them. They have very lightweight ‘traditional’ built up structures which are covered in Oracover. I thought they might be a little fragile when I first saw them but in fact they have proved to be pretty durable, light but strong. They are excellent fliers and both Woody and Ron praise them highly. At just under £70 from Kings Lynn Model Shop what’s not to like?

Accompanying Ron’s PC9 in the photo is his Edge 540. This is another Seagull model with a similar light but strong structure and it also flies very well. Both models use the almost standard 3 cell 2200 lipo packs although the Extra can take 4 cells for those that want more extreme performance.Ron’s Edge 540 also came from Kings Lynn Model Shop and if you’d like one, at £71.99 they are just £2 dearer than the PC9.

On 15^th March the weather was windy (again) so not many fliers showed up but it turned out to be an interesting morning as the bottom lane was on the route of the Meon Valley Plod organised by Portsmouth Joggers. This was interesting not only because we were able to watch people even dafter than ourselves enjoying their sport but also because Dougal’s wife Angie was one of them! We lined up alongside the fence to cheer Angie on as she ran past, and then retreated to the comfort of our cars and home for a warm up.The Plod is a very muddy cross-country run of just over 21 miles featuring six big hills with a total ascent of 2300ft…they must be mad! As she passed us Angie said she was struggling but she finished roughly in the middle of the pack with a time of 3 hours 37 minutes so very well done to her I say.

On the same day the other Agate (Dougal) didn’t do so well. As I said, it was very windy and as he attempted to get his Spit off the ground the wind got under one wing and it cartwheeled. Spitfires with scale retracts are notoriously difficult to get off the ground safely, they always try to ‘peck’ the prop into the ground and the pilot has to try to stop it by holding full up elevator until the speed has risen. Then, unless the elevator is perfectly managed, the plane jumps into the air with insufficient airspeed and there are dire consequences.In calm weather Dougal often hand-launches his Spit with the wheels retracted as it’s impossible to stop it nosing in, but he thought he may have more control in the strong wind. Sadly he was wrong, but not to worry, the damage looked worse than it really was and Dougal reports the nose simply glued straight back in position with barely a mark to see.

Stanley Knife (Viv Burgess’ new self-imposed nickname) flew his large Stinson Reliant on one of the calmer midweek days. The model was designed to have a 160 I/C motor but Stanley has converted it to electric.   It has loads of power and flies very well but Stanley is still finalising elevator movement and CG position as the model seems very sensitive to down elevator. So far, despite the motor producing around 2.7kW of power on 10 cells, each time Viv has landed after flights of around 5 minutes there has been around 80% left in the batteries. Once off the ground Stanley throttles back and the Stinson cruises round very regally.On the last flight it suffered the usual ARTF undercarriage failure despite a reasonable landing but it was soon repaired and strengthened somewhat. I took some video of Stanley’s’ latest flight (including that landing) and have compiled it with various others taken in March, including Gentleman Jim, Chairman Ron, and Mike Smith’s new Pitts Python. To watch the video CLICK HERE

Last week I was looking forward to seeing Mike Smith test fly his new Great Planes Tracer aerobatic model that he’s converted to electric, but when he arrived at the patch he was carrying a biplane instead. Turns out he’d got the Tracer out of the car only to discover he’d left the wing bolts at home. What sort of an idiot does that…apparently almost all of us at some time or other! The biplane turned out to be a Dynam Pitts Python, a new model Mike that had recently purchased.The original was designed by Curtis Pitts of course and the Python version was fitted with a Russian radial engine which gave it a superb power to weight ratio. The Dynam model is 1067mm span and only weighs 1300g so running a 650kVa motor on 4 cells means it also has a superb power to weight ratio.Mike spent most of the morning plucking up the courage to fly his new pride and joy so he only had one flight but I’m happy to report that all went well. Being the first flight Mike didn’t do anything dramatic with the model but it certainly appears to fly well, has loads of power, and will obviously be a very capable performer.Snippets of the first flight can be seen in the video mentioned in the previous section.

On the subject of Pitts, for those of you that I haven’t bored to death with the story, in 2010 I was bought an hour long aerobatic flight in a Pitts Special for my 60^th birthday (yes, I know, I can’t possibly be that old etc…) and had a great time. It was from Rochester Airport in Kent with a pilot who competes in the British Aerobatic Association events in Pitts G-TIII. He let me fly a large part of the flight on the way to the aerobatic area on the Kent coast, then did all the usual gut wrenching things an aerobatic pilot does in a Pitts, and then let me fly most of the way back to Rochester. Amazing flight and no I wasn’t sick! The plane is currently up for sale so if you’d like your own Pitts and have £50k spare I can give you a phone number. If you’d like to see a video I did of the day CLICK HERE

Last week we had a lovely day with a reasonable wind that was in a perfect direction for the Sky Surfing Club who use Wether Down, up by the radio masts.  We mostly see paragliders nowadays but the wind that particular day must have been better suited for hang gliders as lots of them were soon aloft and several found enough lift to leave the ridge and thermal soar away from the hill. They gradually drifted southwards, circling in the thermals and passed over our field to the east of the pits. Obviously we kept a good lookout all the time they were in our vicinity but none of them ever got close to the area the models were flying in.  They are fascinating to watch and have advanced hugely from the early days of Rogallo wings, they are now high tech, high performance machines.

The photos aren’t of brilliant quality but you can clearly see that they have some form of tailplane and reflexed wing tips. It was great to be able to watch a totally different type of aviation whilst enjoying our model flying.

With the upcoming election in mind the sign on the back of one of those trucks that sucks out the waste from airliner toilets seems appropriate: ‘Caution – This truck is full of political promises’

Colin Cowplain

It’s the beginning of March and the signs of spring are here, roll on summer! February gave us the expected mixture of weather, some days were just wet and awful, others were cold but clear, but the overall trend seemed to be windy.

February 1^st in particular was VERY windy, only an idiot would have bothered trying to fly…well it seems we have two idiots, Captain Slow (John Wheeley) and Dougal Entendre (Mark Agate). Perhaps I should mention that the nicknames are mostly not ones I have dreamt up, they are what people have chosen to call themselves.Anyway, said idiots both flew their little Spirit electric mini-hotliners and Dougal sent the photographic evidence.He reports that the wind was typically 25 knots with gusts up to 38 knots but the Spirits took it in their stride!

We all tend to struggle with watery eyes when trying to fly in really windy weather. Personally I wear sunglasses all year round and find that they control the watering. Steve 1066 Hastings struggles more than most and was seen this month testing yet another solution.

Not your best look Steve but if it works for you…

Last month I briefly mentioned the Citabria Pro that Dwayn Pipe (Keith Evans) had built but as he was planning to give a talk at club about building the model I didn’t go into any detail.The talk was excellent and gave a good insight into building from a plan, including such things as creating a materials list and cutting a kit of parts before commencing the build.Following the first flight Keith has made a few adjustments to such things as the motor downthrust etc and the Citabria has now had several more successful flights. I managed to get some reasonable video of one flight which you can see here: Citabria video

I also mentioned last month that Dougal has been messing around with some new firmware on his Walkera Devention transmitter which has meant overwriting every model setup. So he has been giving all of his many models a fresh ‘first flight’ to trim them and get the control movements he likes. Dougal seems to have gone with the approach of starting with the maximum movement possible on all surfaces with no exponential, and then taming them back to something more comfortable. This has resulted in some amusing moments for us spectators and having watched some of his tests I decided to record the ‘first flight’ of his Slick.

I only managed the first few seconds as I was laughing so much: Slick video

One of the PAM members who braved the winds several times in February was Gary Houghton. Gary is the last remaining regular I/C flier but I understand an electric model is currently under construction.

He is seen here with his Chris Foss Wot 4 and he also flies a Weston Cougar 2000.

Steve 1066 Hastings has been enjoying his Speedy electric glider this month. The model has a 1600mm span built up balsa wing and a fibreglass fuselage, and is sold by HobbyKing as a 3 cell model.Steve first flew the model on 3 cells but wanted a bit more power so he switched to 4 cells. Unfortunately I wasn’t there to witness the event but apparently the extra power proved too much for the fibreglass fuselage and the motor ripped the nose off! I would imagine the prop was out of balance for it to do that. Steve duly completed the repairs and stiffened the inside of the nose with some ply strips.

The motor looks like an inrunner but it’s actually an outrunner inside a case. The case means there aren’t any rotating parts to keep the wires etc away from, something that can be a problem in a glider with a slim nose. He wasn’t over keen on the kit and said it was a bit of a pig to put together but now it’s sorted I think he’s very happy with it, it certainly performs very well. I shot some video of it flying in very strong winds on 1^st March but as this is the February blog you’ll just have to wait until next month to see it.

A model that has been to the field but is as yet unflown is Tony Neal’s new BAE Hawk. It’s another one from HobbyKing and is very similar to their T-45 Goshawk but in fact it’s slightly larger and uses a 70mm fan rather than 64mm.

It’s a bit odd as HK call it a Red Arrow BAE Hawk but it’s not in Red Arrows colours; in fact it has American markings! However, it looks great and I think it will fly very well, certainly the Goshawk is an excellent flier and if anything this one should be better.

Tony’s model is complete and ready to go but he wisely decided not to risk a maiden flight in the blustery winds that prevailed on the day he brought it along. Hopefully it will fly soon and I will be able to report on it in the March blog.

Gentleman Jim Hobday chose one of the calmer days to fly his Grumman Wildcat. It’s been around for a while now and is a great little flier. Jim bought it at Blackbushe a couple of years ago as a bag of foam Wildcat parts rather than a complete kit.

It seems to be the Parkzone one but I imagine it was a replacement airframe for people who had crashed theirs. So Jim had to find a suitable motor along with all the usual fixture and fittings, something he obviously got right as it flies really well.

Woody has bought himself another Pilatus PC9 to replace the one he ‘wore out’… I test flew it and discovered Woody needs a lesson on how to locate the CG! But all was well and after the addition of lots of nose weight and some elevator adjustments it flew nicely. I forgot to take a photo of the model; I just got this one of a rather dispirited looking Woody being assisted by Gentleman Jim.

I also snapped this general one of the pits on a cold and windy day.

Captain Slow has discovered that his Ugly Stik has the usual ARTF undercarriage…Almost Ready To Fail.It neatly fell off on what looked like a pretty gentle landing and on closer examination it seems there was almost no glue holding the mounting plate in place.

I suppose it meant it came off with minimal damage to the surrounding area but the manufacturers really need to improve undercarriage mounting for people who don’t fly from lovely tarmac runways. John has now glued it back in properly so hopefully it will stay put.

We had a very welcome surprise visit to the patch a couple of Sundays ago when a full-size Tiger Moth decided to drop in and see us! We have often seen it around the area and occasionally we have been treated to a low pass or an impromptu aerobatic display. This time he circled the field quite closely a couple of times so we landed all models to avoid him, and then he came in from the bottom corner, parallel to the road, for what we thought would be a low pass. But he touched down and stopped level with the patch and waved us over. He apologised for interrupting our flying (as if we minded!) and explained that he liked seeing us fly, saying he had tried R/C modelling a few years ago but kept crashing so now he just sticks to full-size as it’s easier! He was only down for a couple of minutes, and then he taxied up to the top corner and took off again heading back towards the bottom corner.There was a pretty strong crosswind blowing but it didn’t seem to bother him at all. Some of us took some video and photos which I have made into a short video that you can see here: Tiger Moth

It’s interesting so see how much the Tiger slows down when he turns into wind after take-off; it shows just how strong the wind was that day.

An Irishman arrived at JFK airport in New York and wandered about the terminal with tears streaming down his face. An airline employee asked him if he was homesick.

‘No’ replied the Irishman ‘It’s worse, I’ve lost all me luggage’

‘That’s terrible, how did it happen?’                                         

‘The cork fell out of me bottle’

Colin Cowplain

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