Patch News History

It’s the start of February and there is still no improvement in the weather, wet and windy most days, but we’ve still managed to fly occasionally, and several new models have emerged. I snapped this picture of Tony Neal in mid-January, testing out one of his Christmas presents. It was gusting up to 29mph…. but we flew!

I mentioned back in the November Patch News that John Warren has been building a new model; well it’s now finished and has had several flights. It’s an Albatross Dv built from plans and was designed to have a 60 I/C motor. But John has built it for electric power and it flies using a 3 cell pack instead of about 10ozs of glow fuel.When I took the photos John hadn’t managed to find a suitable spinner but he’s since located and ordered one. Now it’s proved successful I’m sure John will be adding black crosses and other markings. Being a WW1 biplane with a radial engine means it has a very short nose and inevitably the correct CG wasn’t achievable without adding some weight in the nose. This wasn’t helped by using a relatively small electric motor instead of a weighty 60 I/C and John had to add about a pound of lead around the inside of the cowl which has pushed the model weight up to around 6lbs.I forget what motor it uses but John obviously made the right choice as it has just the right amount of power for a WW1 biplane. I was a bit bothered that a high drag biplane might be a bit underpowered on 3 cells but I was wrong and it stooges around very realistically on around two thirds throttle and is good for flight times of between six and seven minutes. It flew well right from the first take-off but we’ve gradually been fine tuning the handling by adjusting the exponential and rates, and have coupled some rudder in with the ailerons to make it turn better. Unfortunately on about the sixth take-off John didn’t quite manage to keep it straight and the bottom wing was damaged in the ensuing cartwheel. But repairs are underway and we’ll soon see it back flying again. Well done John, an unusual and tricky choice but you done a great job.

Tony Neal brought two new models to the patch recently, a P51 Mustang and a DH98 Mosquito, but unfortunately the Mossie had developed a fault in one of the speed controllers so Tony was unable to fly it.  He built it from the Cloud Models kit and it has a built up central fuselage crutch with moulded plastic upper & lower shells to simplify the curved areas. The wings are veneered foam and the tail & fin are from sheet balsa.It was originally designed for 2 x 480 brushed motors and a 7 cell nicad pack but Tony has updated it with a couple of brushless outrunners and 2 lipo packs. He has also added retracts and a rudder so it should take off and land properly and still look good in the air.Tony has finished it in the colours of 627 squadron and it’s a MkIV night bomber. It looks great just sat on the ground waiting to go and I’m looking forward to seeing it in the air. He tells me he’s now replaced the faulty esc so it’s just a question of waiting for a day with decent weather…

The P51 Mustang is the one Tony won in the November big raffle. It’s a 59” span Phoenix Models ARTF that comes with all the parts to make it either I/C or electric powered. Tony chose the I/C route and installed an ASP46 2-stroke…at least that meant there were no speed controller problems!The model comes complete with retracts and is covered in Oracover in the scheme of 375^th Fighter Squadron, 361^st Fighter Group, 8^th US Army Air Force based at Bottisham in Cambridgeshire.

The first flight went like clockwork apart from being very twitchy on high rate ailerons. A quick switch to low rate sorted that and the rest of the flight was without incident. The retracts worked perfectly and the model looked very realistic in the air with the wheels tucked neatly away. I must admit I could be tempted by one of these…going with the electric option of course though.

Now for a bit of news from a different patch, an indoor one. At the last club meeting Burly Turley talked about the Havant indoor meetings and the inevitable mid-airs that occur. Jeremy Stuttard sent me a photo of Mark Agate (AKA Dougal Entendre) flying his latest indoor machine before any mishaps.It’s a Galaxy 3D from HobbyKing, all foam of course but has a fair bit of carbon fibre stiffening to stop it all flapping about. It’s 845mm span and comes complete with motor & prop so all it needs is 3 x 5gm servos, a 12A esc, a 2S lipo, and a receiver. Cost is around £25 which seems pretty good to me.  Probably lucky it’s not expensive as those mid-airs soon took their toll on Mark’s machine. He sent me a photo showing some pretty drastic wing damage but said it didn’t seem to make much difference to the way it flies!Look closely and you can spot other damage as well, with tell-tale tape repairs. Note the drag brakes on the ailerons and rudder, all part of making it fly slowly.

While on the subject of indoor flying, BMFA have just run the Electric Indoor Masters at the Barnsley Metrodome. Click on this link: Indoor pattern flying  to see the highest place Brit Connor Stephenson in the F3P (aerobatics) class, it’s brilliant. Enjoy the video and think about the fact that he came third… I can’t wait to see the winner, Derk van de Vecht from Holland!

Back to Mark Agate for a moment, he’s recently been flying a Parkzone Spitfire. I neglected to get any static photos of it, but there are already others in the club anyway, but I did get some reasonable flying shots.The second shot isn’t brilliant but it does show that Harper’s Oak is alive and well!As you can see Mark has fitted the optional retracts which make such a difference in the air. At the moment the grass is a bit too wet & long for it to take-off so Mark is having to hand launch it but I’m sure it will be fine once a glorious summer arrives…

Another video that you might find interesting is one that Andy Smith sent me: How to hand launch  It’s a tutorial on hand launching, covering a variety of models, and its well worth a look. I was interested to see that he launches an EDF inverted, something I’ve found works well with my Sportjet, but he does it underarm rather than overarm. I’ll have to give that a try.

 

Finally, my piece about John Wheeley’s Twinstar in the last Patch News provoked lots of comments, (I love comments, it shows that somebody actually reads my drivel) mostly saying they preferred the “Underslung Totty Twinstar” to the “Pipe & Camouflaged Trousers Twinstar”. I thought long and hard about it; to keep the comments coming should I go for a picture of more totty, or less pipe & trousers. Try this one; hopefully it’s a small improvement!

 

My friend met a girl in the pub last night, and they ended up going home together. Tonight the girl walks into a supermarket and on her way round she sees him… He was stacking washing powder boxes onto the shelves. “You lying bastard” she yells “last night you told me you were a stunt pilot!” “No” he says “I told you I was a member of the Ariel display team.”

Colin Cowplain

It’s January so Happy New Year to you all, and it must be time for another Patch News.

What awful weather we’ve had recently! Gales and torrential rain aren’t really compatible with model flying and like most of you I’ve hardly managed any flying at all so this edition will be fairly short. However, the Sunday morning after Christmas was actually quite nice and it seemed many members just wanted to escape for a while.  Some had received modelling presents, others had just taken the opportunity of the time off work to get new models ready to fly.

First up is Cyano Steve with his first new plane for a while. Well it’s actually only about two months but in Steve’s case that’s quite a while. This one is a Katana MX from Precision Aerobatics and it’s designed to have an extremely wide flight envelope, being capable of everything from precision aerobatics through high energy to graceful slow and low 3D manoeuvres. The first thing that struck me about it was the large wing area compared to similar models, that should certainly help with the slow and low stuff. It’s obviously a high quality model, all laser or CNC cut, lots of carbon reinforcement in the important places, and all beautifully put together. I think Steve must have also bought the Bling Package (no, seriously, that’s what it’s called!) as his has a carbon fibre spinner, wheel spats, and some neat little vortex generators on the wings. I assume Steve is using the recommended PA Thrust 50 outrunner motor and matching 70A esc, and they are powered by 2 x 2200maH 3 cell packs which should give flights of around 6 minutes. Early days yet for him to get used to the model but first impressions are very good, it looks to me as if it will be his best flier so far. I think it should be capable of matching the field long knife edge passes that 1066 is now doing about 4 feet off the ground! I hear that Steve has just completed on a new house which has several outbuildings…I reckon one of them must be destined to be a model room very soon. Good luck with Montague Mansions.

Desperate Dan arrived with two new models, the first being an FW-190. I’m not sure but I think I heard Dan say he bought it on eBay, but don’t know anything about it other than that. It looks like the Ultrafly one from a few years back to me, although it might be smaller than theirs. It felt pretty light, always a good thing for a warbird and, despite what all the ‘experts’ predicted, Dan took off, had a long flight, and landed back safely again with no problems at all.

Dan’s second model wasn’t such a success. It’s a Turnigy Tek Sumo or Teksumo (depends if you read it off the wing or off the HobbyKing website) and it’s a 900mm span EPP foam wing.I was interested to know what Teksumo meant so I put the word into translation software on the internet, apparently it’s Estonian and it means… Teksumo…hmmm. Anyway, EPP is a really strong foam but it’s not possible to get such a nice finish on it as you can with EPO or EPS. EPS is the best for moulding in scale details etc but it’s also the weakest, so manufacturers have to choose what they think is best for each particular aircraft. Although the Tek Sumo has a relatively rough surface texture it has a very loud paint finish applied, so it looks pretty good overall.  On the website it says it has a huge flight envelope and will fly full aerobatics or slow down to walking pace and the accompanying video shows it performing well. Sadly Dan’s didn’t…well not yet anyway. I’m sure it will be ok once he’s got it sorted out but on both the attempts I saw it failed to get far past the launch.  Dan has fitted his with FPV gear and it’s probably a good plane for FPV but it might be better to get it flying properly first and worry about FPV later.I think it would help a lot to ask a more experienced pilot get it up and trimmed for you Dan (that means I want a go with it Dan!).

The third pilot that had spent Christmas building instead of being a good family chap was John Wheeley. He brought along his new Multiplex Twinstar Mk 2. John had flown a Mk 1 very successfully a few years ago and decided to try the newer version.Apparently the construction is very different to the earlier one, the fuselage comes in two halves that have to be joined, and the wings are now two separate items rather than the one piece wing of the earlier version.  They use a GRP joiner but are not permanently glued together so can be separated for ease of transport. John wasn’t keen and said he preferred the simplicity of the Mk 1! I thought the Mk2 had come about because of the advances in electric power to outrunner motors and lipos but the basic model still comes with a pair of brushed Speed 400 6v motors which are intended to be used with a single brushed ESC and an 8 cell nicad or nimh pack. There is a conversion pack available from Multiplex which consists of 2 outrunner motors, 2 brushless speed controllers, the various necessary Y leads, props etc but it’s very expensive and a much cheaper option would be to buy the recommended motors and controllers from BRC or similar.Anyway John has stuck with the Speed 400’s and uses an 8 cell nimh pack which I would say provides ‘adequate’ power but personally I would like a bit more oomph to enjoy  looning the thing around a bit. But it flies fine will do loops and rolls and so on and it’s a very nice handling sport model. John hasn’t bothered fitting an undercarriage, in fact it’s not intended to have one although a float kit is available if you fancy a bit of fun from flying from a lake. If you Google the Twinstar you’ll find literally hundreds of versions of the model, some just fancy paint schemes but some quite heavily modified, even 4 engined ones!

OK so the last one isn’t anything special…there was just something about the picture that appealed… 

Andy Smith…remember him? He moved house a few months ago and his decorating chores mean he hasn’t been to the patch for a while but he’s threatening to return soon. But recently I stumbled across this video shot from a camera fitted alongside the cockpit of one of his F4 Phantoms. It was taken last July (not at 4am in August 2012 as the video clock shows!) and I hate to say it but it’s actually quite good. Watch carefully and you can spot Mike Smith’s Twinjet a few fleeting times. Click here If nothing else it will remind you of what our lovely patch is like in the summer.

As migration approached, two elderly vultures doubted they could make the trip south, so they decided to go by airplane.
When they checked their baggage, the attendant noticed that they were carrying two dead raccoons. “Do you wish to check the raccoons through as luggage?” she asked.
“No, thanks,” replied the vultures. “They’re carrion.”

Colin Cowplain

Click here for your very special Christmas message: Merry Christmas PAM

Sorry I’m so late with Patch News this month, I blame Christmas shopping & events, trips to London, grandchildren, and dealing with my late father’s affairs, not necessarily in that order. You can just blame me.  The larger photos proved popular in the last Patch News so I’ll continue with them until the webmaster complains about the space they use.

There wasn’t an awful lot to report until the end of November when the  shops had ‘Black Friday Sales’ and we had ‘Experts turned Idiots’!  More of that later…

Our new treasurer Nick Squire obviously didn’t take offence at my mickey taking in the last edition of Patch News, he was back flying again in November. I took this picture just as he was told that the meeting on 19^th December will be ‘club subs night’ and members will be showering him with money.

In the New Year I advise you to check your BMFA memberships carefully whilst admiring Nick’s Caribbean holiday snaps!

Speaking of memberships we were shocked and saddened to hear that Hapless Harper won’t be renewing for 2014. Several people remarked that I’ll have nothing to write about but I wouldn’t be so cruel. Although I did hear that certain trees let out a huge sigh of relief when they heard the news.  But joking apart Mick has been a great member for many years and we will miss him from both the patch and the meetings.  I remember the first day he approached the club when we had a stand at a hobbies event at the Grange Centre in Midhurst.  He said he wanted to build a specific type of R/C model and of course we all thought “Here we go, another nutter that wants his first model to be a Spitfire”.  But Mick went one better, he wanted a Lancaster! Now you have to remember this was a long time ago, before ARTFs, before foamies, before large models, before even 35meg let alone before 2.4gig, and well before electric power. We explained about single engined high wing trainers etc and he listened carefully before agreeing to join and promised to build a trainer…then a Lanc!

One of Mick’s first models was beautifully built and finished Cessna (high wing and trainerish). Unfortunately despite only being 54” span it weighed about 10lbs due largely to the 25 coats of perfect while paint. It was rapidly christened Midhurst White (after a house brick not a butterfly) and was soon sold on, but not before winning a local concours event. Mick tells me that he brought it along to a club meeting and I said I’d never seen a model using lead as a covering material before. That doesn’t sound like me at all…does it?

Mick went on to build many many models with varying degrees of success, one being a Splot, a high wing sport model designed by club member Graham Head. The wing was flat (no dihedral) and being 36” span meant it could be built from stock lengths of balsa without having to make any joints in the spars etc. This made for a very strong wing, they were almost indestructible. Except Mick’s… he was flying it one day and the wing folded in half resulting in a rather sudden arrival. We were all flabbergasted that he’d managed to break it in the air until we examined the wreckage and saw the two servo mounting holes he drilled straight down through the spar. Obviously we barely mentioned it!

But build a Lanc he did, in fact several, first I/c powered and then electric.They all flew but with varying degrees of success, as Mick was always able to come up with new things to go wrong, things that never happened to anyone else. But despite problems Mick always came back for more and always wanted to try something new. He was (I think) the second person in PAM to switch to electric power, he had one of the first EDFs, and above all he was an excellent builder. Mick produced many superb models, bounced back from problems with a smile and a new challenge, and always enjoyed (I hope) being the butt of our jokes.Despite his decision not to renew his membership I sincerely hope Mick will drop in and see us at the patch and at Buriton now and again.

John Warren has been flying this biplane for several months now, I think I mentioned ages ago that John had resurrected it after many years of retirement and converted it from I/C to electric.Apparently the last time it had flown was down at the old IBM club at Havant when I discovered it had a reluctance to turn in either direction! It only has rudder & elevator controls, ailerons would probably make a big difference, but it flies pretty well and can be enough of a challenge to make it interesting.  John’s had many flights with it and says he prefers it to his trainer because it’s that bit harder to fly. His next model is almost ready to be tested, another biplane but this time a scale model, a ‘proper’ balsa model built from plans, designed for I/C but John has converted it to electric. What is it? You’ll have to wait and see, watch this space!

Next up is new member Richard Bennett’s Cloud Fly from HobbyKing. Not sure why but it seems to be listed as an AXN Floater-Jet on the HK site, bit odd when it’s neither a float plane nor a jet.Anyway it’s a pretty little electric powered glider with a high mounted pusher motor so there shouldn’t be any problems with broken props or bent shafts. Steve 1066 Hastings has taken Richard under his wing so I’ve not flown the model much but it seems to be a good training model and Richard is coming on well with it.

Gentleman Jim Hobday has just finished a new model, a Grumman Wildcat no less.  Jim bought it at the Blackbushe Model Show in 2012 so he hasn’t exactly rushed constructing it (mind you I’ve got models I’ve been building for 20 years so perhaps I should shut up!).It’s a Parkzone model and I think it might have been a replacement airframe as it wasn’t in a box when Jim bought it and it didn’t come with a motor or any servos, ESC etc.  It certainly looks nice and the Parkzone models all seem to fly well so I have high hopes for this one.  All being well December Patch News will have a report of its first flight.

Discus Launch Gliders (DLG) are something we don’t see much of at the patch but Desperate Dan has being chucking this one around recently.It’s an Apollo 1550 from HobbyKing and the 1550 is the wingspan. It comes as an ARF so it’s fully covered, has a fibreglass fuselage with built up balsa and lite-ply wings, you just need to install your radio gear and give it a chuck. Dan hasn’t achieved any long flights that I’ve seen up to now but November is hardly the time of year for low level thermal activity. It certainly shows great promise and I reckon come the spring it should really show what its performance is like. It’s around £51 from the UK warehouse so not bad value when compared to the 900mm span Binary DLG with carbon reinforced wings at £125.

So onto the ‘Experts turned Idiots’ day I referred to earlier. Must have been something in the air I reckon, all the so-called experts seemed to be doing dumb things while the beginners were having no problems at all!

First off Cyano Steve missed the patch when he landed, a very rare occurrence these days. He then had to endure all the usual “We’ll get Roland to drag the patch over about 10 feet for you” etc comments.  How childish…  Then a little later we had a threesome, I was flying my SportJet, Wonky Wiltshire flying his Alpha Jet, and Mark Agate flying his Fun 3. First Wonky did a duff launch and knocked the nose off the Alpha Jet, but apart from that it was fine so he re-launched. Then we got into the bit of flying flat out screaming low passes over the patch in formation with Woody providing accompanying music from Top Gun on his mobile.  It’s all very well but there’s always some smart arse that has to go just that little bit lower. I was fine over the patch, but omitted to pull up when I reached the long grass at the end! The SportJet did a mild cartwheel and knocked the nose off. The resulting cheer from the pits was incredible, I’m sure it exceeded the 82db limit!Then, a few minutes later, I decided to fly the little EPP Mustang to reassure myself I wasn’t really an idiot. Turns out I was! I was doing the weird tumbling spins that I often do but somehow got disorientated and buried it. Fortunately it was far enough away that not too many people noticed, and the damage was pretty minimal.  I then decided it was time to beat a hasty retreat only to have Nigel Bastard Baker remark “Ok look, I’m taking two undamaged models home and you’re taking two broken ones”.  I’ll remember that Baker, I’ll remember!

Then…just as I arrived home my mobile vibrated and I opened up this photo.

Yup, as I was driving away Wonky got disorientated with the Alpha Jet and buried it big time! Like I said, something in the air that day…

 

A man is sitting in a plane which is about to take off, when another man with a dog occupies the empty seats alongside.  The dog is sat in the middle, and the first man is looking quizzically at the dog when the second man explains that they work for the airline. The airline rep said “Don’t mind Rover, he is a sniffer dog, the best there is, I’ll show you once we get airborne and I set him to work.”

The plane takes off and levels out when the handler says to the first man, “Watch this.” He tells the dog, “Rover, search.” The dog jumps down, walks along the aisle and sits next to a woman for a few seconds. It then returns to its seat and puts one paw on the handler’s arm. He says “Good boy.” He turns to the first man and says, “That woman is in possession of marijuana, so I’m making a note of this, and the seat number, for the police who will apprehend her upon arrival.” “Fantastic!” replies the first man.

Once again he sends the dog to search the aisles. The dog sniffs about, sits down beside a man for a few seconds, returns to its seat and places both paws on the handler’s arm. The airline rep says, “That man is carrying cocaine, so again, I’m making a note of this, and the seat number.” “I like it!” says the first man.

Once again he sends the dog to search the aisles. Rover goes up and down the plane aisle, and after a while sits down next to someone, and then comes racing back and jumps up onto the seat and craps all over the place. The first man is surprised and disgusted by this, and asks “What the heck is going on?” The handler nervously replies “He just found a bomb!”

Merry Christmas to all, hope to see you at the patch very soon.

Colin Cowplain