Patch News – January 2016

After the pretty lousy weather of December there was a distinct improvement in January. Several of us flew on New Year’s Day and, although it was very blustery, it was a good start to the year.Sadly for the workers the weather wasn’t good on some the Sundays in the month but the Midweekers were able to enjoy several cold but clear and almost windless days. Fog was quite often a problem, especially on Sundays. Only three idiots even bothered turning up on this one. The fog didn’t clear and we slunk off home all miserable…With the unseasonably warm and wet weather the grass on the patch has continued to grow but Ron managed to get the mower up there on a couple of suitable days and we all mucked in and got it cut. Obviously it’s not perfect, it’s a bit soggy and pretty bumpy, but it’s not too bad, certainly useable.

Several new models appeared this month and I have loads of photos and video for January so no shortage of material. In fact I had trouble trimming this months’ video down to a suitable length, and at 11 minutes it’s still longer than usual. Thanks to all those who have helped by providing pics and video, keep them coming.

I’ve now worked out how to embed videos correctly (I think!) and this months’ will appear towards the end of this blog. Embedding the video enables you to play it on this page instead of being taken away from the blog. I suggest you watch it full screen by clicking the icon at the bottom right, next to the word Vimeo. Just hit Escape (Esc) on your keyboard to return. And did you know you can zoom in on any photo in the blog simply by clicking on it?

I’d been struggling to find a good nickname for Richard King but he has turned out to be an excellent model launcher and will now be known as Catapult King. He can be seen giving his new F22 Raptor an unorthodox launch in this months video. The Raptor is the same as his previous one but it’s made from Depron instead of the previous heavier Correx.It looks great and flies well, although, like the Correx one, not exactly overpowered. I think Catapult is going to play with different props and maybe motors to speed it up. But the slow speed makes it great for videoing as you’ll see!

1066 managed a vertical ‘landing’ one day with his delta, I think he must have been at full speed when it hit!Obviously the arrival broke the prop but he’d soon replaced that and removed the mud, and after a just few minutes it was flying again, that Correx is strong stuff, it’s even Hastings proof!Chairman Ron’s Splot had a landing mishap one windy day, he was caught by a gust just as he was about to touch down and the ensuing cartwheel damaged the fuselage quite badly. Fortunately the wings and tail were fine.But Ron reports that it was simple enough to repair and most of you will have seen it looking as good as new again when he brought it along to club one evening.

Having been used and abused rather too much Vice Chairman Woody’s Spirit has been retired, but he’s replaced it with a sparkling new Kinetic. I think the almost identical Kinetic is a better buy than the Spirit, the motor mount reinforces the nose somewhat and the motors seem to last longer and are available as spares. Most of the Spirits in the club have now been fitted with Kinetic motors. Woody tells me that, unlike the Spirit, the slightly cheaper Kinetic comes with the stickers already applied making it even faster to get in the air.

Norwegian Nick has been flying a HET Tucano in January.It was his son’s but Nick commandeered the previously unflown model and it turned out to be a nice little flier once Nick had got the control throws and C of G position correctly sorted out. I can’t find any information on the Tucano as HET no longer produce them, all I can tell you is that it’s 27” span.

In the last Patch News I reported that father and son JP & Monty had passed their BMFA ‘A’ tests flying their ST Models Discovery trainer. Having passed their tests it was time to check out what would make sensible second models for the next part of the learning curve, and then total ignore ‘sensible’! JP decided on a Durafly Vampire and Monty a Durafly Stuka, neither of which would have been recommended as second models.But both models have now flown successfully and JP landed the Vampire on its third flight. There have been a couple of Durafly Vampires in the club previously and they are great little fliers so I think it’s fair to say that if you absolutely must have an EDF for a second model the Vampire is probably the one to choose.Although it has retracts they haven’t been used yet as the patch isn’t in a good enough condition for the small wheels so JP did a hand launch for the first flight. You can see the result in the photo below, the Vamp should be heading from right to left in a gentle climb!It can be seen in full in this months’ video. To be fair, by the third flight JP’s launching had improved immeasurably.

Monty’s Stuka has only had one flight at the time of writing but the model performed well, much better than I dared to expect. Monty sensibly removed those rather vulnerable looking cannons before the flight.Having experienced JP’s launching, and knowing that Monty has done no hand launching at all, Catapult King stepped up and got the Stuka away perfectly. It has plenty of power and, although I didn’t get a chance to test it thoroughly, it seems to have pretty benign handling with no sign of the dreaded tip stall that the sharply tapered wing could cause. I didn’t use the flaps at all but the Stuka came in nicely with no problems.As Monty is at school all week he is only able to fly at the weekends so has been hampered by the weather this month but I’m sure the Stuka will see a lot more flying over the next few weeks.

Since the Delta Challenge last autumn I’ve been flying my delta regularly, it performs well in pretty much any weather and as the airframe cost was about £2.50 for the sheet of Correx I don’t worry too much about it. Being a tough one piece model it’s the ideal model to chuck in the car boot on those ‘might be flyable’ days.

The only problem I’ve had is that it’s a bit noisy. When I built it I fitted an old Axi motor I had spare, in fact in 2002 it was the first outrunner I ever bought and cost about £150 with its matching speed controller. I used it for a long time but eventually it started throwing magnets (possibly due to me using 10 cells on a 7 cell motor!) and I cured the problem by filling the gaps between the magnets with epoxy. But it made an odd noise, presumably it was out of balance, and eventually the bearings started to protest. In the delta the noise was getting worse every flight so I had to do something. The Axi was producing over 400w on 3 cells and the model had unlimited vertical performance, something I wanted to keep. But it also had a large lump of lead at the back, something I wanted to lose, so I looked for a lighter motor that would still produce loads of power. Eventually I settled on an NTM Prop Drive Series 3530 1400kv that cost less than £13 from HobbyKing, how things have changed! It looked very small next to the Axi and I wasn’t sure it would provide enough thrust although the specs said it should. Being considerably lighter than the Axi, it enabled me to lose the lead tail weight so the delta now only weighs 26ozs instead of 30ozs and that really shows up in the low speed handling.The vertical performance is still there, although maybe a touch slower than before, and the flight time has increased by around 20%, most flights are now around 7-1/2 minutes.

But the most important difference is the lack of noise; I’m no longer embarrassed to open the throttle! So same performance, more agile, quieter, and longer flights, wins all round I reckon. Want to see the vertical take-off? Watch this months’ video.

Dwayne Pipe has now flown the Splot XL that he brought along to a recent club meeting and I’m happy to report that it flies brilliantly.It’s 48” span so is 1-1/3^rd scale, the standard Splot being 36”, and Dwayne has made a few minor changes to the construction. The slightly lengthened nose allows him to slide the battery pack in through a hatch on the top, rather than from underneath as is usual on the smaller Splots. The much anticipated maiden flight was very much a non-event; it just took off and flew round as if it had flown hundreds of times before, did a few aerobatics, and landed back on the patch as if it was nothing special.Well done Dwayne.

Basher Bob has been flying his mini Splot again, having extended the wings somewhat. At 24” span it was 2/3rds scale but the wing loading was a little too high to make the flying enjoyable, so, being unable to make it any lighter, Bob increased the wing area by extending each wing by about 3”.

It’s made it a nicer flier but in terms of wingspan it’s not much smaller than standard now. Bob also regularly flies his Splob, his slightly modified standard Splot, which flies very well indeed using either the normal 3 cell lipo or a 4 cell if he’s feeling racy. I was able to get a photo of all three so you can see the difference in size.Bob’s Splob can be seen briefly harassing Dwayne’s Splot XL during its maiden flight in the video below.

If the video above won’t play for you click HERE

Norwegian Nick has now flown the Bird of Prey that I featured in its unfinished form a few months ago.The Bird of Prey is no longer available but was produced by Kavan about 10 years ago and is unusual in that it’s basically a glider but it has an EDF unit mounted in the fin. Nick had a few problems as the original fan unit is no longer produced so he had to modify a larger fan to fit and turn a suitable wooden shroud on his lathe.

The model is 1565mm spam (about 62”), weighs around 1100gms and has a very nicely made lightweight fibreglass fuselage and obechi veneered foam wings. From the initial launch the model seemed to be making a lot of noise but not going very fast but once trimmed and settled down it flew well with the motor throttled back to around half power, much quieter and not much speed difference. It seemed happiest when it was power off and just gliding, but it is also pretty aerobatic.So far Nick has only had a couple of flights and each time he landed with loads of capacity left in the lipo. It shows great promise and I think it will certainly thermal well in the right conditions.

The last new model to fly in January was Dan Handley’s EPP Mini Edge 540T 3D, another one from HobbyKing.It’s a real 3D machine and should be capable of all the manoeuvres in the book. This is what the webpage says:

The model features an EPP skin over a plywood and carbon fiber built-up structure making it super-light, strong and flexible where needed to shrug off the minor knocks of everyday flying, while retaining scale looks with its fully sectioned cowling, curved canopy, symmetrical air-foil and smooth lines.

Dan says it has quite a lot of EPS under the EPP skin so you need to use foam safe cyano or be very careful where you use normal cyano, you have been warned!The model looks great and is super light at just 660gms ready to fly. Dan asked me to take it up for the first time and I discovered it’s just about perfect, I didn’t add a single click of trim. It even flew completely hands off when I rolled it inverted, no elevator required at all. I quickly handed it over to Dan who flew the rest of the flight and, after some aerobatics, knife-edge etc., he landed it back on the patch at walking pace. An excellent first flight.We only had the one flight as the wind got up a lot and being so light I don’t think it will be good in much of a breeze, but it’s a brilliant model for calm days. 1066 has the EPP Mini Sbach 342 3D from the same range under construction so watch this space.

A couple of action shots now, Captain Slows’ Twinstar and Chris P Bacons’ Cougar 2000. Chris P (Nigel Baker) is newly retired and enjoying flying with the Midweekers. Looks like the top rudder hinge has come loose Nigel.

Following on from my pictures last month of Captain Slows’ new model rack and my own shamefully untidy model room Basher Bob sent a photo of his model shed.It looks very smart and tidy, and he hangs all his models up at one end. At the other end Basher has a neat building area where he currently building a Tiger Moth.Would anyone else like to send me some photos of their model room? We could have a monthly feature.

Finally, us lucky Midweekers were treated to a display by our local friendly Yak pilot one beautiful Tuesday. We had just finished flying when he appeared, so we watched his display that lasted about five or six minutes before he gave us a wing waggle and headed off. So then we, all happy and contented, meandered home for lunch, what a glorious end to our morning. I managed to get some video of it with my phone but the quality isn’t great. I’ve cut out most of the rubbish bits so what left is just under 3 minutes long.

If the video above won’t play for you click HERE

Did you hear that the guy who invented predictive text was tragically killed in plane crash last week?                    His funfair is next Monkey.

Colin Cowplain