Patch News History

I’m writing this on 1st May so it must be time for the April Patch News. Despite the fact that Multiple Models Montague has gone fishing in Florida for 2 months I’ve still got lots to write about. That must mean the weather has picked up at last and the sunshine has brought more people out to fly. I’ll start where I finished last month, with my Sea Vixen. OK, let’s get it over with, I’ve ‘modified’ it slightly. I had a few flights since adding the new rudder linked to a gyro and it seemed to do the job, the plane was much steadier in blustery weather. Sadly a few Sundays ago it suddenly decided to half roll into the deck. Wasn’t me guv honest! My ex mate Nigel very kindly took a photo and as you can see both ailerons are in the full down position. When I checked it out back at the workshop I found one aileron servo had failed at full deflection and of course my correction would have put the other aileron at full deflection, and that’s how it hit the ground. At least it had the decency to do it on a busy Sunday when loads of you were there to enjoy it! Everything (apart from the aileron servo) still works fine, no problems with any of the hardware at all so I will get it flying again soon. Not certain whether to try repairing the wreckage or simply buy another airframe…watch this space.   Sticking with Sea Vixens, Norwegian Nick is building a ‘real’ one from the Chris Golds plan. He’s got the airframe built and it just needs some sandpapering etc to be ready for its paint finish. It’s a proper twin and uses two of the tiny Knight & Pridham fans and motors. It’s looking really good Nick, can’t wait to see it flying.     Newbie Nigel (my ex mate) has recently bought a Durafly Mk24 Spitfire. It comes complete with retracts, split flaps, and nav lights and it looks great and flies beautifully. So far Nigel has asked me do all the take-offs and landings but he is enjoying the rest of the flight himself and says he’s achieved his boyhood dream of flying his own Spitfire.        Meanwhile Smiffy is having a break from EDF and is flying a Wot 4. This one’s not a foamie one, it’s a proper wooden I/C version that he’s converted to electric. In typical Smiffy fashion, when sorting out battery pack access he’s gone for rear entry…   We’ve been joined by a couple of new members recently, John and Mark. Sorry guys I haven’t learnt your surnames yet. Both are already experienced pilots so no training is needed, a welcome change! So far John has been flying a Czech made V tail electric glider but purchased a Wot 4 Foam-e from George Worley of 4-Max at the last meeting. Mark is flying a hairy twin pusher motored foam wing, the name of which escapes me and I also forgot to take a photo. The most important thing is that he lives in Cowplain so he’s obviously a great guy with tremendous taste!   Keith Evans has been experimenting with aerial photography this month using a very cheap digital camera strapped to the nose of his electric glider. He’s had some good results so far with stills and is intending to try the camera in video mode soon.   Nick Squire has recently added lots of old PAM photos to the website and if you look at the Gallery under Past Pictures on page 3 you’ll find an aerial photo I took of some members waving from the edge of the patch about 30 years ago! I put a 35mm (film) camera inside my Merco 61 powered Veron Super Robot with it looking out of the side under the wing. Of course in those days I could only take one photo before having to land and remove the wing to wind the film on ready for the next shot. How things have changed! The quality of Keith’s digital photos if much better than anything I took and we didn’t even dream of video in those days, so I’m looking forward to seeing Keith’s efforts.   Viv has been flying lots recently with a variety of models. I photographed two of them, his Gee Bee and Cessna Bird Dog. The Gee Bee is a large foamie and despite what you’d expect of a racing machine it’s a real pussycat to fly. The Bird Dog is one of Viv’s old I/C models that he’s now converted to electric. It flies just the same as it always did but it clean and quiet now.     Finally its congratulation time: both Mike Smith and Tony Neil have passed their ‘A’ certs, well done to both. There aren’t many active fliers left now that haven’t passed their ‘A’s, that can only be a good thing. A BA 747 pilot had waited for take-off clearance for 45 minutes. A German 737 was cleared immediately. The BA pilot asked the tower why the German aircraft had been given clearance at once. Before the tower could reply, the German pilot came back with “Because I got up very early in zee morning and put a towel on the runway!” Colin Cowplain

Time for the March Patch News but with the recent weather there hasn’t been a lot of flying.  Some of us have still been venturing out and making the best of it but it has been very cold.  On Sunday just Monty and I made it to the patch and in the freezing wind we certainly needed our transmitter muffs.
Last month I mentioned that while the rest of us had gone for £8 Turnigy transmitter muffs Smiffy had forked out £44 on a very posh flash one. Well now we’ve seen it in action and…its rubbish!

That’s really not very fair to the manufacturer, the quality is excellent and it’s probably good if you are used to using a TX tray, but none of us are.  I’m sure it would keep your hands warm, but it’s too inflexible for our style of flying, I tried it after Andy had removed the detachable cuffs but still found it to be much too restrictive.  By now it’s probably found its way onto eBay and Andy has ordered one of the Turnigy ones the rest of us are using!  They really are good at keeping your hands toasty.
Sticking with Smiffy for a while, he has been flying an F4 Phantom very successfully for a few months, the only bugbear being that it makes a fairly unpleasant noise. Not overly loud but not a very ‘jet like’ noise.  But he has now flown a second Phantom (this time in US Navy colours) that is fitted with a different fan and motor.
 
What a difference, it goes just as well as the camouflaged one but sounds so much nicer.  Andy is now going to change the fan and motor in the first one.  He did have a slight ‘moment’ when on one flight when he said it ‘just didn’t feel right’ in the air.  He got it down ok and found he hadn’t switched the TX to the correct model, it said PHANTOM when obviously it should have said PHANTOM!  I understand the TX now has CAMOPHANT or NAVYPHANT! 
 
We had a Nature Watch moment a couple of weeks back;  we were walking across the field when Viv spotted a couple of leverets (baby hares) laying in their form.  They were really well camouflaged and I had trouble finding them when I walked back a couple of minutes later to take a photo.

Reading up on them it seems the mother returns to the form for only five minutes a day to feed the youngsters so I imagine these two were fine as long as they weren’t spotted by the kites or buzzards.
 
Multiple Models Montague has been at it again.  As I said in the last Patch News he had been impressed by Steve Hastings’ Yuk and promptly ordered one for himself.  Having explored the entire flight envelope plus a bit and tested the durability on several occasions he decided to buy a ‘fresh’ one.  You’ve guessed it, first flight, more durability testing!  But they are very strong and forgiving as well as being excellent fliers and despite MMM’s best efforts it’s still flying well.
Much more seriously he has also bought an Osiris, a 62” pattern ship.  The Osiris was designed by 2009 and 2010 USA National F3a pattern champion Andrew Jesky.  It is a full-competition performance level pattern aircraft, designed in a medium size to be less expensive and easier to transport than a full 2-metre plane and it flies on 5S 5000mah lipos.

Steve has wisely only brought it to the field once so far, deciding not to risk it in the rough weather we’ve had lately, but had several flights that day and it really showed its pedigree. It’s a superb flier and will enhance Steve’s flying lots.  Sadly I had the camera on the wrong setting so the pic is a bit blurred.
 
It has been really noticeable over the last couple of years that almost all models are ARTFs and more and more are foam.  Foam is especially suitable for EDFs as many have fairly complex shapes that would be difficult to produce as accurately and as lightly using conventional methods, plus it’s very crash resistant and easily repaired if the worst does happen.  But even fairly boxy looking models arrive ready built from laser cut components and ready covered these days.  Many are pre fitted with servos, motors, and even speed controllers.  Lots of modellers still like to build from kits or even from plans but the trend is certainly towards ready built and they seem to be getting better quality yet cheaper.  Last weekend I was in a craft shop in Havant with SWMBO and I wandered off to browse amongst the plastic kits and model trains when I stumbled across a stock of balsa.  I have my own stock at home so it’s been a while since I bought any balsa but I was really shocked to see the prices!  I imagine it would be cheaper in a ‘proper’ model shop but even so…

I thought £8.69 for a sheet of 3/8” was horrendous but at £3.59 a sheet of 1/8” was even dearer!  Balsa cement (remember that?) was around £3.50 for a small tube.  Covering is also a significant cost, a quick search of Al’s Hobbies shows Solartex is £13.53 for a 2 metre roll 660mm wide.  But this week HobbyKing have announced a new Mk24 Spitfire, 1100mm span, complete with motor, speed controller, 6 servos, electric retracts with rubber tyres and gear doors, split flaps, navigation lights, 4 bladed prop etc for £86.79 from the UK warehouse.  All you need to add is a 3 cell lipo and a receiver to get it in the air. Amazing value, and no doubt it’s a large part of the reason fewer people are building their own models these days.  I still like to see a beautiful model that someone has spent months building but it’s very easy to understand why they are fast becoming a rarity.
 
Speaking of foamies, my Sea Vixen has now had 34 flights and the retracts seem to be holding up well.  The only bad point I’ve found is that it really does get chucked around a lot in rough air. I tried it briefly with a gyro on ailerons and elevator but I was only using a 5 channel receiver so I couldn’t switch it on and off in the air. This proved a bit scary as when setting the gyro ‘gains’ the only way to find out if they are correct is to fly and try.  Interesting when you find they are wrong… ask me how I know!  So I moved the gyro to my old faithful EDF Twister to experiment for a few flights, and as it has a 7 channel RX I was able to make it switchable.  The Twister is a smooth flier and didn’t really need a gyro but being a high winger it always tried to roll out of inverted flight.  Not any more, with the gyro on (just one) aileron the inverted flight has been transformed.  So the gyro has stayed put and I ordered a second one for the Sea Vixen.
I then put a 7 channel RX in the Sea Vixen so I could make the gyro switchable in the air and tried again.  It was better in rough weather but it looked as if the tail waggled, presumably because of the air hitting the side of the booms and fins.  The answer would seem to be to put the gyro on rudder as well, but the plane didn’t have one. Well it does now.

It was simple enough to fit and replaced the small piece of lead I had on the tail previously.  I have so far had three flights with the gyro on rudder, elevator, and ailerons but needless to say the air was silky smooth so it proved nothing!  I’ve been too chicken to risk it in the really windy weather we’ve had recently so now I’m waiting for medium strength slightly bumpy conditions!
 
A few weeks ago Gentleman Jim brought his posh SLR camera to the patch and took some quality photos, much better than the snaps I get on my mobile.  I really like this one of the Sea Vixen on finals:

Thanks Jim
 
US Navy pilot: The three best things in life are a good landing, a good orgasm, and a good bowel movement. A night time carrier landing is one of the few opportunities in life where you get to experience all three at the same time.
 
Colin Cowplain

Despite some pretty snowy, wet, and windy weather in the last month there has still been lots of activity at the patch and lots of new models have been flown.

Multiple Models Montague & I ventured up to the field one snowy day and had all kinds of fun with our cars along with another guy who thought the track would be driveable… it wasn’t! It was very very slippery and we spent a couple of hours getting the three vehicles back to the road.  Fortunately Steve’s truck is 4WD and he had a towrope but even so we had a lot of problems. We never did get to fly!

 
Ron (all bow to our new Chairman) Vears found Hobby King sell a model of the actual Hurricane he flew alongside for his 70^th birthday gift experience and couldn’t resist it.

The model is PNF (Plug’N’Fly) so comes complete with motor, servos, esc, and retracts.  It’s 1m span and uses a three cell lipo; it turns out to be the Art Tech one although HK don’t say that.  The model takes off from our grass patch ok and looks a treat once she has the wheels retracted.  I’m sure we’ll see a lot of this model when the weather becomes a bit kinder. I hear it’s soon to be accompanied by a matching Parkzone Spitfire, they’ll looks lovely flying together (hint hint Ron!)
 
I let Monty have a fly of my Sport Jet a few weeks ago; he must have liked it as by the following week he had his own!  But not content with it as standard he added a Vectored Thrust unit to the tailpipe.

This made things a lot more ‘interesting’… it pivoted the jet pipe using rudder and elevator controls to enable a whole new set of manoeuvres to be performed. We both flew it without crashing but it wasn’t nearly as nice to fly and even after making the elevator part switchable Steve still didn’t like it so he has now removed it and reverted to standard.  I understand that Steve H (1066) has purchased a Sport Jet for himself and another for the raffle so we could soon have a display team of four. Maybe not…

 
To combat frozen fingers in the winter weather some of us have invested in transmitter muffs. Here’s mine, a Turnigy Tx Glove.

Hobby King list two types and Monty has bought the other type but I think the one I have is probably more suitable for most people.  It was only just over £8, the other type is nearer £9. Not to be outdone Smiffy splashed out £44 on one!  Needless to say we haven’t even seen it at the patch yet but it’s obviously made from gold plated titanium! Who said “All the gear, no idea”? Me? Never!
 
Speaking of Smiffy he has started a new trend by fitting a gyro to his F4 Phantom. As you know  I never miss a chance of taking the mickey so the words ‘Wuss’ and ‘Crap Control Correction’ may have passed my lips but I have to admit it does smooth out the flight a lot, especially in blustery conditions. It is not a plane saver in any way but it basically adds inputs to keep the plane steady in whatever attitude it has been placed by the pilot, so wing rocking in gusts gets smoothed out.  Bob Hill has followed suit by fitting a gyro in his trainer and has been flying it recently in conditions that would normally chuck a trainer all over the place without any problems at all, a very definite improvement.
 
1066 turned up with a Yak 55 the other week, it’s made of EPP, has a profile fuselage, carbon reinforcing in lots of places, and is reckoned to be unbreakable.  Not bad for around £36.

Its very light of course and his first flight was in pretty rough weather but after only a couple of minutes he was knife-edging across the patch at low level and doing lots of 3D manoeuvres. It certainly performs a lot better than it looks; even Steve said it’s a Yuk not a Yak! Not to be outdone Bob Hill turned up with one a few days later and got me to trim it out. It’s one of those models that just feels right immediately and puts the pilot at ease.  On the second flight Bob decided to test the ‘unbreakable’ claim…it failed!  Damage was pretty minimal however and I expect its back in flying trim by now. Never one to miss out on a trend MMM also has one on the way…!
 
I got home from the field the other lunchtime and promptly received a text from Wonky Wiltshire saying he was going up to test fly his new E-Flight Hurricane at 2.30. Well I couldn’t let him down could I, so after a bite to eat I went back up.

The E-Flight Hurricane is larger than Ron’s version at 1320mm span and has split flaps and is retract ready. It’s seemed to be a typical E-Flight model; everything was properly sorted, looked great and flew beautifully.  We had 3 flights without incident and Wonky had a big grin on his face. The only thing wrong was those wheels hanging down… I reckon next time we see it the E-Flight retracts will have been fitted, then it will be perfect.
 
Finally, my own new model, a Durafly Sea Vixen from Hobby King.

I had intended to buy the ARF version that consists of the airframe and the fan, but the price difference between that and the all-inclusive PNF version made it sensible to go for the PNF. So a large box arrived containing the airframe, fan, motor, esc, ubec, 4 servos, and retracts.  I was going to fly with no undercarriage but as the PNF version includes retracts I decided to try them and see how they handle our patch.  The only work I had to do was to glue on the wing panels, booms, and tailplane, then add a receiver and battery.  I have read on the forums that people have got them ready to fly in about an hour but it takes me longer than that to set the transmitter up! I spent best part of a week getting it all as I wanted it so hardly PNF but at under £120 including delivery I was very happy!
I tried a take-off for the first flight but it has tiny wheels, especially the nose-wheel, and it just couldn’t get up enough speed. I think in the summer on newly mown dry grass it will probably make it but in the meantime it has to be hand launched.

With the wheels down the wheel wells make good hand holds and it goes away easily from a throw. Then it’s up with the wheels for the rest of the flight until I lower them again for a nice slow and hopefully gentle landing.  To date it’s had eight flights and I’m still getting used to it but it seems like a good ‘un…  It does have a noticeable tendency to rock its wings in any sort of wind so I might have to swallow my pride and fit a gyro.
Whatever you do don’t tell Smiffy!
 
Recently I stumbled across a website that might be of interest to some of you, it has scanned copies of old Aeromodeller magazines and Annuals, Model Aircraft mags and several others. The range covers 1939 through to 1979. So if you fancy some nostalgia on a wet and windy day check out: Magazines
 
I hear that just before Christmas Newbie Nigel mentioned to his wife that most of the electric fliers use kitchen timers to time their flight so they don’t run out of power. So on Christmas Day Nigel unwrapped his pressies…I’m not sure she quite understood the concept…
 
 
What do you call a pregnant flight attendant? Pilot error!
Colin Cowplain

It’s only 11th Jan as I write this and I have already been flying 6 times this year, even though I missed the only Sunday so far in 2013. Good start to the year!
Father Christmas must have been good to some of you as so far I’ve seen 5 new models at the patch, although one of them doesn’t really count as it’s just yet another from Multiple Models Montague. Frankly it would be more newsworthy if he turned up WITHOUT having a new model!
This is another one from 3D Hobby Store, an EPP Extra 330 at 48” span. Unlike most of the other EPP models we’ve seen this one isn’t ‘solid’, it has a built up foam structure over a carbon backbone, carbon wing tube, carbon stiffening etc. The result is a very light but strong structure that should prove more durable than the usual film covered laser cut construction of the Slicks that Steve usually flies. It’s also a lot cheaper!

Nigel Baker has now progressed from his Wot 4 Foam-E to an Acro-Wot Foam-E. It flies really well and Nigel enjoyed a few flights before the usual ARTF undercarriage failure occurred on a slightly dodgy arrival. No doubt it’s been sorted by now and Nigel will enjoy many more flights with it. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing lots more of these Acro-Wots in the club in the future.

Another foam model is Tony Neal’s Durafly Dynamic S from HobbyKing. It’s a fully aerobatic electric glider that is HobbyKings’ copy of the ST Models Blaze that Steve Hastings has been flying for a while, so Tony should soon be doing high speed low passes and hairy aerobatics in 1066 style!

Woody has now finished his Ripmax P51 Mustang and he brought it along to the patch the other day. I had an ‘interesting’ test flight with it which highlighted a rearward C of G and too little movement on the ailerons, but after switching to a larger battery (always better than dead lead) and increasing the movement it is now flying a treat. Next time out he’s going to try a larger prop to give it a bit more oomph and I think it will go as well as it looks… and as you can see from the photo it looks great.

The last of the new models for now is Keith Evans’ Spitfire which some of you may have seen at the last club meeting. It’s an unusual model because apart from being a photo reconnaissance version of the Spit, Keith actual built it all himself! It’s pretty unusual these days to build from a kit (not an ARTF) and even rarer to build from plans, but Keith’s is a mixture of wings built from a Tony Nijhuis plan and fuselage modified to his own design. He obviously got it 100% right because it flew beautifully. I did the initial trimming flight for Keith but then he had to transfer the settings over to his own rather odd Tx set-up, (I think it’s mode 3) so he could have the next flight. He handled it very well, no problems at all, and landed back on the patch at the end. A great success, congratulations to Keith. The photo was taken prior to the first flight, he had a huge smile afterwards!

Apparently Peter Turley was less than impressed the other day when I commented on his thermal underwear, saying that in his case they were Short Johns rather than Long Johns. I don’t want to appear ‘sizeist’ so will now refer to Peter as Burly Turley. Although this is Patch News I feel the need to mention something that he raised at a club meeting. We are all used to Burly Turley doing his impression of a Spread Spectrum transmitter, hopping between a multitude of subjects many times per second. I thought it was something to do with interference rejection although I have heard others mention insomnia cures. Either way the rejection part works! This time he was talking about securing the radio link between Tx and Rx but somehow he hopped into bondage. The members’ reactions were amazing, I’ve never seen so many people shut up and listen so intently! Taking a quick glance round the room I could see how his mind may have wandered into ’50 Shades of Grey’ but it turns out he was highlighting a problem mentioned in BMFA News about taking care at the field to ensure two modellers aren’t BINDING their radios at the same time. So we can all breath easy, Burly Turley doesn’t have any weird desires toward club members, he just wants anyone who is BINDING their Tx/Rx to call a warning to others in the pits. Phew!

We’ve seen in increase of Kites around the field recently, and the other day there 8 circling round. Like the buzzards that we are used to seeing, the Kites show little interest in our models. Occasionally one will glide over for a closer look but they seem to quickly decide models are neither a threat nor edible and they carry on about their business. They are beautiful birds and it’s great to see their numbers increasing.
I recently found this amusing aircraft related video, worth a watch: The correct way to marshall aircraft…turn your sound up and click HERE!
The other day some of us were chatting about the late PAM member Don Hoolahan. Following Don’s death his family brought his ashes to the field and we shattered them on the patch. Some cruel chap remarked it was the only time he’d actually hit the patch! We then speculated that the last wishes of some other members might be to have their ashes shattered over their favourite spot. I’d like to make it perfectly clear that I have no intention of going down the valley and halfway up the other side just to keep Hapless Harper happy when he’s gone!
 As a pilot only two bad things can happen to you and one of them will: (a) One day you will walk out to the aircraft knowing that it is your last flight (b) One day you will walk out to the aircraft not knowing that it is your last flight.
Colin Cowplain