Patch News – June 2017

I must begin this month with the sad news that long-term PAM member Frank Buckland passed away on 19^th June. Frank had joined the club in its very early days and he served on the committee for many years in various positions including Competition Secretary, Vice-Chairman, and Chairman. Frank’s background was in Sevenoaks and he was a modeller for most of his life, long before he came to Petersfield in 1956.Frank always liked scale models and in the 1950’s had several control-line scale plans published in both Aero-Modeller and Model Aircraft magazines including a four engined 64” span De Havilland Heron. At the age of 65 Frank gained his Private Pilots Licence and went on to part own various aircraft over the next few years. Several PAM members enjoyed flights with him from Goodwood Airfield. Frank eventually left the club a few years ago following a garage fire that destroyed lots of his models and equipment but he never lost interest in PAM. Doreen and I visited Frank several times over the last few months and he always asked about the club, its activities, and the members. Frank’s funeral will be held at Chichester Crematorium on 11^th July at 11.45.

Moving on now, we had the hottest June on record…well it was hot for five days anyway. The rest of the month wasn’t bad and PAM members did lots of flying. The patch was in a really bad state after the bullocks and the rain had done their worst last month so it was decided to move it south east by around half the patch width. That meant we would avoid the really badly churned up part and also be a little further from the road. Farmer George cut the whole field at the time which made the job a little easier when the Friday Afternoon Gardening Club sprang into action. I lost count of the number of cuts it took to get the new part down to the same level as the original patch but we got there eventually and we now have a much flatter patch with the grass in pretty good condition; good work guys. The bullocks will return soon so let’s hope that they don’t mess it up again.

Last month I admitted to crashing my Wingnetic and pictured the damage. It was soon repaired and flying again but I think I must have failed to spot some damage to the folding prop as early this month it threw a blade mid-flight. The resultant imbalance tore the motor out, destroying the front of the fuselage in the process.Fortunately the front fuselage is available as a spare from Hobbyking so I ordered one along with a new folding propeller and motor mount, all I have to do now is to get round to repairing it. Captain Slow had an almost identical incident the other day with his electric glider, it threw a blade and the motor ripped out. The damage was not too bad so he too will soon be flying again.

When I order small low value bits and pieces from HobbyKing I often use the European warehouse as the untracked postage is much cheaper than from the UK one. Crazy but true. But recently the part I wanted was only in stock in the UK warehouse so I was forced to pay over £5 shipping for a £5 item. When this happens, as the package weight can be up to 2kg, I usually add a few extra bits and pieces to make the postage worthwhile, and on this occasion I browsed the Bargain Bin for something I couldn’t live without. I found a complete RTP (Round the Pole) set-up that includes a P51D Mustang fitted with elevator and throttle controls, the pole and base, the line, and 2.4 GHz transmitter for less than £12, ridiculous! The plane charges from the transmitter batteries (you do have to supply 4 of your own AA cells) and off you go. The transmitter is mode 2 so is the same as most of us use and there is a beginner or advanced setting which basically restricts the elevator movement. The only problem I’ve found is that our house is too small unless I start shifting furniture (that suggestion didn’t go down too well) so I ended up putting the base on the dining room table and taking off along the sideboard! The RTP system worked a treat but my ‘airfield’ proved to be less than ideal so I stopped before I broke anything. I think we need an RTP evening at club very soon, it would fit in our meeting room ok and we could all have a play. You can use two models on the same pole and do combat; they even come with little streamers, so if anyone fancies shelling out £11.77 we could try that.

I mentioned last month that Woody had damaged his Ugly Stik and while I was browsing the HobbyKing site I checked to see what Ugly Stick spares were available.Sorry Woody but I don’t think it would be an economical repair, you can buy a complete new model for £122.99 but you broke the prop and a replacement prop costs £184.73! I think HobbyKing still have a few glitches on their site…

Catapult King is the proud new owner of an F-16 Fighting Falcon, courtesy of Chris Hard. The model was built by Chris about four years ago from a no longer available Align RC kit and is fitted with a Turnigy 2826 2200kv pusher motor driving an APC 6×4 prop. Catapult is using 3 cell 1300mAh Zippy Compact lipos connected to a 40A speed controller. He gets surprisingly long flights so a 40A esc sounds a bit like overkill to me but too much is better than too little. Part of the reason for the long flights is that at the moment Catapult spends most of the time at less than half throttle. I can’t say I blame him, it’s a small model and it is very fast flat out, not something you’d take your eyes off for a second! As you can see the whole of the underside of the fuselage hinges open to provide access to all the gear. Catapult asked me to fly it one day as he was having trouble with the elevator trim and I also had trouble, it just wouldn’t seem to stay in level flight. When I landed we checked it all out and discovered the elevator servo had come loose, once that was sorted it flew perfectly again!

On some of the really hot days this month there was very little wind so all the Hummers came out to play. The Hummer is great for practising prop-hanging and some of the 3D stuff but is otherwise not really very nice to fly, and in anything above a very gentle breeze it’s just plain horrible. Anyway, when you’re practising prop-hanging the model tends to get into all sorts of unusual attitudes at very low level and sometimes you reach the stage where it’s just easier to dump it onto the ground than to fight to keep it in the air. I did exactly that on one flight, when it got almost uncontrollably out of shape I just dropped it onto the patch on its wheels and then simply took-off again to continue practising. I noticed the motor noise had increased a bit and thought that I might have damaged the tip of one of the prop blades. When I landed after several more minutes I saw that I had indeed damaged the prop… a lot!I’m amazed it didn’t shed the blade or shake the motor out of the model.

The other day Norwegian Nick brought along an unfinished model to show us, an Eze Twin.The model was built from a free plan by Nigel Hawes in the January 2010 edition of the RCME mag. It’s all balsa construction and glass clothed all over except tailplane and fin which is tissue covered. The wingspan is 40” (1015mm) and the all up weight is 2lb 8oz (1135gms). Nick has fitted two ChangeSun 64mm 12 blade EDF units with 3200kv inrunner motors, and two 60A speed controllers. He’ll power it all with two 3 cell lipos of between 2200 and 3700mAh, presumably whatever is best for the correct centre of gravity.Nick just has to make a foam canopy and install the radio, and then it’ll be ready to fly. The EZE Twin is an interesting model with an unusual fuselage and its two externally mounted fans, I look forward to seeing it fly.

I took this photo the other day as I felt it showed the courage and bravery that exists in the club.Yes, it’s three brave men flying at the same time as Basher Bob! From left to right we have Catapult King flying his F-16, then it’s Dwayne Pipe showing off his Jersey holiday tan and fashion style, next is Chris P Bacon who is still saving up for some sandals, and finally Basher Bob. Basher earned his nickname by having a series of mid-airs in close succession several years ago. I don’t think any of them were actually his fault but you can’t let the truth stop a good nickname! However, more recently he has produced several scratch built models and he hasn’t had a mid-air for ages so a change of name to Bob the Builder has been proposed. I’ll give it a go; let me know what you think.

So… Bob the Builder has built another new model, it’s called Trottel (that’s German for Fool!).He found it on the RCGroups forum while looking at this years’ Club Build. For a direct link CLICK HEREThe Trottel is actually designed to be a small, tough, fun/aerobatic/full 3D model but Bob decided to increase the moment arm a little to make it a bit more docile but otherwise it’s built to the plan. The construction is almost all from Depron and features a Kline-Fogleman wing section that so many of us are now used to using. For servos, motor, and speed controller Bob simply fitted the gear he had left after the demise of his Spirit/Kinetic. It flies really well and doesn’t seem to mind windy conditions too much so is ideal for our field.

When I was at the Multiplex Airshow recently one of the pilots was showing off by prop-hanging the model whilst holding the transmitter behind his back. I’ve seen it done a few times at other shows but never thought about trying it myself. I was flying my delta the other day and suddenly thought ‘I can do that’ so I gave it a go.I should explain that I was at a safe height, half throttle, with an almost indestructible old model that I don’t care about too much! It turned out to be really easy, I had no problems at all other than not being able to hear the transmitter speaking the time. I’m not very good at prop-hanging even with everything in my favour so I haven’t attempted that but for normal flying around I found it easy. 1066 then decided he’d try it as well and, like me, managed without any trouble, the only problem he found was that it made his shoulders hurt!

Dougal Entendre (our new Chairman) recently acquired a little delta from the estate of a late aeromodelling friend.It’s very light and is made of balsa and some sort of foam, and is powered by an old Kontronic Speedy 400 6v brushed motor. The esc/bec is mounted directly on the back of the motor, that’s how some of them were manufactured in early days of electric flying. The span is just over 25” (635mm), the length is 23” (584mm) and the wing is only around ¼” (6.35mm) thick. Dougal doesn’t actually know what the model is called, several of us think it looks familiar but can’t recall a name so let Dougal know if you can identify it.It would have originally been intended for a 6 or 7 cells NiCad battery but he tested the motor set-up at home on a 3 cell lipo and it seemed fine so he brought it up to the field only to find it wasn’t working. The motor is ok so presumably a 3 cell lipo was too much for the esc so when he’s fitted another one he’ll try it on 2 cells. It looks nicely put together and I think it should fly ok although it’s probably one for calm days.

During June 1066 has been flying one of the several models that he acquired from Cyano Steve (Montague), a Precision Aerobatics Katana MX.This is very much an upmarket model when compared to the usual foamy 3D models from HobbyKing and 1066 is treating it carefully at the moment. I believe the model came with the recommended PA Thrust 50 outrunner motor and matching 70A esc and it flies on 2 x 3 cells 2200mAh lipos which give a flight time of around 6 minutes.When Cyano Steve owned it I always reckoned it was the best flying 3D model he had and I think when 1066 gets used to it he’ll get on very well. During a recent flight with the model 1066 was complaining that the motor sounded odd and it was down on power. When he landed he found the cause, can you spot it?Please email your answers to: imanidiot@proponbackwards.plonker

The final new model to fly in June was Chris P Bacon’s newly acquired Junior 60. He bought a Ben Buckle Junior 60 kit a while ago but has never got round to building it, and then he spotted this one on eBay. It is beautifully built, tissue covered, and came complete, it even included a couple of 3 cell 3350mAh lipos. The motor is an Emax BL2820/07 which swings a 12×3.8 prop and using the lipos it came with the flight times are around 12 minutes. Chris P doesn’t know how old the model is, the guy he bought it from lives on Hayling Island but the original builder was from Newark in Nottinghamshire. It flies exactly as you’d expect for a Junior 60, slowly and majestically.

Thanks go to Kryten, Dougal, Captain Slow, and Catapult King for their contributions of pics and video this month.

Time for this month’s video:

Please watch the video full screen, it’s so much better with small models flying around. If the video above won’t play for you CLICK HERE

Remember: Helicopters can’t fly; they’re just so ugly the earth repels them!

Colin Cowplain