Patch News – June 2015

This edition of Patch News is a little later than usual as I’ve been away for much of June. In fact I started writing this on 14^th June in the hope that I can upload it to the website in the first week of July. I’m relying on others to provide information and photos for the second half of June; it will be good to see what I’ve missed.

I’ll start with the CAP 20L of John Warren. John built the CAP a few months ago from a Peter Miller plan in RCM&E and converted it to electric power. It flew very nicely and looked ok but I remarked at the time that having proved it flew well John needed to add some trim to make it more scale and even prettier. Well now he has. Just the addition of some fairly straightforward stripes to the wings and a trim strip along the fuselage has made a huge difference and really brought the model alive. Unfortunately shortly after I took the photos John managed to break it! But have no fear, I’m sure it will soon all be repaired and flying again.

On the subject of repairs, you may remember that I bemoaned the Almost Ready To Fail undercarriage mountings found on many of the ARTFs nowadays, in particular the UglyStik from HobbyKing, one of which I own. It’s a great flier and, for a foamie, it’s a pretty good replica of the original balsa and ply model design that first appeared in the 70’s, even sporting a dummy I/C engine that hides the fact that it’s gone all modern and is electric powered. But the undercarriage mounting was just too weak and I managed to tear it out on our grass patch. Captain Slow was especially pleased to see me do it as I’d previously featured his own UglyStik with the undercarriage removed in the same manner. Anyway, the problem was quickly sorted with the addition of a much stronger ply plate to replace the plastic original and I found it could then withstand the rigours of multiple touch-and-go’s with ripping out again. But now I’ve found another problem. Having strengthened the undercarriage mounting hugely the stresses are transferred to the next weak area…and the whole nose comes off! ‘It was a pretty gentle landing honest guv.’ So then I inset a strip of spruce on each side of the fuselage but on the very next flight I found that the spruce flexed enough to allow the foam the crack without breaking the spruce! Now I’ve added thin ply doublers to each side (inside) to spread the load and stop the flexing and so far they seem to have done the trick.Fingers crossed, watch this space. Of course it wasn’t all bad news, all the nasty boys in the pits really enjoyed the sight of my poor Stik breaking its nose!

I reported last month that Tim ‘Modelling’ Clay had learnt to fly and passed his ‘A’ test in a remarkably short time, flying his ST Models Discovery. He has also been flying a Bixler 2 with great success and in June he added a Wot 4 Foam-E to his growing fleet.Steve 1066 did the first take-off and trimmed the model before handing the transmitter over to Modelling Clay who promptly demonstrated some very acceptable loops and rolls before performing a perfect landing smack in the middle of the patch.One of the older club members was heard muttering ‘I wish he’d hurry up and break it so I can go home happy’! I would name the culprit but I don’t want to upset anyone…especially Bob Hill!

Dwayne Pipe (Keith) turned up at one of the rather windy midweek flying sessions with a new electric glider. It’s new to Dwayne, having previously been owned by ex-member Jim De’ath. Unfortunately Jim had to give up aeromodelling a few years ago when he had a health issue but he now attends an art group run by Dwayne. It’s a small world, nice to hear that Jim is enjoying a different hobby. The model is a Vega, designed by Neville Mattingly many moons ago, and was kitted under the Wonderwings name.It has a GRP fuselage and, I think, veneered foam wings and Dwayne has fitted it with a modern electric outrunner and 3 cell lipo. As it’s a bit of an unknown we watch the first flight with some trepidation but all was well.It has tiny ailerons and they didn’t seem very effective at all so Dwayne had to use lots of rudder as well, and the blustery conditions weren’t ideal for a test flight but after an anxious first minute or so Dwayne had largely tamed it and brought it back to a successful landing. I videoed the flight and some of it can be seen on the MONTHLY VIDEO

Desperate Dan flew a flying wing at the patch during June, a Tek Sumo. It’s fully equipped with FPV (First Person View) and a video camera and flew surprisingly well I thought.A pilot flying FPV must have a spotter who watches the model and advises the pilot if they’re getting too far away or close to objects etc and I helped Dan out for one flight. He is now well used to flying FPV, although mostly with drones, and he had no problems flying it around at all. A couple of times the watchers from the pits thought he got too close to the road and he was genuinely surprised by the comments as he was happy that he was well clear of it. I wonder if it’s down to the camera making everything look further away than it really is, it’s all down to field of view apparently. Anyway, after a few minutes Dan offered me a go.I somewhat reluctantly agreed, my previous attempt with one of Dan’s FPV planes didn’t end well although he assures me it was caused by a battery connection failure. The Tek Sumo was fine, easy to fly around and, once I’d settled down, reasonably easy to know where I was. It’s all very well being able to fly the plane around but to be aware of where it actually is in relation to the patch is a whole different thing, I suppose it comes with practice but I can certainly see why a spotter is essential.Dan says it’s easier if you fly lower but I was keeping fairly high just in case…! Dougal said he’d like to see the view through the goggles but he didn’t want to take control at the same time so I flew it ‘normally’ while he wore the goggles. He seemed quite impressed until I started doing aerobatics and made him feel sick! I can see why many FPV pilots sit on a chair while they fly. To see some of Dan’s flight watch the MONTHLY VIDEO

John McEvoy has been building a Smith Miniplane for a while and he’s now completed it. It’s built from the Sig Manufacturing kit and John has made an absolutely beautiful job of it, faultless.The original full-size Miniplane was designed and built in 1957 by Frank Smith of Fullerton, California, and was an early example of engineering with the amateur homebuilder and weekend pilot in mind. It could be constructed with tools easily within reach of the average craftsman, and in the air it was stable and easy to fly. The top wing spanned 17 feet, and the empty weight was a mere 600 pounds. Powered by a 100hp Lycoming, the tiny Miniplane cruised at 120 mph, climbed at a fantastic 2,500 ft. per minute, and was highly aerobatic. It was just what many sportsman pilots were looking for! In 1974, Glen Sigafoose, then President of Sig Mfg. Co., acquired a complete Smith Miniplane to use for aerobatic practice. Glen’s beautiful red, white, and black aircraft was the inspiration for Sig 44” span kit version of the Miniplane.John has fitted a Saito four stroke engine to his model, I think it’s the FA-62 but I could be wrong. That is 0.62 cu inch or 10cc, so quite a large motor for a 44” span bipe but I think John said it weighs nearly eight pounds so it’s no lightweight. John brought the model up to the patch unexpectedly and we didn’t have either of the noise meters available but it didn’t seem too loud so we allowed a couple of test flights. But it will have to pass the 82dB sound test before flying again. I did the test flight and it flew as well as it looks, lovely, no vices, gentle stall, and very aerobatic.John did the second take-off with no problems and then flew around very happily and performed the usual loops and rolls etc. The engine tick-over speed was a little high so the model wouldn’t slow up quite enough on the approach so both landings ran into the long grass but with no damage. So now there are just two things that must be sorted, the noise test (which I doubt will be a problem), and John must take his ‘A’ certificate. It’s ridiculous, John is perfectly capable of passing the test, he flies better than many of the new members that have passed the test as part of their learning process. Come on John, it’s unfair to all the others that have made the effort, unfair to the qualified pilot that has to stand next to you, and it’s breaking club rules, so TAKE THE TEST! To see some video of John flying the Miniplane watch the MONTHLY VIDEO

Dougal Entendre has been good enough to send some info and photos of things I missed in the second half of the month; first of all, 1066 Hastings has at last realised his limitations and has gone back to flying a trainer, a Wot 4.Well ok, that may not strictly be true, it’s not a Wot 4 it’s a HobbyKing Apprentice 64E Intermediate Trainer. He won it in the club raffle (that he runs buts I’m inferring nothing…). Apparently the CG was too far back initially so Steve had to add a fair bit of lead to the nose, and he then felt it was a bit underpowered with the stock set-up so is planning to try a larger propeller. If that doesn’t work he’ll switch to a larger motor.

Chris Hard has emerged from his winter hibernation and flew one of his flying wings, this one is a Ripmax Wild Wing, and he’s using a 3S 2350mah lipo, 150Watt 1700KV outrunner, 6 x 5.5 prop.Look at that transmitter, a great long aerial with frequency number on it, must be 35 MHz, how quaint, I remember those! Seriously though, there’s nothing wrong with 35 MHz as long as you can get around possible interference that can cause glitches when using electric power.

Dwayne Pipe sent me the following: Spektrum DSM2 alert

An article in the June RCME by Simon Cocker made me aware of a couple of issues of the much maligned Spektrum DSM2 system used by a lot of club members. They may also apply to other receiver systems as well so don’t get smug because you fly something else. It may also account for some of the unexplained crashes we get.

The first is that the 2.4GHz system uses a line of sight signal so that if the plane can’t see the transmitter because its flown behind dense tree cover, or into the valley of death, or someone has walked in front of the transmitter, you lose the connection to the plane and the controls on the plane go to failsafe until the line of sight is restored.

The second is more dangerous and involves the receivers’ failsafe settings in the event of power failure. The receiver needs to see a clean start up at the right voltage when the power is connected. If the receiver power is interrupted due to dodgy connections or shaky hands while connecting the battery, the receiver will be only partially bound. That means that the range of the receiver is limited making it much easier for the plane to fly out of range and control. It will pass all the ground checks and you will only notice the problem in flight. The Spektrum receivers are fitted with led’s which are a continuous red when correctly bound and flash if partially bound. The solution to this problem is to arrange your Spektrum receivers so that you can positively see that the led’s are continuous red after you have connected the battery and before you fly. Thanks for that Keith, important information.

Early in the month there were five Spirits at the patch so, with agreement of the committee members that were present, we flew all five together.Lots of fun, quite a sight, and no issues! There was good thermal lift on 21^st June and when Captain Slow and Dougal flew their Spirits they went for duration, with Dougal landing at 20 minutes 31 seconds from a 6 minute motor run, and with 47% capacity remaining in the 1500mAh pack. Not bad for a cheap foamie!One evening whilst in South Wales I had a couple of flights with my Spirit on Swansea beach.

Captain Slow turned up with an old Ripmax Coyote, which he had previously flown as a sloper, but had now electrified.The canopy is part of an old Coke bottle due to a previous incident. It was a real handful on the first flight due to a rearward CG, but he moved the batteries forward and transformed it into a much gentler beast for the second flight. It looks as if it has a very short moment arm so I can imagine the CG would be quite critical.

This month, instead of my usual joke I’m using a cartoon that Dougal found in a BARCS newsletter from the mid-1980s.

Colin Cowplain