Patch News – January 2025

I don’t think I’ve ever had so little flying due to bad weather as this month. We expect January to be cold and miserable in the UK but this year it has been particularly bad.
We seem to have been plagued with mist/low cloud a lot more than usual and I’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve turned up to fly only to be thwarted by poor visibility. Our new flying site (not so new now as we’ve been using it for a year) is slightly higher than the previous one but I wouldn’t have thought it would make a huge difference.
On 12^th January there was a light smattering of snow covering the field but that didn’t stop the hardier fliers although it made take-offs tricky and most pilots hand-launched instead.
It was good to see that Chas turned out and flew having been unable to make it on lots of days with much nicer weather. Members made the most of the days that were flyable and on one of those days Woody seemed happy to be flying but Captain Slow not so much!
Towards the end of the month storm Eowyn blew through and prevented flying on Friday 24th with heavy rain and very strong winds. More rain and winds were forecast from storm Herminia on the Sunday so several of us took the opportunity to fly in the better weather on the Saturday between the storms. The weather was perfect and, as you’ll see at the end of this month’s video, there was barely any wind and the skies were clear at last.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: We have been asked by the farmer to keep the gate that we drive through into the parking area closed at all times. We can keep it open as we all arrive but we must close it before we walk off into our field and down to the patch. This is primarily for when there are animals in the barn in case they escape into the yard, but rather than checking for livestock each time it’s best to simply make sure that the gate is always closed. The second gate, the one that we walk through into the field, can be left open as long as we are certain there are no bullocks or sheep in the field. If we’re not certain we must close it.

It’s been decided that we should rotate the patch and the red ‘do not cross’ line clockwise slightly to ensure further separation from the existing house close to the end of the track and from the new development that is just starting to the south of the field.
Despite the poor weather the patch grass has grown quite a lot and it now needs a good cut so we’ll do the rotation when we next mow, possibly by the time you’re reading this.

On the nicer January days a couple of new models were flown, the first being a ZOHD Drift by Patrick Beagles. Gordon Bennett has decreed that Patrick should be known as Snoopy, after the Peanuts cartoon dog. Maybe Gordon thinks Patrick is  cute and cuddly…
Snoopy’s Drift isn’t actually new but it’s the first time he’s flown it at the PAM field having previously flown it in local parks where he’s broken the boom off a few times.
The Drift was first produced in white foam but Snoopy’s is a new Dark Breeze edition in black foam. The black foam is slightly denser than the white foam so it’s a little heavier.
ZOHD bill it as a ‘stealth’ version and it obviously works as Snoopy reckons orientation is difficult sometimes so he’s added some red and green tape to the wings to aid visibility.
He bought his from Hobbyrc where it’s available for around £74, and this is what their website says: The ZOHD Drift Dark Breeze edition is a lightweight and portable RC plane that boasts an impressive 877mm wingspan and a sleek black foam design. It comes with all the key components pre-installed, so you can assemble it in minutes without any glue. It also includes two different propellers for 2S and 3S LiPo batteries, giving you more flexibility in power and flight time. The ZOHD Drift Dark Breeze edition is designed to be easy to launch, fly and land. It has a dedicated equipment bay for your FPV camera, flight controller and GPS, and a built-in CF rod for extra durability. It has excellent flight characteristics, allowing you to glide smoothly in light wind conditions and perform agile maneuvers with precision. Whether you are new to FPV or looking for a relaxed flying experience, the ZOHD Drift Dark Breeze edition is the perfect choice for you!
As it says, the Dart is designed to take an FPV set-up with a flight controller but Snoopy is just flying his without any of the extras. He uses a 3 cell 1100mAh lipo battery with the supplied 5×3.5 propeller which gives him flight times of up to twenty minutes!

Now for some information from Gordon Bennett about his new toy, a Skynetic Tempest: Andy (Colin) asked if I could write a little about the Tempest. I’m no expert but I think Prospero was betrayed by his brother and the King of Naples…… Not often you get literary gags in Patch News ehh!? (That’s cos most of the readers aren’t bright enough…!) As no one bought me a new model over Christmas I decided to buy one myself. Motion RC were doing a deal on the 80 cm wingspan Tempest and I love the looks of the WW2 interceptor. The Tempest was initially called the Typhoon 2 but as it had diverged so much it was renamed. The aircraft entered service in 1944 and had a much thinner wing and was also one of the most powerful fighters of WW2. At low altitude it was the fastest single engine propeller-driven aircraft of the war. The model is built by Skynetic and arrived nearly ready to go. All you have to do is glue the horizontal stabiliser in and bolt on the wing. One quirk is that they don’t fit any control horns but everything is supplied except a receiver. The Tempest comes with fixed undercarriage and racks for armament. I didn’t bother with the latter but thought I’d give the gear a try, I figured the wheels might help protect the prop on grass landings. The first flight was interesting. She rolled hard left from the hand launch but went away like a wild thing. Way too much deflection on all the control surfaces (no set up info in the manual). Luckily, I’d set up some dialled down rates on a switch which calmed things down a bit. The landing was interesting, as soon as the wheels touched, she did a very fast somersault. This should have been the  time to remove the undercarriage, but I got fixated on setting up new rates and forgot.
Launch two sorted things. Again, she torque rolled left and this time I couldn’t catch her. The resultant ‘landing’ swiftly removed the gear. Launch three was fine and I had a great flight humming the 633 theme to myself (ok wrong aircraft but who cares).
At the next trip up to the patch Mark suggested launching at 75% throttle. I also held in a bit of right rudder and she now goes away really well. For a smallish model I think she looks great in the air. I’m working on the ‘scale flying’ but it helps that she’s really stable in straight and level flight. When no one is looking I can switch the rates back up and do 5 rolls a second. Thanks Gordon, it was good to see how well she flies now you’ve got her sorted. I filmed some of the Tempest in the air which you can see in this month’s video.

Page Boy has sent me through some photos and information on a couple of models he’s building, the first being a very pretty looking Woodpecker, a model that he was hoping to fly on the last Sunday of January but unfortunately storm Herminia put paid to that idea.
He first started building the Lindsay Todd and Paul Rice designed Woodpecker way back in 2018 but has only just completed it… he must be a friend of Captain Slow!
The Woodpecker was a free plan in RCM&E in November 2017 and can be built with either a normal flat tail or a V-tail, Page Boy has gone for the normal one, I think that’s nicest.
Page Boy’s other new model is a Mirus that he’s only just bought so, if the Woodpecker is anything to go by, we should see it arrive at the field sometime around 2032!
He bought it when he watched Mini-Mike flying his a couple of month’s ago and, like 1066, was inspired to build one for himself. Unlike 1066 (more of his next month) he’s bought the smaller 25 sized Mirus which is the same as Mini-Mike’s. As you can see he hasn’t started work on it yet but hopefully it won’t take too long to put together.
He’s already decided on the power set-up he’ll be fitting, it’ll be the same as he’s using in his Cloud Models E2K Wasp pylon racer, an Overlander Thumper 3536 1500Kv motor with an 8×6 prop, controlled by a Hobbywing 80A speed controller, and fed by a 4 cell 2600mAh lipo. He’ll be using Hitec HS65 metal geared servos to steer the Mirus around and judging by the speed of his Wasp and Mini-Mike’s Mirus it’s not going to be slow!

Last month I reported on the Sky Viper Vectors that both Woody and Captain Slow had received as Christmas presents. Apparently Santa Claus had spotted them in the Lidl Black Friday sale for just £39.99 and bagged a couple to deliver on the big day.
Woody has been happily flying his Vector and has now had quite a few flights with it. He’s found that the stabiliser seems to take about ten seconds to sort itself out after launching, it always goes to a very high alpha from launch no matter what Woody does on the sticks. Sometimes it just sinks to the ground at high alpha but usually it staggers away and then there’s a noticeable ‘kick’ and it levels out and flies normally for the rest of the flight, odd. You can see the high alpha from launch in the video although the ‘kick’ isn’t very obvious. Woody has found that waiting with the motors running for at least ten seconds before launching seems to overcome the problem. Captain Slow hasn’t flown his Vector yet, he’s taking it slowly of course but I think he’s been put off by the ‘Built for Speed’ notice on the box. I’ve offered to buy his Vector from him for a much reduced price but so far he’s resisted my cheeky offers. Sadly I think my chances of a bargain have been reduced greatly as last week I saw the Vector for sale in Sainsburys for a huge £100…shhh…don’t tell him!

While he’s plucking up the courage to fly his Vector, Captain Slow has bought a second-hand Piwakawaka. A what?! Apparently Piwakawaka is the Maori name of a small bird from New Zealand called a Fantail although the model bears no resemblance to it at it all.
Anyway, this is what Captain Slow says about it:  I bought the model from Facebook Marketplace from a chap in Marchwood for £60. It was his fathers who, from what I can gather, was a BMFA member and a member of the Southampton Model Aircraft Club.It came complete with the free plan from the Jan 2006 RCM&E and was designed by Ray Huntley.  The wing span is 3ft or 91cms.  It’s fitted with an AXI 2808/24 outrunner motor, a Jeti Advance Plus 40A esc and 4 Hitec servos and has a pull – pull rudder.

It’s fitted with an 8 x 4 prop which doesn’t agree with AXI’s recommendations, either from the original instructions that I have, or from the AXI web page as it’s a current model apart from the fact that the latest version is 1190 RPM/V as opposed to the 1160 RPM/V of my version.  It has a small amount of hangar rash that is easily fixed and I need to change the esc connections to XT60; other than that it’s ready to go.The RCM&E article describes it as a small Limbo Dancer type model, it looks good to me.

Woody has built himself a Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk which is another from the website of Humayun Najabat. He is the guy in Pakistan who also designed the SR-72 Darkstar that Woody built a couple of months ago and was featured in the December 2024 Patch News.
This one was actually designed by someone else, it says Dzung 50 on the plan. I’ve found an S-DiY video of the build that seems rather better than Humayun Najabat’s, you can watch it HERE.  The same guy has also made one out of cardboard which seems to fly well!
Woody’s is made of foam and he has used his usual foamie set-up consisting of a Turnigy 2826/6 2200Kv motor, a 30A speed controller, and a pair of 9g metal gear servos.

Another new model that has yet to fly is Gordon Bennett’s 64mm Freewing F9F Panther.
It came from Motion RC and apparently is a new 4 cell version of the Freewing Panther.This is from the Motion RC website: The new version of the 64mm F9F Panther has a faster motor, larger 40A ESC, 12B fan for great sound, and runs on a 4S LiPo instead of a 3S. In order to achieve these upgrades, the fuselage mould was updated to create extra room for a 4S LiPo battery and the wing mould was changed to add a tubular spar for extra strength. The canopy magnets were also changed to a latch system to keep the canopy from blowing off due to the extra speed. The changes were worth it! With the extra power and 12 blade EDF sound this already fantastic plane is now even better. Well it certainly looks nice, hopefully there will be a flight review in the February Patch News of the Panther along with Woody’s Nighthawk, and Captain Slow’s Piwakawaka.

This month the action photos are a few more nostalgic shots from the PAM archives:

Video time now, this month with footage shot by myself, Gordon, 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’s Final Funny popped up on Facebook the other day, it made me smile 🙂

Colin Cowplain