Patch News – January 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Colin Cowplain