Patch News – July 2021

In the last Patch News I said the grass in ‘our’ field was getting very long and we were expecting the farmer to cut it before too long. Right on time it was cut and when we flew on 1st July it was being turned to help it dry.The following day it was baled and taken to be stored in the barn. The farmer was unable to safely cut right up to our fence so a border of long grass remained right around the patch but Chas attacked it with his petrol strimmer and then took away all the cuttings. It was a major job for one person to do and it must have taken him several hours to complete so a big ‘thank you & well done’ to Chas. Now about all the nettles alongside the parking area…The farmer was also busy in July muck spreading in the lower field and then later raking it all in. This was mainly noticed by Dougal when he flew FPV and was impressed by the pretty patterns that were visible from the air.Dougal seemed to think it was done to help him locate the patch. The patch was regularly cut during July and has remained in excellent condition. The latest herd of young bullocks put in an appearance on 26th July and proved to be inquisitive at first but I expect they’ll soon get used to us and be less bothersome. They tested out the fence!Rather unusually we were also visited by a small brood of chickens, something I’ve never seen in the field before. Presumably they had strolled over from the bungalow and would have eventually wandered back home again.The July weather was as strange as we’ve come to expect these days, we had quite a long spell of record breaking heatwave conditions when it was too hot to fly and also some pretty wet and stormy days. One day we alternated between flying, running for shelter in the barn, back to flying, and then getting drenched!

First of the new models to fly in July was Captain Slow’s second-hand Multiplex Pilatus PC-6 Turbo Porter. This is what he says about it: Believe it or not I bought the model in October 2019 through the BMFA Classifieds for £75. Not sure how old it is but it has had one plastic part of a main u/c leg replaced with an aluminium tube as oddly it seems to be one of the spare parts that isn’t available; otherwise it was in pristine condition complete with instructions and spare decals. It’s the RR (Ready to Run) version and so has factory fitted servos x 6, a 40 amp speed controller and 3530-1100 motor. I’m using a MPX 7 channel Light (non-telemetry) receiver. The wingspan is 1250mm and MPX quote the weight as 1100g and a flight time of 7 mins with a 3S 2200Ah battery. Less than two years from purchase to flight, that’s pretty quick for Slow! The Pilatus flew very nicely and as you would expect from a STOL (Short Take Off & Landing) plane it will fly very slowly. Captain Slow is still experimenting with flap settings and getting used to the flying characteristics but is overall very pleased with his purchase.He was good enough to let me have a flight with the Pilatus and I discovered that it’s capable of mild aerobatics although I’m sure the full-size didn’t do them. You can see the Pilatus performing in this month’s video.

Dougal Entendre has also been splashing the cash on a second-hand model, his being a Hyperion Edge 540T 25e.The 25e part refers to the Hyperion power set-up, they produce ranges of models in various sizes and give them an internal combustion engine equivalent number. So the Edge would be suitable for an electric motor equivalent to a 0.25cu.in (4cc) engine. Dougal paid the princely sum of £40 for the Edge which came fitted with a motor, speed controller, four Hitec servos, a Spektrum receiver, and three 3 cell 3600mAh lipos. The batteries might well be useless as the seller had discharged them to 3.3v per cell, 3.8v being the recommended storage voltage. Dougal says: The model is very smart, and though it’s clearly had a few repairs, they’ve been done very well.The seller told me he’d knocked the U/C off (who hasn’t with a model like this?), so he’d added a couple of thick piano wire struts, as you can see in the photo of the underside. I’ll probably bind my Radiomaster Tx to the Spektrum Rx it has installed, and give it a go soon. However I don’t expect it to be particularly 3D-capable. Its empty weight is about the same as my Slick, but the Slick has a 4s pack and a span of about 51″, where the edge uses 3s, and is about 45″ span. Also the tail is fairly thin, and probably not up to the kind of loads we put on it with 3D manoeuvres (I’ve read on the forums that the tail strength has been a problem for some flyers).It might make a good first aerobat for someone, so if anyone would be interested in buying it, please let me know! Sounds like a good prospect so if you fancy an Edge 540 ready to go have a word with Dougal.

While I’m talking about Dougal, some unkind person (not me for once!) has said that he’s a one trick pony with his very low inverted passes. Well in July Dougal answered that criticism and proved that he’s actually a no trick pony!Oops, never mind Dougal it should repair easily enough. My only regret is that nobody was videoing at the time.

That same unkind person had his own problems one day. Having replaced the servos at the tail end of his Katana with some more powerful but heavier ones he failed to adjust the centre of gravity to allow for the extra weight. This resulted in an ‘interesting’ flight and a heavy landing and the removal of the undercarriage.Well unlike Dougal’s ‘inadvertent landing’ 1066’s Katana was the right way up, although probably harder to repair!

Basher Bob also had a moment whilst flying his own design twin motored model. He was using his new RadioMaster radio gear in the model which was also fitted with a Multiplex gyro and all was well until he switched the gyro on or off, not sure which. Something was obviously not right in the set-up and the twin dived straight in with no control.Sounds to me like a repeat of when Dougal uttered those immortal words “Well there’s a knob on the transmitter…”!

Woody treated himself to a Chance Vought F4U Corsair during one of the lockdown periods and he brought it along for its test flight in early July. The Corsair is the little 30” (750mm) wingspan foam model from HobbyKing that comes ready to fly complete with a 2408 1200kv motor, 20A esc, 4 servos and a 6 axis Orx flight stabiliser. The Corsair will fly using either a 2 or 3 cell lipo and the undercarriage can be removed if the pilot prefers to hand-launch and belly land. Woody asked me to do the test flight which went well, better than I expected in fact.Woody was using a 2 cell lipo and the undercarriage was fitted so I tried a take-off and was rather surprised when it went off with no problems despite the very small wheels. The gyro worked well and kept the flight smooth whilst restricting the model to fairly gentle turns and no aerobatics. After a couple of minutes I switched the gyro off and had to trim for straight and level flight but once done everything was fine and certainly more responsive allowing me roll and just about loop. I was at full throttle for most of the flight and although there was enough power I felt a bit more would have been nice so I think 3 cells would be a better choice. The landing was uneventful and I was surprised when it managed a nice rolling landing until the last second when it tipped onto its nose.Unfortunately when we tried to fly it again the gyro didn’t seem to arm correctly and as the model lifted off the left wing dropped and the resulting cartwheel broke the 3 bladed prop. Reading the manual later I discovered that there is a certain arming procedure to follow to arm the gyro properly. Read the instructions Woody! Sadly spare props are unavailable at the moment so Woody is trying to sort out a suitable 2 bladed one to try. I’m sure it will be a great little flier once the teething troubles are sorted. You can see how well it performed in this month’s video.

July is always the month that the club holds the annual Chuck Glider competition and this year it was once again run by the club Competition Secretary Keith Evans (otherwise known as Dwayne Pipe). Before the competition started Kryten snapped this photo of an Auster that was carrying new PAM member Ian Daniels giving us a private airshow.Here are some photos I took during the evening, the first showing Captain Slow in one of his weirder moments! Dwayne says: The chuck glider competition on Wednesday 21st July was held under perfect weather conditions. There were two separate classes one for hand launched gliders and the other for catapult launched gliders. In the hand launched class there were ten entries flying six rounds each, the winner having the highest cumulative score. The highest time of 85.6 secs went to Andy Palmer. Second with 66.1 secs went to Chas Butler and third with 50.1 secs went to Graham Swan. In the junior section Charlie Standen made a creditable score of 26.3 secs. In the catapult launch section there were 6 entries. First was Keith Evans with 69.5 seconds, second was Mark Agate with 32.2 seconds and third was Alan Wood with 26.8 seconds. A good evening was had by all.

Once the Chuck Glider comp has finished Captain Slow took advantage of the calm conditions to test fly his latest new model, a paper plane! Captain Slow explains: The model, a Christmas present from my son in NYC, is a PowerUp 4.0. I didn’t use the paper in the kit because I wasn’t sure if it would survive and so scanned and printed onto a gash sheet. On returning home I found that the firmware needed to be updated, which I have now done.It is also possible to adjust all the control settings which I will do next time I fly it as I found it rather insensitive to turn commands. My one reservation is the throttle control which relies on you sliding your thumb up and down on the phone screen and which I found too easy to lose the setting because if it senses that you’ve taken your thumb away will shut down the motors and hence all control. More practice needed!! It certainly seemed like a lot of fun and actually flew better than I expected. It is controlled by a mobile phone using Bluetooth and has a range of around 70m which should be enough considering the plane is only 220mm (8.6”) long. I think it would only be suitable for near calm conditions although the website says it’s ok in ‘less than perfect’ weather. Take a look at this video, it’s funny and good to see just what these paper planes are capable of doing:

Last month I mentioned Captain Slow’s wild aggressiveness when flying his Mig-29 at the same time as I’m flying my SU-27. Unsurprisingly he disagreed with my version of events and pointed out some of the battle scars on his Mig that he’s very unfairly (in my opinion) marked as attributable to me. Surely not all those, I’m just an innocent party with an occasional bout of misfortune…

Oddly a similar misfortune occurred while Chas was flying his Wot4 and I was flying my Max Thrust Riot this month. We were both flying circuits with touch & goes and I don’t think either of us thought we were especially close but suddenly we heard the models touch although both carried on with no obvious problems.When we landed we checked over both planes thoroughly and it seems that Chas had backed his Wot4 tailplane onto the propeller of my Riot. How careless Chas, you really must take more care…!

The Max Thrust Aggressor is proving to be a popular model in the club, both Chas and Captain Slow have the electric glider versions and now Mini-Mike has bought the Extreme version that is powered by a ducted fan mounted on a pylon above the wing. Captain Slow’s Aggressor is the Sport version and Chas’s is the larger wingspan Thermic.The fuselage and tail are the same as used on the Sport version but the 1200mm span Extreme wing is more streamlined than on the Sport. The Extreme comes ready fitted with a 3850kv motor and four digital servos.All the purchaser need to supply is a receiver and a 4 cell lipo of around 2200mAh. Mini-Mike discovered that the launch requires so up elevator as the high mounted EDF unit tries to push the nose down but once safely away the model really performs well being a fast, agile, and smooth performer. It’s in the video, take a look for yourself.

The last new model this month is Chas’s Mini Wot4. I’ve not actually seen the model yet but Chas sent through some photos and this report: The Mini Wot4 comes with four servos, the motor and the ESC pre-installed. The horizontal and vertical stabilisers need to be glued in place and the control rods fitted and adjusted for length. I’ve used a 6 channel JR park flyer receiver and power is provided by an 850mAh 2s LiPo which brings the C of G to the recommended position. This gives a motor run time of 6′ 30″ with over 30% charge remaining. The wingspan is 26.4 inches and the all up weight is 7.8oz giving a wing loading of approximately 8.34oz/sq. ft. The first flight was interesting as the model was very sensitive to elevator and aileron movement. With the rates reduced it is very comfortable to fly and hand launches are a piece of cake. It will handle quite blustery conditions and landings are best made with a bit of power on. I have tried spinning the model a couple of times which is quite interesting as it completes a couple of turns in about a second. I have read that the servos on these models don’t centre properly but, touch wood, I’ve not yet encountered this problem and have completed 18 x 6 minute plus flights. Chas took the model with him to fly on holiday recently and snapped this photo of it on Bodmin Moor, nice.

Kryten captured some more excellent flying shots for us this month including some superb ones of Chas’s Cub:

Video time now which this month includes footage taken by myself, Dougal Entendre, and Captain Slow. 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

I tried to sue the airline for losing my luggage.
I lost my case…

Colin Cowplain