Patch News History

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Colin Cowplain

September has been a lovely month for flying, and the good weather brought out lots of new models. But before I get on to them, an apology, in last months’ Patch News I wrongly named Wonky Wiltshire as the owner of the orange and white Slick, it does of course belong to Steve 1066 Hastings.

The trouble is there are just too many Slicks in the club now, and September saw yet another having its maiden flight. This one is Dougal Entendre’s; I know that’s correct, he’s holding it!  After about two hours dripping on about it being too windy Mark eventually gave in to our nagging and flew it.No surprises at all, it flew beautifully just as they all do, and within the first couple of minutes he was trying the usual 3D manoeuvres.

Mark mentioned to me that he’s noted my comments about his Evil Pigeon in last months’ Patch News; I said he should be charged with failure to take due care & attention of a raffle prize. Well he has now converted it back to its original Easy Pigeon form but says it’s so boring to fly now that he’s going to sell it! Anyone want to buy a very tame 3 channel electric glider?

We’ve recently been joined by a young French guy, Nicolas Humeau. He is currently living and working in England and is already a competent modeller and flier so he sought us out. Nic has flown with us a few times now and has been reading the BMFA Handbook so is looking forward to taking his ‘A’ cert very soon. Fortunately his English is perfect; I don’t think he’d get much luck trying to get any of us to speak French! His joining PAM must have halved the average age of the membership so he’s a very welcome addition indeed.

Gentleman Jim Hobday recently got tempted by an electric glider at Sussex Model Centre. It’s an Art-Tech ASK-21 which is fully moulded in EPO foam with carbon spars in the 2 metre span wings. So far it’s only had a couple of flights but it seems to be pretty good although it will tip stall if the speed drops too much. I think with a bit of effort the tip stall can be tamed, but probably it’s mostly a question of getting used to the characteristic rather than being afraid of it.Like the full-size ASK-21 the model is fully aerobatic and should be a lot of fun to fly. With his Pulse, Wildcat, Splot, and now the ASK-21, Jim has quite an airforce!

The popularity of 3D models is growing all the time and Tony Neal is now flying a 3D Hummer.Unsurprisingly it’s another one from HobbyKing and it’s an EPP 1000mm span profile model that weighs under 500gms, so it only needs a small amount of power to do the 3D manoeuvres we have come to know as ‘normal’! The model comes as a kit only, with none of the electronics included so Tony had to add his own motor, esc, and 4 servos, as well as the usual receiver and suitable size battery. As it’s so light it only needs 2212 1000kv motor and a 3 cell 1000/1300 lipo pack, the same as many of us are already using in the little Mustangs, ME109s, Mini Spirit gliders, and in my case the EDF Gripen, and my new Stearman.The profile fuselage is stiffened with some full length foam side cheeks that prevent the flexing seen on other versions of the model. Tony is new to this 3D lark and is still getting to grips with it but from what I’ve seen so far he’s doing very well and the model is obviously very capable, so if you fancy trying 3D flying with something that is cheap and close to unbreakable get yourself a Hummer.

A very similar model that made its PAM debut in September is Steve 1066 Hastings’ Gee Bee. Again, it’s from HobbyKing, it’s a 1000mm spam EPP 3D profile machine, comes as a kit only, and it only needs low power. It’s slightly heavier than the Hummer and the website says it needs a 2217 motor and 1200/1500 3 cell pack.To me this one really does look like a packing case! The wing is almost just a slab of foam and the fuselage isn’t much more stylish, but it flies remarkably well so who am I to knock it?At least 1066 tried not to make the model look any uglier than it already did!

Two new warbirds graced the patch this month, an unusual Skyraider from Smiffy, and a lovely Spit from Mower Man Ron (BTW, I must just say a massive ‘Thanks Ron’ on behalf of all members, we really appreciate your mowing efforts even if we don’t mention it much).

I’m not actually sure if the Douglas Skyraider qualifies as a warbird, but it first flew in March 1945 so that’s near enough for me.Andy Smiths Skyraider is a Starmax model and is 1600mm (63”) span, quite large for a model made from EPO foam. It’s very well equipped with E-Flite electric twist & turn retracts, a steerable retracting tail wheel, flaps, and huge scale airbrakes on the fuselage sides.The motor is an NTM Prop Driver 50-50 580kv swinging a 14 x 8 wooden prop. The motor is linked to a Turnigy 80A HV esc and a 4400mAh 6 cell lipo. Smiffy has added some scale cockpit detail and a Freewing V1 sound system.It flies beautifully and the sound system sounds great on low passes. Smiffy’s first landing wasn’t good but the model survived and further landings were perfect. I took some video snips which I’ve have edited together, unfortunately the only landing I recorded was the first one! You can watch it here: Skyraider video

Ron’s Spitfire is the Kyosho I/C one which he has converted to electric. At 1440mm (57”) span the model is 1/8^th scale and the weight with an I/C engine is around 2.5Kg, I don’t suppose Ron’s electrified version is very different.The motor Ron used is a Turnigy G60 500kv with a HobbyKing 80A esc and is powered by a 5 cell Zippy Compact 4000mAh battery. This set up provides loads of power and most of the flight can be done on around half throttle.The model has electric retracts and split flaps as standard and Ron has added a MrRCSound V4.1 sound system with a TT-25 Transducer. The transducer takes the place of a speaker and is much lighter, the whole system only weighs around 180gm. As well as the Merlin engine sound the system also produces the sound of the Spits machine guns!Kyosho actually produce an electric version of this model but Ron bought his before he realised the sensible way to go!

Another I/C to electric conversion we saw this month was Mike Smiths’ venerable Cougar 2000. I’m not sure how old the plane is but Mike seems to have been flying it for a long time. He’s taken the plunge and converted it to electric, using a Turnigy Aerodrive SK3-3548 840kv motor and an 11 x 8 prop which gives the model 170 watts per pound. The battery is a Turnigy 4s 3300mAh pack.It certainly flies well and has loads of power, more than the I/C motor did for sure. It looks as if it would have been a fairly straight forward conversion although Mike is going to try to make the battery pack removable without needing to remove the wing every time.

Bob Hill has built a Splot…except that he hasn’t. He has built a Splot fuselage but has fitted the cut down wings and tail from a defunct Seagull Decathlon and calls it a Splob.Some unkind chap (and for once it wasn’t me) said he didn’t need the P, I’m sure I don’t know what they meant! Bob has fitted a Turnigy Prop Drive 35-48 1100kv motor and uses a 3 cell lipo but had a bit of trouble getting the CG in the right place (that’s what you get for not using the correct wings and tail!) and had to add some nose weight.But other than that it’s fine and flies just like a ….well just like a Splot.

Dan Bennett (Desperate Dan) surprised us after the last club night by flying a Wot 4 Foam-e in total darkness. He’s fitted it out with strips of red, green and white LED lights that he connects to the balance plug on his usual 3 cell lipo. He found it was difficult to land without being able to see the ground so Dan has also fitted a really bright light under the fuselage that he switches on just to light the ground when he lands.He seemed to be flying it without too much trouble and he let me have a couple of flights with it as well. I must say I found it easier than I expected and didn’t have any orientation troubles at all. He tried to get 1066 to have a go as well but Hesitant Hastings was just too chicken!

Finally, if you wonder what some of your fellow members get up to in their ‘private’ lives watch this: Oh dear!

In a famous SR-71 Blackbird story, Los Angeles Centre reported receiving a request for clearance to FL 600 (60,000ft). The incredulous controller, with some disdain in his voice, asked, “How do you plan to get up to 60,000 feet? The pilot responded, “We don’t plan to go up to it, we plan to come down to it…” He was cleared…

Colin Cowplain

August was a pretty good flying month weather wise but the first Sunday saw us all gathered in the barn for some ‘will it/won’t it’ time until the rain moved on and we were able to fly.You may wonder why Steve Hastings (1066) has his back to the camera…believe me you don’t want to see the photo I took 10 seconds later!

We were all very pleased to welcome George Rose back to PAM after an 18 month absence, he said he realized he just couldn’t live without us. Or it may have been more like “Hopefully that Palmer bloke will keep his big gob shut this time”! What he actually said was that he can see way the club is going, partly because of the proximity of the new houses being built, and he has decided to make the switch to electric power. So George brought along couple of electric models, a Kinetic and a Devil 3D. The Kinetic is from HobbyKing and is almost identical to the Spirit mini glider that several of us are flying, little more than cosmetic changes and a slightly different spec motor. The first flight didn’t go too well, apparently George had inadvertently programmed in reversed exponential on the ailerons. It’s very easy to do, especially as on some transmitters you need positive expo but on others you need negative, you’d think the manufacturers would standardize such things but they haven’t. Personally whenever I set up expo I dial in about 80 or 90% and then check it’s the correct way, it’s easy to see if it’s soft or extreme around the centre with that much expo, then dial it back to around 30% or so to fly. Anyway after a little repair work the Kinetic is now flying perfectly, it appears to fly just as well as the Spirit.The Devil 3D is manufactured by Dynam and George got his from Sussex Model Centre. It’s an all EPO foam biplane that is billed as a 3D capable sport aerobatic bipe. It’s 1016mm span (40”) and is powered by a 3720 motor with a KV of 650 and a 4 cell pack. It flies really well and I think George will have a lot of fun with it.

Andy Smith also recently returned to us after a few months of being AWOL. Never one to do things by halves Smiffy came bearing an SU-35 twin 70mm EDF with vectored thrust and retracts! It’s a Freewing model and is pretty much a bolt together airframe, I think the nosecone is the only part that’s glued. He had done some taxiing trials with the model at the Guildford club and decided that it wouldn’t get off our patch so decided to bungee it off his ramp. He’s used the ramp successfully many times with his EDF Phantoms but the Sukhoi is much bigger and heavier than the Phantoms. It has a wingspan of 1080mm but is 1630mm long and weighs around 3kg.Smiffy tried three bungee launches, with increased tension each time. We put more pull on the bungee each time as well! I could mention trivial problems we discovered like one motor running reversed but I wouldn’t want to embarrass the plonker! It really didn’t seem to be even close to going off the ramp but felt as if there was lots of power so Smiffy decided I should hand launch it.In this picture Smiffy is in his favourite position, waiting for his mate 1066!It probably wasn’t the best chuck in the world but it didn’t seem too bad and the plane looked like it was going to get away but unfortunately all it achieved was enough height and speed to ensure lot of damage when it failed. Such a shame as it really was a lovely model. The good news is that a replacement airframe has been ordered. Not sure how Andy is going to overcome the launch problems so watch this space.

While I was messing around (helping?) with the SU-35 Nigel Baker was waiting to test his new ST Models MX2.I must have been engrossed as I missed it completely and Nigel later told me off and sent some photos, sorry Nigel! The MX2 is made from good old EPO foam, is 1210mm span (a tad under 48”) and weighs just 960g so it’s got a light wing loading and should be a good flier. It uses a ‘standard’ 3 cell pack of around 2200 capacity.I’ve missed a couple of Sundays this month so I still haven’t seen it fly. Does it fly ok? Does it still exist?!

Another new model I almost ignored was Phil ‘Wonky’ Wiltshire’s new Slick 360 3D, but I did at least take some photos.This one is yet another from HobbyKing and it has an all wood, very lightweight laser cut structure with iron on covering. It’s 1300mm span, weighs around 1400g and flies on a 4 cell lipo.

Dougal Entendre (Mark Agate) sent me some info and a photo of his Evil Pigeon, a ‘bitsa’ made from parts of four other aircraft. The fuselage is from the Easy Pigeon that he won in the club Christmas raffle, he didn’t say what happened to the rest of the model, he should be charged with failure to take due care & attention of a raffle prize I reckon.The wings are veneered blue foam and were made in 1982 for a slope soaring pylon racer, the tail is from Desperate Dan’s ill-fated Phoenix 2000, which he has beefed up with a carbon spar that came from the wings of his late Spad! Initially Dougal fitted a 35mm motor but it proved to be too much for the plastic fuselage so he swapped it for a 28mm one and it now flies very well.

Dan’s replacement Phoenix 2000 is a good flier, this one benefiting from a receiver that actually works! Last Sunday both he and John Wheeley were enjoying tremendous lift in the ideal conditions. Unfortunately I forgot to take any photos or details of John’s glider. There were lots of buzzards around to indicate where the thermals were and I tried to get some photos of both gliders circling amongst about eight buzzards but they were too high for my cheap old camera. These were the best two I got (on full zoom!), not sure but I think it’s Dan’s glider. As usual the buzzards treated the models with utter disdain and totally ignored them!

Norwegian Nick brought along a new/repaired model one midweek day.It’s a revamp of a small electric pylon racer Nick flew some time ago and this one has pink foam wing cores skinned in balsa and then glass-clothed. He’s made a lovely job of it and fitted a Mega motor.Sadly it was short lived, Nick said it was too twitchy on ailerons and result wasn’t pretty.

Steve 1066 has been flying another new model this month, an MXS from HobbyKing.It’s an unusual model in that it features a type of construction we’ve not seen before. We are used to seeing built up structures made from laser cut parts of light plywood which are then covered in conventional heat-shrink film. We are also used to seeing all foam models, often with a few pieces of stiffening ply where required. But this model has a built up structure that is then covered in printed EPP foam, and the result is very impressive, being ultra light yet strong. Unlike many EPP foam models the structure gives it the correct scale(ish) curves etc rather than being boxlike.

This picture is from the HK website, it shows the construction better than the photos I took. Personally I think we will see a lot more models using this type of construction in the future.

Steve says it went together better than any other ARTF he has assembled, everything just fitted perfectly. The flight performance is also very good and although he’s still getting used to it the potential is very definitely there. Fancy having one yourself? Well there aren’t any in the UK warehouse, and there are only a few in the European one.

A man is sitting in a plane which is about to takeoff, 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!”

Colin Cowplain

After my holiday last month Patch News was very late. This month I’ve got loads of material, partly due to the fabulous weather no doubt, and I’m aiming to get back on track so this should be online by 1^st August.
I’ll start with what seems to be an emerging trend, possibly a follow on from the highly successful EPP Mustangs & 109s. At the beginning of the month 1066 brought along a Freewing Spirit, it’s an 815mm span EPO mini electric glider described as a ‘warmliner’. That means it’s fast and fully aerobatic, but it can also be flown in a docile manner and it glides remarkably well for its size. It comes complete with four servos, a 2621 1100kV motor & folding prop, 20A speed controller, and even a second power pod to convert it to a pusher for FPV work. It’s around £43 in the UK and all you need to add is a receiver and 3 cell lipo.  The model info says to use a 450-500mAh battery but the 1000mAh packs most of us use in the Mustangs fit perfectly. I’m sure the slightly fatter 1300mAh pack would also fit. The wings simply click together, as does the all moving tail, and mounting the wing uses two screws. That’s it! Putting on the stickers really does take the longest time.
Steve had purchased two Spirits from HobbyKing, one being intended for a future raffle prize, but great interest was shown in the Spirit as soon as it flew and Dougal Entendre promptly managed to persuade Steve to sell him the second one! So then there were two…
I tried to order one as soon as I got home but they were out of stock at both the UK & European warehouses.  However last week I spotted they were back in stock in Europe so I immediately ordered one (should have ordered two or three, the £8 postage would have stayed the same). It arrived one lunchtime and that same evening I had four flights with it! So then there were three…
You may recall that a couple of months back my SportJet had a slightly vertical arrival whilst flying with the identical SportJets of 1066 & Dougal, a classic case of mistaken identity. To avoid similar problems with the Spirit I have cunningly applied the fin stickers differently on my Spirit. Some may think I simply got it wrong but obviously it was intentional… ahem.

I’m sure a few more will be purchased before too long, they really are great fun to fly.

There have also been a couple of other electric gliders at the patch this month; the great weather must have brought them out. One belongs to Desperate Dan, the other to Dougal. Dan’s is a Phoenix 2000 from HobbyKing, and it’s actually a replacement for one that disproved the ‘virtually indestructible’ claim when the receiver packed up before I even had a chance to photograph it. Apparently it went in very hard from a great height so it’s not surprising it was totalled. The replacement seems to fly very well and I saw it up pretty high on Sunday. It’s got EPO wings and tail but unusually, the fuselage is blow moulded nylon with ply reinforcement. For just under £50 you get everything except the receiver and lipo, although I see Dan has added the optional flaps which would have required another couple of servos.

 

Dougal’s is a totally different machine, as you can see it’s a proper ‘built from balsa’ glider to which Mark has added a small pylon that holds the electric motor. It’s an Olympic, which was a plan from the American mag RCM back in the 70’s and its 100” span. Dougal has added some sheeting and rib capping strips to improve the torsional rigidity of the wing. He was having problems with the speed controller last week so has now fitted a new one, but the plane flew very nicely anyway.

Smiffy (remember him?) reappeared on Sunday after a long absence. He was flying a Dago Red Racer from YT International which has a fibreglass fuselage with carbon reinforcements and an obechi skinned foam wing. It comes complete with servos, motor, esc etc and is reckoned to do 120mph straight and level! It obviously scares Smiffy as there didn’t seem to be much full throttle flying as far as I could see but it certainly shifted around very rapidly. Looks like a few minutes of adrenaline filled fun.

John Wheeley went right out of character a couple of weeks ago and turned up with an EDF F-4 Phantom. It’s a Starmax one and I initially thought it used the same motor and 50mm fan as my little Grippen but after some investigation I think it must be a 64mm fan version.  It’s 540mm span and weighs around 19ozs, uses a 1300mAh 3 cell lipo.

It went away well from the launch and continued to fly well although elevator control seemed to be an issue, particularly when John throttled it back a bit. He flew for around four minutes and got it down with just some very minor damage to the foam. Smiffy reckons that the nozzle angle on the Starmax model is incorrect and it needs some throttle/elevator mixing. He could well be right but it’s difficult to tell from the one flight it’s had so far. One thing that surprised me was that it had around 60% left in the pack after the flight, remarkable considering it’s a 1300mAh pack, so maybe John just needed more throttle! I liked it a lot and would like to have a go with it to see if I could figure out the problem. I took some video of the launch and some of the flight but unfortunately missed the landing. You can see it here: Phantom first flight
John also kept our attention by adding a small video camera to his Multiplex TwinStar. Not sure which camera it is but it seems to be good, has quite a wide angle lens and records good quality video.  I’ve uploaded some of John’s first efforts, as well as circuits around the field it catches Desperate Dan’s Wot4 Foam-e and, very briefly, my Grippen. There is also a moment of both Dan and I being stupid, we do it so well! It’s worth a look, see it here: Onboard the TwinStar
To go with his new glider Dan has purchased an Orange transmitter. It’s the first one I’ve seen in the flesh and it looks like a nice bit of kit for the money. I don’t think you’ll find another 6 channel, 10 model memory transmitter that has all the usual dual rates, expo, mixers etc for under £40.It looks slightly odd at first with its opaque orange case but I expect you soon get used to it. It operates on DSM2 so presumably it’s compatible with Spektrum DSM2 receivers as well as the Orange ones. Bargain.
John Reynolds brought another old model along one midweek day; this one is a Middle Stick. Some of the older modellers will probably remember the Stick series of models from the 60’s/70’s. As well as the Middle Stick there was an Ugly Stick, Big Stick, Little Stick, Slow Stick and no doubt several others.  John’s is powered by a Webra I/C motor, the plane is 55” span so the motor is probably a 40 I expect. Graupner kitted the Middle Stick but I imagine plans were also available from various sources, so I’m not sure of the origins of Johns. It looks nice and flies well.
We had a rare visit from John Barnard in July. John is a PAM member but usually flies at the syndicate field. I think he’s realised it’s time to learn to fly properly (that should wind up any syndicate members who read this!) and came along to see how we do it. As John Reynolds remarked “The flying part is easy, it’s the pits protocol that’s hard to get right!”. Anyway John B had brought along an electric powered model, the name of which totally escapes me. It looks a lot like a Hots from back in the late 80’s but I don’t think it is. Perhaps John will enlighten us.He had one flight which went well, it just needed a bit of trimming, but when he went to take off for the second flight there was nothing, no radio, no motor, nothing.  After a little waggling of wires suddenly everything worked again, not a happy situation. We did some more wire waggling and it seemed to be the factory fitted connector on the battery pack that was the problem but we couldn’t be 100% certain so John wisely decided to do a thorough examination of it all at home on the bench.  He was very lucky that the fault showed up just as he went to take-off rather than 10 seconds later, happily the model lives to fly again.

The Wot4 Foam-e is an excellent model but, like many ARTFs, the undercarriage does seem to fail all too easily. To be fair they probably aren’t too bad if you have a long tarmac runway but they just don’t seem to last long on a small grass patch. Desperate Dan kindly demonstrated the problem for us the other day.Richard King has suffered the same problem but has come up with a neat solution. He has used a two wire system to replace the original alloy undercarriage but what the photo can’t show is that part of the new wooden mount goes a looong way down (up?) into the fuselage. That gives a good area to glue and means the leverage that occurs in a heavy landing won’t simply rip it out again.

You may have seen that in the comments on the last Patch News Smiffy posted a photo of me that he had modified by adding a clowns outfit.  I was going to get my own back and went through the various photos I have of him but nothing I could do to any of them could possibly make him look more ridiculous anyway. But Cyano Steve had different thoughts and produced this little gem:
Good one Steve! 
Cessna: “Jones tower, Cessna 12345, student pilot, I am out of fuel.” Tower: “Roger Cessna 12345, reduce airspeed to best glide!! Do you have the airfield in sight?!?!!” Cessna: “Uh…tower, I am on the south ramp; I just want to know where the fuel truck is.”  
Colin Cowplain