Patch News – August 2024
A few days later farmer George said we were looking lonely so he brought along a herd of bullocks to keep us company! Oddly, despite being the young, normally problematic ones they have barely bothered us at all. We have had to gently steer them away from the patch a couple of times but once away they’ve stayed clear for the rest of the flying session. 
On the last Friday morning session they decided to come to the pits to watch our flying.
Mowing continued as usual throughout the month and the patch is in good condition.
Several new models were flown in August, I’ll begin with two from new member Patrick. Patrick is going to need a pseudonym for blog use soon and, as his surname is Beagles it shouldn’t be too difficult to come up with something…Poodle? Answers on a postcard…
The first of his new models to fly was a HobbyKing Bixler 3. We’ve all seen Bixlers before, they’ve been around for years in various forms and the version 3 doesn’t look to have changed much but apparently it has angular wing and tail surfaces and it’s bigger than the other versions with a wingspan of 1550mm. It also has an uprated 2620 1400kV motor and an easily removable undercarriage. All ARTFs have those, but mostly unintended!
The Bixler comes almost ready to go, fitted with the motor, a 20A speed controller, and 4 x 9g servos so it just needs a receiver and a 3 cell 2200mAh battery. Dougal Entendre did the initial trimming after which he handed the transmitter over to Patrick who flew the Bixler with no problems. Patrick’s second new model is another one from HobbyKing, a Durafly Ugly Stick, identical to the one that Woody has been enjoying flying recently.
The Ugly Stick comes ready fitted with a 3536 900kV motor, a 30A Durafly speed controller, and 4 x 9g servos so, like the Bixler, it just needs a receiver and 3 cell 2200mAh battery to get it flying. And Ugly Sticks fly very well indeed, even Dougal managed to make it look good on the maiden flight! You can see parts of the first flights of both of Patrick’s new models in this month’s video which seems to have turned into The Mini-Mike Movie!
A few flights later Patrick managed to break the Ugly Stick slightly but luckily not too drastically and after a few cocktails (by the look of it!) he had it all back in one piece.
Patrick is not alone in breaking a new model and after two Patch News articles on his Fusion build 1066 has written another piece for us about breaking and then repairing it:
We all break models at some point, and we can generally put it down to pilot error, structural or avionics failure. As some may know I recently damaged my new fun-fly model while trying to do fast consecutive touch and goes. The damage was confined to the fuselage, one side had a single crease and the ply doubler had delaminated from the balsa, (poor building here) the other side had two cracks that went through the balsa and ply doubler, all this was within the area of the battery hatch, so the weakest part of the fuselage. This model is not an ARTF (always ready to fail) it is designed with the sole purpose of being competitive in national fun flying competitions. The undercarriage is built like a tank, and is mounted in such a way that it’s impossible for the plane to nose over, the wheels are in front of the propeller, so almost impossible to damage it.
When you look at the forward sweep of the undercarriage, and the way it is mounted, you can see a lot of thought has gone into reducing and spreading the loads encountered when doing a touch and go. During competition these guys are not waiting for a gentle touch when doing as many as they can in 2 minutes. Taking all the above into account, I was totally confused as to the cause of the damage the model had suffered. Was it pilot error? (YES! Ed) My attempted touch and go was a bit faster, and steeper than optimal, however it was straight into wind, we had just cut the grass, and our patch is not full of holes, so therefore should have been well within the models’ ability. I know I am biased, but I’m claiming no pilot error on this occasion, so it’s got to be structural failure. The repairs were very straightforward, and I have taken the opportunity to stiffen things up around the battery access. It was when I came to refit the undercarriage that everything became clear. The kit is not supplied with any wheels, the ones I used needed the hub opening out to fit the large gauge piano wire axles, and it looks like I went a bit too far.
As can be seen in the photos the left hand wheel had locked solid on impact with the ground, probably due to the hub failing and riding up over the bend, and because the undercarriage is so stiff and long this magnified the twisting load applied to the sides of the fuselage. I suppose the moral here is, no matter how good the design, there is always the unforeseen. Thanks 1066, maybe just fit a second collet on the other side of the wheel?
One Sunday morning in August there was a light easterly wind and a couple of paragliders were trying to fly. I say trying because they did manage to get airborne but neither of them was able to gain enough height to stay aloft. A couple of times they each ended up at the bottom of the slope and had to carry their gear back up for the next attempt. We were very wary about flying as they did come along the ridge quite close to us and with just a small change in the wind they may have suddenly appeared in our airspace. Eventually they gave up so we flew but by then it was almost lunchtime. A few MVSA members were also flying but they were no problem to us. When I walked back to my car an MVSA guy arrived and we got chatting, discussing the suitability of the wind for the Sky Surfers, and he told me about a website called Flybubble that the paragliders use and we might find useful:
Flybubble is a specialist paragliding and freeflight equipment retailer and distributor and the interesting thing for us is that their website has weather forecasts for paragliding sites right across the country including Mercury where we fly. Their main website is https://flybubble.com which is quite interesting in itself but the one that’s useful to us is https://flybubble.com/weather/mercury-15469#5 Dougal has revamped the PAM website weather page to include the Flybubble link for Mercury, just click on the Weather heading.
It’s interesting to note that the BBC forecast seems to give the steady windspeed (not gusts), Holfoy gives the actual speed live plus gust speeds, and Flybubble appears to give the highest speeds, so presumably gusts. At the time I am writing BBC says 11mph, Holfoy 9.9 to 13mph, and Flybubble 16mph. Take your pick, maybe take an average of them all!
Following his Fusion build 1066 has got the building bug and has started on a Dancing Wings Cub. Here’s a little teaser of what’s coming in next month’s exciting instalment! 
Woody has sold his Max Thrust Riot to Captain Slow as he didn’t really get on with it.
It’s actually a Pro-Built balsa and ply Riot rather than the all foam one and is a lot heavier than the original. I’ve just found an article in RCM&E by Kevin Crozier about the Pro-Built Riot which says it’s 60% heavier than the foam one, surely that can’t be a good thing!
Captain Slow only had one flight on the day as something was out of balance which made the plane very noisy. He thinks it was the prop driver that wasn’t running quite true so will be sourcing another one and checking everything properly with a dial gauge before he’s happy to fly it again. But it flew fine apart from the noise and it’s in this month’s video.
At the end of the month Captain Slow dug out his Wot Trainer to give prospective new member Terry Small some flights using a buddy box. I’m never quite sure about the model, it’s become known as the club trainer but I believe ownership is actually split between Captain Slow and Woody. It flies on either 3 cells or 4 cells but as it needs weight in the nose it uses either 2 x 3 cell or 2 x 4 cell packs connected in parallel so it only has the voltage of one 3 or 4 cell pack and gets long flights, perfect for a trainer. It was very windy on the day Terry had some flights with the plane but he seemed to be getting the hang of it.
MacFly bought and flew a very nice new model in August, a JP F38 Hornet Delta Racer.
This is what the J Perkins website says about it: Looking for fast and furious R/C fun? Then you’ve come to the right place. Buckle up, tuck this tantalising F38 under your arm and prepare for a 3S-fuelled thrill that’ll have your clubmates rushing to buy their own. Make sure they get a different colour and enjoy triple the excitement as you go head-to-head in a bout of brute, brushless pylon racing. Packing a powerful pre-fitted 1200KV brushless motor, 30A ESC and supremely capable twin 9g servos, just 30 short minutes is all it takes to get this 3-channel PNP foamie airborne, and 30 seconds to get hooked! Docile, dead easy to launch and furiously fast, the JP F38 Hornet is the perfect all-weather grab ‘n’ go racer. Suitable for any occasion and almost any field, it’s a keeper.
Well they certainly seem to like it! And so do I and fortunately MacFly does as well.
The Hornet is 800mm wingspan and the flying weight is quoted as just 550g so with a 2834 1200kV motor it’s no slouch but I wouldn’t say it’s as fast as the description implies. MacFly asked me to trim it and I found the Hornet good to fly, smooth, responsive, and quick at full throttle but also happy at half throttle and it will slow up nicely for landing.
MacFly has been enjoying the Hornet, it’s ideal for our field as it flies in pretty much any weather from the howling January winds to the August…well not quite so howling winds!
The Hornet comes complete with everything except a receiver and battery so MacFly has fitted an FrSky Archer Plus SR10+ combined receiver and stabiliser and he’s using a 3 cell 2000mAh 35C lipo pack. He’s had a couple of ‘interesting moments’ with the plane, the second one when he decided to switch the stabiliser from the Stabilisation mode which damps out wind buffeting to Automatic Level which, as the name implies, should instantly bring the model to level flight. MacFly isn’t sure what went wrong but it seemed to roll the Hornet inverted (even though he’s sure it was set correctly) and in the race to switch back to Stabilisation he lost and gravity won. A replacement airframe is already on order…
For the action shots this month I’ve been looking back through some very old photos:
Video time now this month with footage taken by myself, Dougal, and mostly by MacFly.
Please watch the video full-screen, it’s so much better with small models flying around:
If the video won’t play for you please click HERE
Boarding an airliner for the first time, Sharon sat in a window seat in a quiet area.
A man came over and politely said, “Excuse me madam, I think you’re in my seat.”
But being totally unaware of the correct aircraft seating arrangements Sharon replied “Tough, just go away and find yourself another seat!”
He said, “Okay, fine, you fly the plane.”
Colin Cowplain Patch News – July 2024
I started the last Patch News by saying summer had finally arrived. Well I got that wrong! We did have some brief spells of summery weather in July but also a lot of terrible days and record rainfall. Mowing continued as usual, mostly by the Friday fliers but on Fri 19th only Woody turned up (several away on holiday) so he mowed alone. Gold star for Woody!
The last few days of the month were hot and sunny, just as July should be so maybe August will be better, fingers crossed. Despite the poor weather there were some highlights with several new models being flown and Dwayne Pipe successfully ran the annual chuck glider competition which is always a popular event but more on that later.
When we first moved to our new field late last year there were a few concerns about interference from the nearby radio masts. These concerns proved to be groundless and there have been no problems with our transmitters using 2.4GHz. But when flying FPV (First Person View) the system uses 5.8GHz so as a test Dougal Entendre flew his FPV model between the masts last month and experienced no problems as all. I was slightly jealous that he’s done it before me so in early July I flew my FPV model between the masts in the opposite direction, from east to west. Like Dougal, there were no problems at all.
The farmer has told us that sometime this summer both masts will be replaced by a single larger one so I suppose the concerns will return until we’ve satisfied ourselves that there are no problems. First person to fly FPV around the new mast Dougal?
In June I asked the name of this plane that I’d seen at the RAF Manston History Museum:
Nobody even had a guess so I’ll tell you, it’s a PZL TS-11 Iskra. I’ve never heard of it either!
So this month the quiz is to name this electric model. Rod Ashton received it as part of a lot of stuff he’s received from the widow of an aeromodelling friend. Nobody he has asked so far has a clue what it is so start searching, Rod would really like to know it’s name:
In May I featured Part 1 of 1066’s Fusion V2 build. It’s now flown so here’s Part 2:
By the time this makes the blog, the Fusion will have been flown, but having sent Colin some build photos in June we both thought some views on the build may be of interest. After building all the tail I moved on to the fin, rudder, and ailerons. Having built two kits this year I have noticed you have to be very careful with how you use the strip material supplied. On this build I only wasted 15 mm on each length of the 9mm x 6mm strip supplied for all the cross bracing, but still managed to run out.
Next came the fuselage, this was a very straightforward tapered box that went together very easily, and made for a very rigid structure, however me being me, I can’t resist a mod or two. I don’t like band on wings so I decided to change to a bolt on fixing. I also prefer using self-tapping screws for fixing motors, so I added an extra 6mm ply firewall. 
Next up was soldering the four parts of the undercarriage together, the instructions show this being done on a jig, but I preferred to do it with the parts fitted to the fuselage.
I now moved on to the wing assembly, and this is where things went a bit wrong!! With the wing pinned down, the structure was started in the normal order, see photos.
With all the ribs, and spars in place, the instructions give the dimensions for the webbing pieces to be fitted to the front edge of the top and bottom spars, I cut one and offered it up (see photo) and as you can see it was far too tall. All the rest were marked and cut in situ.
Next the instructions tell you to chamfer the leading edge stock to follow the curve of the top and bottom of the aerofoil before fixing to the front of the ribs, this sounded a bit tricky so I decided to butt join it to the leading edge after the sheeting had been fitted.
The instructions also tell you to cut the supplied 100mm sheet into 2 pieces one 80 mm wide for leading edge and the remaining 20mm piece for the trailing edge, which I did. However, if I had followed the leading edge instructions, the leading edge sheet would be too narrow. The next issue I faced was that the Depron ribs would not hold the pins for fixing the leading-edge sheet even after wetting. With the glue already applied, I had to rely on a lot of house bricks, and a straight edge to hold it in place.
All the top sheeting was completed, but when it came to fitting the rib capping the material supplied was supposed to be the same thickness as the rest of the sheet but it was visibly thinner which made sanding more difficult than it should have been.
The wing was now turned over, pinned back onto the bench and all the bottom sheeting added. With all the glue dry and the wing off the bench I felt that the trailing edge seemed very unstable, with poor torsional strength, and over the next few days it developed a very visible bow (see photo).
So it was all pinned down again, webbing added to the front of the trailing edge sheeting, and a 6mm x 4mm extra trailing edge fitted, which seemed to sort things out. 
My next concern was the fixing of the large wing tips, I was not happy with fixing them directly to the Depron ribs so I added some thin balsa sheet, and braces to make a much stronger assembly (see photo).
With all the components completed I did a dry assembly to check alignments etc. The next issue to come to light was the poor fit of the leading edge in the fuselage (see photo) which had me very puzzled as all the parts were laser cut!
Plus, the wing has a small under camber which was not reflected on the wing seat. When I build any model I always check the wing and tail incidences with a basic meter, on this occasion it showed the tail was set at a positive angle when compared to the wing! A few hours of filling, sanding, and reshaping resolved all of the above issues.
The rest of the build, covering, and gear installation was straightforward, but I still changed a few things. The instructions call for the ESC to be fitted outside of the fuselage, between the undercarriage legs, but I wanted it inside, which was easier said than done. All surfaces are top hinged, elevator control is via a closed loop, instead of a pushrod.
Finally, balancing the model at the recommended starting position of 25 mm behind the main spar took a huge amount of lead, however, the designers say their display models balance at 50% of the chord, this would need far less lead, but was not something I wanted to risk. As I said at the beginning of this drivel, I have now flown the model, and I am happy to report, it’s great, it needed no trim and I am very happy with the CG.
Thanks for that very comprehensive report 1066, I can happily agree that the Fusion flies brilliantly and performs exactly as a FunFly model should. Apparently 1066 thinks the Fusion is ugly so he calls his Fugly. I’m assured this is short for Flipping Ugly…
Last year Dougal Entendre smashed the nose of his Max Thrust Aggressor electric glider. I won’t embarrass him by going into details, let’s just say it involved a fast low pass and a large bush. Dougal ordered a replacement fuselage but kept the damaged one although it seemed unlikely he would ever need a spare back half of a fuselage, after all, who manages to break the back half but not damage the nose? Well it turns out that Dougal does! He appeared to have a radio problem and the Aggressor crashed again. It must have hit the ground with one wingtip as the nose was undamaged but the rear fuselage broke in half.
After a minor repair to the wingtip Dougal got out his saw and was able to graft the old fuselage rear end to the newer and undamaged nose. He’s made an excellent job of the repair and the Aggressor is flying beautifully again with no trim required.
Staying on the subject of repairs, I think Dwayne Pipe might struggle to repair his Gnat. 
The flight was going really well until Dwayne got disorientated after rolling out from a spell of inverted flight. Sadly I don’t think it’s going to buff out this time Dwayne!
Captain Slow has found a model that suits his flying style perfectly, a vintage Junior 60.
It was built by the late Chris P Bacon (Nigel Baker) and Captain Slow bought it when Nigel’s models were sold off following his passing in April last year. Captain Slow did some minor repairs to the tail and fitted his own receiver but everything else is as it came.
The Junior 60 has its origins back in 1946 when it was designed as a free-flight model by Albert Hatfull. This one was built from a Ben Buckle kit and is of course electric powered.
The model flew beautifully and slowly, which is exactly what Captain Slow wanted, and the only problem he had was getting it down, the Junior just wanted to float along forever!
Having recently sold me his XFly T-7A Red Hawk because it was a bit too much of a handful for him Woody has replaced it with an XFly F-22 Raptor. Hmm…
We advised against buying the Raptor but Woody reckoned it should be easier to fly than the Red Hawk because it has a larger wing area and a lower wing loading but the XFly specs say the Raptor has a smaller wing area and a higher wing loading. Another hmm…
The Raptor has a wingspan of 702mm and weighs around 950g with a 4 cell lipo. It’s powered by two 12 bladed 40mm fans each of which is run by a 1413 5000KV motor and has its own 20A speed controller. The gyro wasn’t operating in the correct direction so rather than mess around with the settings at the field the first three flights were done with the gyro switched off and they were all rather ‘interesting’ going away from a hand launch.
Once airborne the Raptor flew well, it just seems to need a fair heave to get it flying. Woody had sorted the gyro setting out by the next session and it was launched with the gyro set in the damping mode and it’s gone away from every launch with no further problems. I’m not sure that’s because the gyro is doing its stuff or the launchers have got better at throwing it. You can see the first launch in this month’s video and you’ll see that it was tricky but that the Raptor flies very nicely once it’s got a bit of speed.
As I mentioned earlier the annual Chuck Glider competition was held in July, ably run by Dwayne Pipe. Here’s Dwayne’s report: The annual chuck glider competition was held this month. Instead of our new flying field, we held it on the playing fields at Buriton as we didn’t want any chuck gliders to get carried away in the wind and end up in East Meon. 
In the event, the conditions were perfect, and we had nine people turn up and eight take part in the competitions. In the standard Chuck Glider category, it will come as no surprise to learn that Colin Cowplain won with a significant lead over everybody else. 
However, he may be losing his touch as his overall time of 56.1 seconds this year was considerably less than the 82.1 second, he won in last year. Second place was Dougal Entendre and MacFly came third. We also had the Catapult Glider competition as well and the results were completely different with Woody coming first and Tony Neil second. 
Everyone seemed to have a good time. I would recommend for next year that you get lots of practise in trimming your aircraft before you turn up on the night.
Thanks Dwayne, it was, as always, a good evening of fun and we all enjoyed it.
In the May Patch News I featured Gordon Bennett’s Fosdyke Flyer, a model that he bought when the club was auctioning off John Bourne’s models and equipment.
John is an extremely capable modeller who was a PAM member for many years but old age has caught up with him and his modelling days are sadly over. In May Gordon told us all about the work he’d done preparing the model for flight but he hadn’t flown it at the time.
However, on a nice calm day in July the Fosdyke lived up to its name and flew. And it flew very nicely too, just needing the thrust line adjusting as it climbed steeply at full throttle. 
Gordon has since added some downthrust and flown it again and, as you’ll see in the video, it performed beautifully. We need to see it flying circuits with Captain Slow’s Junior 60.
The last new model to feature this month is Mini-Mike’s lovely Arrows Hobby Avanti.
I have a suspicion that he likes the Arrows edf range and to date he has the Marlin, Hawk, Viper, Albatross, and now the Avanti. It’s another in the 50mm fan range and is very similar to the others, especially the Viper. I’ve always liked the look of the Avanti, it’s one of those designs that just looks right somehow. The Avanti comes with a pre-installed 2627 4500KV brushless motor spinning at 11 bladed 50mm fan. That is exactly the same motor and fan combination as the others but oddly the recommended battery is a 3 cell 1300-1600mAh rather than a 2200mAh that all the others use. Mike uses a 2200mAh anyway but it needs to be positioned a fair way back to get the correct centre of gravity.
The Avanti comes with a Vector 6-axis gyro and three 9g servos and it all simply screws together with the quoted assembly time being just thirty minutes. Mini-Mike reckons it’s really nice to fly, very smooth, and of course you can see it in this months’ video.
Dougal brought out his large Spad to fly when the weather improved at the end of the July.
I’ve featured it before so won’t bore you with too many details but it’s an ARTF Spad XIII made by Maxford USA, is 68” wingspan and weighs around 13lbs with 2 x 4 cell lipo packs.MacFly shot some lovely film of the flight and I think it’s worthy of its own video.
Unfortunately Kryten was busy this month and was unable to take any action shots for us. So I’ve taken some screenshots from the video which are of lower quality but hopefully ok.
Video time now this month with footage taken by myself, Dougal, and MacFly. Please watch the video full-screen, it’s so much better with small models flying around:
If the video won’t play for you please click HERE
A friend told me he wanted to start making scale models.
I said “be realistic…”
Colin Cowplain
Patch News – June 2024
At last, summer seems to have finally arrived…possibly. The first half of June really wasn’t summery at all with chilly winds and mostly overcast days. But things improved briefly in the second half of the month and we had some excellent flying weather for a few days.
When we arrived to fly on Friday 21st June we were greeted by Farmer George and a lot of sheep who seemed determined to go anywhere except where they were supposed to.
George explained that they were shearing the ewes so were separating them from their lambs, something neither the ewes or the lambs were happy about. Once shorn the ewes were returned to their lambs in ‘our’ field. It all made an entertaining start to the session!
Dougal has written to make a very important point about safety with our electric models:
Can I ask that people are careful to keep their appendages out of the way of the propeller whenever a plane has its main battery connected? This is especially an issue if the Tx doesn’t have a throttle kill switch. I’ve recently seen people holding their planes by the nose while the power system is “live”, and it only takes an accidental knock of the throttle stick for the thing to become a potent finger-chopper. Electric motors are even worse than IC in this respect, because:
1. They can burst into life unexpectedly.
2. Electric flight propellers are normally sharper than IC ones, and
3. IC motors sometimes stop once they’ve sliced enough flesh. Electric ones don’t.
This photo might make you think about the kind of situation we’re putting ourselves in:
As Dougal & I (Mark & Andy) are the club BMFA Examiners we have a responsibility to try to keep members safe but ultimately it’s down to individuals to do things correctly.
There have been a few incidents in the past when members have had unexpected motor starts, sometimes causing injuries, we should do our best to prevent any future issues. I admit to relying on the throttle kill switch too much and will change my habits in future.
I started off the month badly by writing off my Multiplex FunGlider! It’s had hundreds of flights over many years and has had its share of crashes but this was one crash too many. I’d love to say that something broke in the air, or the radio failed, but I must admit that it was pilot error. I’ve always known that the model would loop tightly but needed a lot more space to bunt (outside loop) so it’s something I’ve rarely done. But I had a bit of brain fade and decided to bunt at a fairly low level. When the model was heading vertically down I thought it wasn’t going to make it so I switched from full down elevator to full up elevator.
Big mistake! It wasn’t even close and hit the ground hard. This time is was past repairing so the radio and powertrain have been removed and the remainder retired to the bin.
In June two prospective new members come to fly with us, the first being John Sheehy.
John arrived on a push bike with a trailer for the model, I’m pretty sure that’s a PAM first!
The model was a small foamie, a ZOHD Drift which is an 877mm wingspan electric glider. 
The Drift can be bought in various configurations and John’s is the PNP version which comes with a Kopilot gyro and even a small FPV unit in the nose. The Kopilot gyro is interesting as it has GPS so as well as having the usual stabilisation the pilot can switch into Return to Home mode if the plane gets too far away. When activated the RTH function will steer the model back to the launch point at a height of 35 metres and when it has come back you simply switch back to stabilisation mode and carry on flying. John said he’d been flying the Drift OK with the stabilisation turned on but wanted to learn to fly with it turned off. So at our field I launched the Drift and John flew it with stabilisation on and he flew a couple of circuits with no problems. But then he switched stabilisation off and the Drift promptly dived into the ground. After a few minutes with a hot glue gun we tried again. This time John launched it and I flew the Drift with stabilisation turned off. 
The first few seconds were ‘interesting’ as the plane wanted to dive badly but once I’d trimmed it out it flew fine. I gave the transmitter back to John who flew it for a little while but eventually crashed with minor damage. I couldn’t make the next flying session but 1066 tells me that John flew a HobbyKing Bixler and both John and the Bixler flew well.
John has now completed three visits so is eligible for membership if he wishes to join.
The second prospective new member was Patrick Beagles who brought along a Durafly Tundra to fly, I think it’s the V2 version, the same as the one that Mini-Mike flies.
Patrick has done quite a lot of RC flying in the past but hasn’t flown for around fifteen years so is a bit on the rusty side. Dougal Entendre took Patrick under his wing and did the Tundra take-off and landings but Patrick handled the rest of the flying with no problems.
Our Chairman Gordon Bennett had a birthday in June and brought along cakes for us all. 
They were individual carrot cakes that had been lovingly made by his step-daughter and very nice they were too. It was good that Gordon did the decent thing by bringing cakes, unlike someone who gave broken promises of cakes in May, but I won’t mention 1066…
As I reported in Patch News last month Woody has sold me his XFly T-7A Red Hawk having found it a bit of a handful and deciding he needed something a little easier to fly.
He chose a Durafly Ugly Stick V2 from HobbyKing, something we all agreed was a good all-round choice and in June he had several successful and confidence building flights.
This is what the HobbyKing website says about it: The Durafly Ugly Stick V2 not only looks as good as the original but flies just as well too, perfectly capturing those excellent flight qualities of which the Ugly Stick was renowned. Being the well-mannered RC sports model it is, the Ugly Stick is suitable for both beginner and experienced flyers alike. At the lower end of the speed range, it exhibits no bad stall tendencies and can be flown comfortably at half throttle if desired. However, when you wish to experience its true flying capabilities, open the throttle wide and the Ugly Stick will oblige, performing a full range of sport aerobatic manoeuvres with the ease that made the original so popular. Due to the low current draw of the Ugly Stick V2 power system, you can also enjoy longer than average flying times with mixed power use.
In the video you’ll see me doing the trimming flight and then Woody enjoying it himself.
As well as assembling the Ugly Stick Woody has been busy re-painting his E-Flite F-15. 
He’s kept the original colour scheme but it was getting a bit tatty and faded so he’s given it a facelift and brightened it up. We all commented that it looked much better in the air, really standing out well. Note that I said ‘looked’ rather than ‘looks’. Unfortunately, a couple of weeks after making the F-15 look all pretty again it had a mid-air with MacFly’s Max Thrust Ruckus and neither model survived the head on collision, a great shame.
About the only good thing to come out of the collision was that the very expensive and posh new larger wheels with inflatable tyres that MacFly had only recently fitted to the Ruckus were undamaged. They worked very well on our grass patch but sadly proved to be utterly useless when arriving at the ground with one wing and half the nose missing!
To replace the wrecked Ruckus MacFly has bought a Volantex Saber, a 920mm span 3D aerobatic model. The Saber comes ready fitted with a 2212 1250KV motor, a 30A speed controller and four 9g servos. MacFly said the only problem he had putting it together was adding the decals which are very thin and proved to be extremely difficult to apply well.
It all looks good to me, I think he’s done an excellent job of them. The Saber comes with wheels and spats but MacFly chose not to fit the undercarriage and instead toughened up the underside of the fuselage with helicopter tape. Personally I think I would have fitted the undercarriage and wheels but left off the spats which are often a problem on grass.
MacFly asked me to do the initial trimming during which time I found the Saber to be an excellent flier before handing the transmitter over for MacFly to get to grips with it.
Young Leo has built himself a new model, a K&C Fleur-De-Lys. Never heard of it? Neither has anyone I have asked and I can’t find anything on the internet with that name.
Leo got the kit from Dwayne Pipe ,who got it from Fred Robinson, whose late father-in-law had owned it. Obviously it’s a very old kit and it was originally designed to be IC powered.
But Leo has made it electric by fitting it with the motor from his old Wot 4 along with an 80A speed controller. He’s using a four cell 5500mAh battery so the flights should be long. 
The model is 54” wingspan and has a fibreglass fuselage and veneered foam wings. Leo asked Dougal to do the first flight and, as you can see in this month’s video, all went well.
Father’s Day was in June, a day when we’re all spoilt rotten by our kids…possibly. To be fair my kids looked after me well and, amongst other things bought me a suitable beer! 
Have a Kite at this, the Eagle eyed amongst you will like it, I won’t Crow but I went into Raptors. Did that make you ‘Owl with laughter? Oh OK, make up your own jokes then…
We’ve had a few people asking about the masts that are close to our field, wondering if they cause any radio issues. The vast majority of us use 2.4GHz nowadays and none of us or the nearby MVSA (Meon Valley Soaring Association) have experienced any problems. Both myself and Dougal sometimes fly FPV (First Person View) which uses 5.8GHz to transmit video back to the goggles and we haven’t noticed any problems when being close to the masts but Dougal decided to do the ultimate test in and fly between them.
He had zero problems, no loss of signal at all so I think we’re safe to assume they’re never going to be a problem to us. I have to admit to being jealous, I wanted to do that first!
Captain Slow bought himself a new plane this month, a Maule M-7 which he bought from Banggood. He paid just £62 but was slightly miffed when he saw that they’d reduced the price by £10 a week or so later. Calm down Slow, it was cheap, you got a bargain anyway!
The Maule is another of the small foam RTF models that comes complete with transmitter. 
The plane is fitted with a 6-axis gyro which can be switched through three different modes from the transmitter. Like the similar models it also has a push button which with just a single press with make the Maule either loop or roll. It uses a single cell 500mAh lipo battery and about the only negative thing Captain Slow had to say about the Maule was that the stickers are extremely thin and delicate. The Maule flew well right from the start with gyro turned on and Slow has had several flights already and it experimenting with the various settings. I don’t think he’s pressed the aerobatic button yet…it might go quickly!
Some of you will know that I had a flight in a two Spitfire back in October 2020 although I rarely mention it…! Well in June my wife and I visited the Spitfire & Hurricane Memorial Museum at Manston Airport in Kent and I had a go on their Spitfire simulator.
I was well briefed before taking-off from Manston and I flew across London, overflew London City Airport, almost took out the London Eye and landed safely at Heathrow. Doreen filmed most of the ‘flight,’ here are some stills taken from the video:
The museum is small but worth a visit and entry is free, although donations are gratefully accepted. The simulator is great and costs £10 for a 10 minutes or £30 for 30 minutes. 
What I hadn’t realised is that on the other side of the car park is the RAF Manston History Museum. There is a small entry charge and the museum looked small from the car park. 
However once inside we found it was much bigger than we thought and is crammed full of loads of interesting aircraft and equipment and there were even more planes outside. 
Sadly we didn’t have time to do it justice, it’s definitely worth a visit if you’re over that way.
Quiz time now, what is this aircraft that I spotted at the RAF Manston History Museum?
Now for some of Kryten’s excellent action shots from June. The first two are Woody’s F-15 and MacFly’s Ruckus that were sadly both lost in a mid-air collision later in the month:
This month’s video has footage filmed by me, MacFly, and Dougal Entendre, thanks guys.
Please watch the video full-screen, it’s so much better with small models flying around:
If the video won’t play for you please click HERE
The invention of the air friar:
Colin Cowplain
Patch News – May 2024
I was away at the end of April and the start of May so I missed some of the action but fortunately other PAM members kept me up to date and took lots of photos and videos for us all to enjoy. Overall, the weather in May was pretty good and a fair bit of flying was enjoyed but of course the mixture of warm sunshine interspersed with rain showers meant that the grass grew quickly. As I mentioned last month we’ve had to replace the old yellow mower and Gordon Bennett sourced a replacement and a second mower box to protect it from the elements. This was kindly delivered to the field by our always helpful farmer and put in place and painted by 1066 and Woody. The patch can now be cut much more easily and is in great condition, especially considering it was just a field a few months ago.
One day we spotted a deer in the field as we arrived. It quickly ran off as we approached but it was nice to see even if only briefly. I just had time to take this rather blurry picture:
At the end of April Woody brought along a model that he’d built from a plan by Tomas Hellberg. Tomas has a great website with plans and information for various foamies that can be downloaded for free: rc.tomhe.net Woody’s is an F/A-18 Super Hornet which is designed to be built from 6mm Depron but Woody has used Hobbycraft foamboard.
The Hornet has a wingspan of 735mm and a length of 1025mm and, like the other foamboard models, is supposed to be fitted with a centre mounted motor with the propellor running in a slot. We know that this arrangement can be noisy due to the propellor being close to the slot although enlarging the slot to increase the clearance, especially in front of the propellor, can reduce the noise significantly. Being concerned about the noise and not wanting to upset our new neighbours Woody decided to fit his Hornet with a 50mm FMS ducted fan unit which would definitely be a quieter option.
The designer’s model used tailerons only for control although he does mention that ailerons can be added as an option and Woody has done that. He’s linked each aileron to a taileron using one Tower Pro servo each side, a system I first saw on the HobbyKing SU-27 foamie. It seems a very odd set-up as when up elevator is applied the ailerons also go up rather than down but it worked very well on the SU-27. Woody has finished his Hornet in the colour scheme of the one flown by Captain Pete Mitchell (Maverick) in the movie Top Gun Maverick. So, does it make Woody fly like Tom Cruise? Er…no…well not yet anyway. 
The initial test flights with the EDF unit showed that although the model sounded good there simply wasn’t enough power. So Woody reluctantly replaced the FMS unit with a Turnigy Aerodrive 2826/6 2200kv motor and a 6×4.5 prop. I had a few more test flights with it and made various changes which included moving the centre of gravity forward a lot and eventually I got it flying reasonably well but certainly not properly.
I suggested Dougal Entendre try it to see if he had any ideas and was secretly rather pleased when he had exactly the same result as me, it flew but only just. Dougal suggested a higher kv motor running a smaller prop to give the Hornet more speed so Woody then fitted a T-Motor AS2308 2600kv and a 5” propellor. That produced more speed but the flying characteristics were still ‘interesting’ and it was very noisy, too noisy to use, so Woody is going to try a 6” prop instead. At the moment trials are ongoing so watch this space. The first attempts with the Turnigy motor fitted can be seen in this month’s video.
At the end of April 1066 and Woody were at the field getting the mower box sorted out for us when some members of the Sky Surfing Club were flying. As neither 1066 nor Woody wanted to fly that day it made no difference to them but it they did note that some of the paragliders flew along the ridge well into the area we would normally be using.
Then one Sunday morning in May we realised the wind direction would be suitable for the Sky Surfers and as we were getting ready to fly we saw a couple of hang glider pilots arrive so we quickly got a few flights in before they launched. It was almost 11.30am before the first one got airborne at which point we all immediately landed and spent the next hour or so watching two hang gliders and two paragliders have some short flights. They came along well into ‘our’ airspace although they stayed fairly well forward over the ridge and model flying could have continued with care to not go forward to anywhere near them.
When we packed up 1066 went to chat with them and they explained that the conditions were marginal for them, hence their short flights. They said they would have been happy for us to have continued flying, ideally with a spotter to keep our pilots informed of their whereabouts. Several times the guy flying the blue and white hang glider looked as if he was about to stall and crash but he had come 5th in the World Championships apparently so he certainly knew what he was doing! It was interesting to watch them and as the wind direction is rarely suitable for them to fly I doubt they will be a problem for us very often.
Those of you on the club WhatsApp group will have seen that Gordon Bennett has got his name in lights…well in letters and a photo anyway, when the RCM&E mag published this:
Well done Gordon, it’s good to see you got a mention for PAM…oh hang on, you didn’t!
Gordon has now got another new plane finished and ready to test fly. Well at around twenty five years old it’s not exactly new, and Gordon didn’t build it… I’ll let him explain:
At the club meeting in October last year Mark kindly ran an auction that included models from John Bourne’s collection. There was a rather beaten-up early monoplane for sale that no one had any interest in. I thought it looked interesting so picked it up for a tenner. The tail plane had fallen off and there were many holes in the tissue covering. 
Inspecting the power train exposed kit built around a brushed motor and nicad battery.
I hooked it up to my bench power supply to see if it was still running and it jumped into life. Jump is probably a reasonable word to use as the noise and vibration from the gearbox was phenomenal. The whole bench shook and most of my fillings dropped out. So, without any thought or planning I ripped the old setup out intending to go brushless. Some planning would have been prudent as John had built a dummy Anzani 3-cylinder radial around the original motor and gearbox which I definitely wanted to keep.
This meant I had a maximum diameter for the brushless motor, I figured I could accommodate varying depths. I got onto the phone and called my new best-mate George at 4-Max. ‘What is it?’ he wanted to know. No idea, I’ll send a photo. How much did it weigh, how much did the old powertrain weigh, had I thought about C of G. Of course I had. Only an idiot would etc etc…. George did his exhaustive questioning and calculating. I pretended everything was carefully planned. To this point we thought the plane might have been something created by John. It was similar to a Deperdussin or Eastbourne Monoplane but nothing matched exactly. Then out of the blue George called and said a mate had come round with an old plans book and they’d found it, a Fosdyke Flyer.
A free plan had been produced in RC Model World around March 2000. The plans were available on the net and it was clear there was lots of C of G thinking to be done.
I had to create a new firewall bulkhead as the old motor had robbed me of any new mounting points for the new motor. This allowed me to shove everything as far forward as possible and now the Cof G is just behind the spar. The original article warns to keep the total weight below 25 oz and the author was pretty chuffed as his was just 20 oz. I know John got his in at 23 oz as its written on the plane in biro! With the advent of new technology and much better batteries the new set-up come in at just 16 oz, amazing how much has changed in 25 years. John changed the design a lot by making removable wings, separating the fuselage around the cockpit, also making it easy to get to the radio gear and battery. This does mean there’s no rigging wires on the underside of the wing… I’m assuming he beefed up the main spar at the wing root…. Did anyone ever see it fly?!!
It’s only rudder and elevator (none of those aileron things) and I only intend to fly it on very gentle days. Hopefully at 16 oz’s things won’t get too stressy around the wing root. As they say, watch this space. Thanks for that Gordon, I look forward to seeing it fly.
If you’re worried about the lack of rigging wires on the underside just fly it inverted!
While I was away MacFly shot lots of video for me to use and he took this screenshot from one of them. The video shows that it was actually just a fleeting pass but the photo makes it look as if 1066 and Dougal are flying an inverted circuit together. 1066 is on top…
I didn’t forget PAM while I was away and I snapped this photo of five Britten-Norman Islanders sat at an airport. I’ve never seen a gaggle of Islanders like this before but as over eight hundred have been built it’s probably not really a particularly unusual sight.
The first one to correctly name the location in the Comments section wins…er…nothing!
In the February 2022 Patch News I featured a new model that Woody had just bought, an XFly T-7A Red Hawk. I did the maiden flight and found that it only just got off our patch with the small wheels fitted. A few flights later Woody removed the undercarriage and the Red Hawk flew better after being hand launched and it belly landed with no problems.
He struggled a bit with flying it himself so fitted an XFly gyro which helped but still found the model a bit of a handful and for the last couple of years it’s mostly been a hangar queen. This month Woody brought it along and I flew it again and it went well enough but I didn’t really feel at ease and Woody chose not to have a go on the controls. It’s sometimes difficult flying other people’s models as you are never sure if they’ve been set up in the best way and with the Red Hawk the gyro was an added complication as Woody was a bit vague about the different switch settings. Following the flight Woody offered it to me for a good price, saying he’d rather see me flying it than have it hanging up in his workshop.
So I took the Red Hawk home and downloaded the manuals for the model and the gyro.
A few hours later I’d replaced Woody’s Spektrum receiver with a Multiplex one and had added the Red Hawk as a new model with the recommended settings on my transmitter.
I had also set the gyro up correctly and assigned it to a three position switch with speech leaving no doubt about which mode was which. I have four suitable 4 cell 2200mAh batteries so I charged them up and the following day I had four flights with no problems, just a few small setting changes after each flight to get the characteristics to my liking.
On 17th May 1066 reached the grand old age of 65 and he promised to bring us some cakes at the patch, but he failed to deliver so as a penance I’ve made him write for Patch News: Over the last month or so I have had a hankering for an out and out fun fly model. Searching the internet did not give many options, i.e. Weston UK Cougar, Slec Limbo dancer, Balsa Cabin Funfly. However there was one other that looked interesting, this was Evolution Models Fusion range, which comprises the Micro Fusion, Fusion V2, Fusion V3, and the Mega Fusion. To be honest I don’t like the look of the model, but the V2 had won everything in it’s class in the UK during the 2019 season, and was the mid-priced option at £99.00 plus £9.99 delivery so this is the version I decided to buy, the order was placed, and the model duly arrived a few days later. Not so long ago you could spend a lot less and the postman would be completely hidden by the box of your new toy so the skinny one that arrived was a bit of disappointment. I suppose it’s bigger than the plastic bag it could end up in. Disappointment aside let’s see what’s inside.
Or not as it turns out, starting with what you don’t get, there are no instructions you have to download these as a PDF, there is no plan, that’s right, there really is no plan at all, and no wheels. You do get a box of strip wood, sheet stock, a bag of good quality hardware, and some very nice laser cut parts, in both ply and 6mm balsa, all of which has been graded perfectly for its respective job. The laser cutting is superb, with 1.5mm tabs holding the parts in place. A small criticism is none of the parts are numbered, also the parts needed to build the tailplane for instance, are all on different sheets, so it took me a little time using the PDF instructions on my phone to identify all the parts.
The other unusual feature is the wing ribs are made of Depron.
With all the materials laid out on the bench, I felt a bit better about my £110.00 spend, and when you take into account the amount of thought the designers have given to producing a traditional builders kit, but have removed the hassle of cutting out all the fiddly parts, it’s not so bad. I decided to start the build with the tail feathers, having identified the parts required they were released from the sheets, and as can be seen in the photos, needed almost no fettling to make them fit. My next concern was the amount of carbon on the edges of these parts where they join, may affect the integrity of the joint.
I felt it would be a shame to spoil those perfectly square edges trying to remove the carbon with sand paper, so I tried joining some scrap with super glue without removing the carbon, and I’m happy to report the joint strength was more than adequate.
The outline of the tail and elevator is made up from 10 laser cut parts plus cross bracing cut from 9 x 6mm soft wood strip. I don’t own a mitre block for my razor saw so after a minute’s thinking and another minute with the chop saw I made a little cutting jig, which made cutting nice square ends on the cross bracing a breeze. Two hours after opening the box, including taking photos etc, I had a completed tail.
Thanks 1066, it looks good so far and I’m looking forward to next month’s instalment.
We can always rely on Norwegian Nick to produce a beautifully finished model and in May he turned up to fly with an exceptional one, a very realistic two metre wingspan Eagle!
The design is from the Plane Print website (planeprint.com/eagle) and it’s a 3D printed plastic model. There are a lot of parts and they were all printed for Nick by his son Shaun. 
You really need to visit the website to see how it’s done, there’s loads of info including a build by a guy named Troy MacMillan who does a video of him constructing and flying it. The plastic is white so Nick had to do all the painting and he made a fantastic job of it.
On it’s maiden flight the Eagle went away from the launch but unfortunately crashed shortly afterwards. This is what Nick says: On the test flight, after launch I was trying to trim it out but it started to do its own thing, loop the loop and was uncontrollable. 
Anyway it buried itself in the valley and is non-repairable. Everything went into a bin liner and I took it home. All servos, motor and battery were salvaged but when I went to take out the aileron servo I noticed that the grub screw which held the pushrod attached to the servo arm was missing. Aargh, I think the unfortunate missing screw explains everything Nick but at least the cause of the crash is probably known. Nick says that he’s hoping Shaun will print him a replacement next month, I’m looking forward to seeing it.
Here are a few excellent action shots that Kryten kindly took for us this month:
Video time now this month with footage taken by me, MacFly, and Dougal Entendre. Please watch the video full screen, it’s so much better with small models flying around:
If the video won’t play for you please click HERE
This month the end ‘joke’ is a bit sensitive so I’ve protected it with a Captcha image:
Colin Cowplain
