Patch News – January 2024

The format of this Patch News is going to be rather different from usual because there hasn’t been much in the way of new models to talk about but there is a lot of major news about the patch itself. After almost 50 years at Chidden Down we have sadly lost the site. As most club members will know the field we’ve been using was not actually owned by the farmer, Wilson Atkinson Farms Ltd, but was rented (along with two other fields) from the landowner, a situation that had existed since the 1950’s. With permission from both the landowner and the farmer Petersfield Aero Modellers have used the field from around 1975/6 during which time we’ve enjoyed excellent relations with all concerned and have had no problems at all. The permission was originally granted by the late Wilson Atkinson and then control was passed over to his son George who now runs the farm along with his sons Oliver and Will. There has occasionally been talk of the landowner renting to another farm or taking the land back for his own use but it has never come to anything, until now.
Last August the landowner told George he wanted to change the use of the three fields from grassland to arable and would be making a change of use application. George thought permission wouldn’t be granted and the fields would be unsuitable for growing anything other than grass anyway as there’s barely any soil on top of the chalk down so he wasn’t unduly concerned. But in mid-January permission was granted and George was given just two weeks’ notice to vacate the three fields so the landowner could begin preparation for a crop and we were immediately given the same notice. But it’s not all bad news, without delay George offered us an alternative site on land that is owned by Wilson Atkinson Farms themselves and they have said they would very much like us to stay on their land with continued good relations, a situation that also suits us perfectly.

More about the site later, for now it’s on with what else happened in January. The weather during the first half of the month was pretty awful with a series of storms coming through so there wasn’t a lot of flying done but some of the hardy (foolhardy?) members flew in some very cold conditions. Fortunately later in the month the weather improved. On one of the better days there was quite a stiff and chilly breeze but Leo asked Dougal Entendre to test fly a biplane that he had bought from Rod Ashton before Rod joined the club.
Leo doesn’t know what model it is so I can’t give you any details of it at the moment.
He only paid Rod £25 for the model which needed quite a lot of work on the wings and undercarriage and as it had originally been I/C powered Leo had to fit it out with an electric set-up. He had just crashed his Hyperion Edge so Leo fitted the Hyperion motor and speed controller from that into the bipe and is using a three cell lipo although the set-up can take four cells should he decide he needs more power later.
The test flight was a bit of a non-starter as you will see in the video. On the first attempt it looked as if the wind just got under one wing and it took Dougal by surprise with a quick cartwheel. The model looked to be ok so Dougal tried again but… you’ll just have to watch the video, but it made us all laugh. I’ll just say that I’ve not seen a model being sick before!

Another new model that I saw being flown in January was Gordon’s Avios BushMule V2. Gordon has been just a little bit busy (manic!) with the unexpected change of patch and all the paperwork, rules, risk assessments, groundwork, communication, liaising with two other clubs and so on but has managed to write a few words about the BushMule for us:
I got lucky as it was a Hobby King pre-order waiting for the container to arrive so got it for £162 and free delivery. Woody and I both won £100 quid or so on the premium bonds in November so it was a present from Ernie! The package arrived just in time for Christmas Day but I didn’t bother to wrap it up for myself. Super easy to put together but there’s lots of it! Wires all over the place for twin ESC’s, lights and 8 servos so it’s the first time I’ve used cable tie bases in a model to tidy things up. The ESC’s do have reversing but I’ve not wired it as I ran out of channels on the receiver and thought it would only be really useful on water. The 8-channel receiver does allow me to program differential thrust on the twin motors so expect snappy stall-turns and flat spins (no doubt followed by the sound of EPO making rapid contact with terra firma). It’s got a cargo door for dropping miniature Colin Cowplain type parachutists and also a side ‘plug’ door for loading and access. Being a ‘plug’ door means I can do my own ‘Max 9’ re-enactments.
It does look good in the air, as Dougal said, ‘it’s like watching (dodgy) arrivals at Guernsey airport’.   Sorry Gordon but the dodgy arrivals are mostly to do with the pilot!
Gordon was good enough to let me have a go with his BushMule and unsurprisingly I found that it flies just like mine. He seemed less than impressed when I landed it bang on top of the spot but at least I showed Gordon that the plane can do something that it’s never going to do again! Gordon definitely got a bargain price at just £162, I think I paid £145 for mine about four years ago and it’s now showing as £246 from the HobbyKing UK warehouse. I can’t see much difference between mine and the V2 version other than the colour scheme which I have to admit looks much smarter than mine, but there are apparently several minor improvements as well. Dougal shot some video of Gordon flying his BushMule on a rather grey day and you can see it in this month’s video.

Inspired by watching Mini-Mike’s Acro Wot fly 1066 splashed the cash and bought one, here’s his story: It was in May 1985 that Chris Foss sold his first Acro Wot kit, at the time I had been married for a few years and all available funds were needed for things like furniture, wallpaper, paint etc. During the late seventies, and early eighties a Chris Foss model was a must have, whether it was a slope soarer or power model, who didn’t have a Wot 4?  There is no doubting Mr Foss had an eye for the aesthetics of a toy plane, but he also made sure they were fully sorted, and always had fantastic flying qualities. It is testimony to this that 40 years later his designs are still just as popular today, especially with the introduction of the electric moulded foam ARTF kits. I also think Chris was a very shrewd businessman who always knew he had a great product, so was able to price his kits accordingly, which was a real problem for a recently married, and skint 26 year old me, who always wanted an Acro Wot, but just could not afford one.
Move forward 39 years, and Mini-Mike shows up with his 20 year old Acro, which he had converted to electric, the model flew great, and I was taken straight back to 1985, and remembering how it felt watching club mates fly theirs. Sunday evening followed the normal routine, dinner, settee, computer out, start watching toy plane videos, and I could not get the Acro out of my head, so the now 64 year old me, who has a little more disposable income, took the plunge and ordered a kit £158.00 incl. postage (still too tight to get the deluxe kit). There is a saying that nostalgia isn’t always as good as you remember, and I don’t think the kit is as good as I remember other Foss kits were. Starting with the instructions, these are quite basic, but adequate, however my problem is with the modification sheet! It includes showing the need for plywood fuz doublers, these are advised when using larger engines, but are not supplied! Why? The mod sheet also advises many other changes which are not shown in the main instructions, therefore, if you don’t read the mod sheet first, you run out of some of the stock supplied in the kit!  If they had to add a mod sheet to every kit, why not just amend the instructions? I also think the amount of material in the kit is a bit on the stingy side, there is no fat on this one, therefore you have to be very careful with your cuts. Maybe we have been spoilt by ARTF imports, but the quality of the hardware is also very poor, most of it has been put aside for my next foam board!!! I haven’t done much kit building for many years, but taking into account that I didn’t read the mod sheet first, this one went together quite quickly, that said I had forgotten how many hours you have to invest, far more than just opening a box! I also found myself making some schoolboy errors, the worst of which was applying the wing bandage. So what went wrong?
1. I used polyester resin. 2. I followed the instructions, but the weather was very cold, and after a night in the shed, the resin still hadn’t fully hardened.
To add insult to injury, having mixed too much resin, and not wanting to waste what was left, I painted it all over the inside of the fuselage, and after two more days indoor some areas were still a sticky mess. After crying inconsolable for about 3 hours, logic told me I must have failed to mix the resin properly, so if I brushed hardener on the sticky bits all would be OK, how wrong was I, all it did was make it worse. Aargh! After discussing my pending suicide with Patsie, he advised using super glue on the sticky areas, and as much as it hurts me to say, it worked a treat. Eyes dried, suicide avoided, I was briefly in a much better mood, but this was short lived as I now discovered the resin had soaked through the wing veneer, and dissolved large parts of the foam core, at this point for my own safety, I decided to leave the shed, and avoid the kitchen (too many knives). The pictures show some of the damage, and subsequent repairs.
I know our blog editor likes a bit of technical detail, so for the record the motor is currently a Turnigy G32 770 KV which is swinging a 14×6 propeller.
Because the model is designed for IC there is scope for a large battery, (no point in carrying lead) so I have made room for a 4S 4900mAh 30c lipo pack.
The speed controller is an 80Amp Turnigy. Tests have shown I’m getting 700 Watts @ 60 amps, so plenty of headroom in the speed controller, and the battery should not be over stressed, my only concern is that the G32 is supposed to be the equivalent of 32 glow engine, far too small for a 6lb model, we shall see? At the time of writing the model has not been flown, and as I have never owned one, I am really hoping it flies as well as my imaginary nostalgia is expecting. Since 1066 kindly wrote the above for us he has had several flights with the Acro Wot and I’m pleased to be able to tell you that it flew a treat.
I’m sure he could squeeze a few more chequers on the underside, he’s just not trying!
No doubt 1066 will be tweaking a few things here and there but basically it’s a good sound model that flies very nicely. You can see the Acro Wot for yourselves in this month’s video.

There were a couple of days that had sunshine and light winds, one of which turned out to be the last flying session at Chidden Down. Several of the committee plus 1066 went along in the morning of Friday 19^th to remove the electric fence and associated energiser etc. and were surprised to find the cattle in the field but we had no choice, even the spot had to go.
After lunch, having moved everything to the new site, Gordon Bennett and I went back for the last ever flights at Chidden Down where we were joined by Chas and Bob the Builder. In just a couple of hours the bullocks had managed to cover every inch of the patch in hoof marks and decided it was the best place to stand despite having the whole of the field!
We flew anyway, fortunately the whole field had quite short grass so we ignored the cattle and carried on flying, simply taking off and landing wherever it was clear.

The new site we are now using is on Wether Down, further along the piece of land that is used by MVSA (the Meon Valley Soaring Association) and the Sky Surfing Club who fly hang gliders and paragliders. This offers some challenges, particularly with the Sky Surfers who are the closest to us and whose safety must of course take priority over our flying.
But they don’t use the site very often and don’t intentionally stray along as far as where we will be flying. Gordon has been in regular contact with both clubs and has found them to be very amicable and keen to make the new arrangement work for everyone. The MVSA Chairman and the Safety Officer visited us at the patch while we were flying on Sunday 28th to introduce themselves and have a good discussion about their needs and ours.
The other concern is that our patch is just 250m from the big expensive houses opposite the Sustainability Centre so we must be very careful not to upset them with noisy models.
Gordon has produced the Site Detail drawing above that is included in the new rules that have been emailed to all members. The site looks quite small on the drawing but is in fact much larger than it appears. The red line along the south of the patch must be a strict ‘DO NOT CROSS’ if we are to retain the site. This will make landings more challenging with certain wind directions, we’ve been rather spoilt in the past always being able to land straight into wind. But on the positive side the farmer said a round patch like we had at Chidden created difficulties for them (who knew, we could easily have made it square!) and has agreed to the new patch being 40m by 30m. That means it’s about 70% bigger than before which should make landings easier and help if they need to be crosswind.
To the north are three radio masts and the new rules say no flying within 50m of them. Obviously it’s not easy to judge the distance but several of the committee have had trial flights with someone posted close to the masts and nobody got too close even when deliberately flying closer than felt comfortable, they are just something to be aware of.
The track up to the parking area by the barns is in better condition than the old one, the first part is fairly bumpy but once past the house on the left it’s much smoother and the parking area by the barns is better than before. The committee members who are retired  have been very busy getting everything sorted as far as possible and 1066 was co-opted in to help as he was heavily involved in setting up the electric fence and mower box at the Chidden site. On Wednesday 24^th Gordon, Woody, 1066, Chas, Kryten, and myself all answered Gordon’s call to help mow and we cut the new patch area twice. The larger area makes mowing a bit more of a chore but with two mowers running it didn’t take too long. It’ll take a while to get the patch as good as we’re used to but it’s already perfectly useable for most models and by the time you’re reading this we will have cut it again. Latest update: we mowed yet again on Jan 31st so it’s now been cut 5 or 6 times, I’ve lost count!

I can’t stress enough how helpful George, Oliver, and Will have been over the last couple of weeks. They have used their farm equipment to move lots of our equipment including both the mowers and the heavy roller that we thought we might have to abandon. We didn’t think we’d be able to dig out the mower box without destroying it and had more or less resigned ourselves to leaving it where it was and buying a new one. We mentioned this to the farmers one morning and that same evening I received the photo below showing that they’d managed to get it out undamaged and put it in the new field for us, brilliant!

With all the changes going on this month I’ll use some screenshots from my FPV videos to give you an idea of the new site and surrounding area rather than the usual action shots.

Video time now, this month with footage shot by MacFly, Dougal Entendre and me. 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

Did you hear about the budget airline that managed to keep prices very low by only offering late evening flights? They didn’t last long at all before they went out of business.
Apparently word went round that it was a fly by night outfit…

Colin Cowplain