Patch News – June 2023

At the end of May the weather was hot and dry but windy and in June it was a case of more of the same. It was certainly hotter than many would have wanted and the wind caused a few problems but many PAM members flew regularly anyway. The patch was mown a few times but with the dry conditions the dandelions that grew more than the grass.

We had some excellent turnouts on the better days, not all those present are in this photo.

But a few of us flew on the last day of the month and it was as if winter had returned. 1066 snapped this photo of me wearing shorts but also a winter jacket and fingerless gloves!

We took the opportunity to warm ourselves up by trimming back the undergrowth around the parking areas using a cordless hedge trimmer that Bob the Builder had brought along.
Recently 1066 bought himself a second-hand project and he finally got it flying in June. Here’s his tale: About 3 months ago a model popped up on Facebook Marketplace, it was a Fiesta-V thermal soarer.  The description said the model would be ready to fly with a little ironing and your own receiver, which was a bit of a stretch as some of the covering was completely missing! The seller was in Gosport and the asking price was £60.00. I did fancy having a floater for the summer but I felt the asking price was a little high, and I could not be bothered to drive to Gosport, so I gave it a miss. Over the next few weeks the price kept dropping, so when it reached £30.00 I offered £20.00 which was accepted, plus there was the added bonus that it could be taken to Waterlooville for me to collect. When I got the model home, closer inspection showed the fuselage had been repaired in many places and was very fragile, the covering on the underside of the wings had many splits patched up with loads of Sellotape, the motor was an old brushed Speed 600 (thanks for pointing that out Andy) but it did have the correct speed controller with built in BEC, and there was no wing joiner.
As I had some covering in the shed, the decision was made to completely remove all the original covering, which turned out to be the right decision as it revealed internal wing damage, however this was easily repaired and the wings recovered. 
Attention now turned to the fuselage which was strengthened, filled, and repainted with a tin of spray picked up in the Range, I promise I did not have a piece of the covering with me  but the resulting match could not have been better.
Feeling pleased with my progress I decided to check all the electrics worked, I know what you’re all saying, ” I would have done this first” and you would have been right, because the motor or speed controller was not working, as I have never used this type of setup before, I decided to replace both components. I now had to find a way of fitting a brushless outrunner (from stock).  The resulting fix is far from ideal, but it will allow me to remove the bulkhead and replace the motor if the 1000 KV one fitted does not have enough power. In hindsight this would have been much easier and would have looked a lot better if it had been done along with the fuselage repairs, and not after everything had been painted. But on a more positive note all the servos did work.
Next problem was the operation of the  V Tail elevator/rudder controls, the original had a very neat ball link system concealed within the back of the fuz. I think the original owner had tried to replace one of the elevators, but had managed to produce two left hand halves! Plus the original one still in place had been damaged, so I decided to make two new elevators using the torque rods from the originals, But when it came to fitting the new elevators to the model I discovered that the two homemade torque rod/ball link assemblies were very slightly different, guess who lost that 50/50. This was very frustrating, and meant I had to make two more elevator halves, this was made more annoying because I did not have any trailing edge stock, more carving and sanding. Having learnt my lesson, this time I tried fitting the tailplane before the elevators were covered, this turned out to be an incredibly difficult process, with very little access to the ball links, in fact it was so difficult I never actually achieved it. My next move was to cut off a small portion of the rear of the fuz for better access, I could now get the ball links to fit, but now found they were so loose that I was not happy to use them in flight. I was determined to use as much of the original linkages as possible, mainly because I did not have anything else in the shed and did not want to spend any money LOL.
My next move was to cut away a bit more of the fuselage, fit control horns, and bring the pushrods out at the side, however this had another surprise, as one pushrod was piano wire and the other was carbon! Finally I needed a wing joiner, so my thanks go to Olav for supplying the necessary material. All of the above could have been avoided if I had done things in the correct order, had fully surveyed what I had before starting, and been willing to spend a bit more money 🙂  I am no builder, and we all hate repairing, but I have really enjoyed saving what I think is a very smart model from the bin, and all with a total spend of £25.00, I am very happy with the result, just hope it flies OK.
Since sending me the above report 1066 has flown the model so I asked how it went but his one word reply was unprintable! But then this: Lots of issues, I was always a bit surprised to have ailerons on a wing with polyhedral, they were as effective as a chocolate fire guard. I had not realised there was a bit of a twist in the left wing, flying straight almost needed full right aileron and rudder, rudders not the best as it is a V-tail. Plus it was too windy. One plus, it does have just enough power. The wing has now been straightened and the ailerons now have huge differential settings and have been mixed with rudder. I also found the left wing a bit heavier than the right, so this has now been balanced. Because I didn’t have a wing joiner I assumed there would be dihedral on the centre section as this gave the best joint between the wings so for the next flight I have taken this out which should make the ailerons work better. The next flight will be on a calmer day.
Thanks for that 1066. I must say that the model looks very smart and in the video it looks to be flying well but the video doesn’t show the struggles for control that 1066 was having on the transmitter! STOP PRESS: 1066 has just reported that having corrected all the things he found wrong he’s flown it again and now the Fiesta V flies really well with lots of potential for some great thermal soaring. So all that effort has proved to be completely worthwhile now that it’s up and soaring like an eagle, just don’t break it!

Peter F treated himself to a new model in June, an Edge 540 by FMS. The all foam model is just 750mm wingspan and is ‘Plug n Play’ as it comes ready fitted with the motor, esc, four 5g servos and a gyro. The Edge requires 1300mAh 2 cell batteries of at least 20C.
This is from the website: FMS has miniaturized the ultra popular 1300mm Edge 540! Don’t let the small wingspan mislead you, the FMS 750mm Edge 540 is as much a beast as its older brother! Courtesy of the large control surfaces and high power-to-weight ratio, even the most advanced aerobatic manoeuvres can be performed with pinpoint precision. Thanks to the small wingspan and a take-off weight of only 390g, the 750mm Edge 540 will fly just about anywhere! No detail was overlooked in the design of this aircraft- a latch-type canopy will easily put up with even the most violent manoeuvres; while an oversized battery compartment makes installing batteries a breeze.
Adorned with an attractive blue-black trim scheme, the Edge 540 looks fantastic in the air! Power comes from a 2212 2250KV brushless motor with a Predator 20A ESC, giving the Edge 540 all the power you’ll ever need. Want a fly-anywhere aerobatic machine? Look no further than the FMS 750mm Edge 540!  Peter asked me to do the test flight during which I played with the gyro settings. It’s an FMS Reflex V2 Flight Controller and has three settings, Stabilised, Optimised, and Off. In Stabilised mode it limits the angle of bank and pitch and recovers to straight and level flight when the sticks are released. Optimised allows for full 3D flight but counteracts wind gusts and smooths out the flight. With it Off  you’re on your own! It seemed to work very well and in Stabilised mode it wouldn’t to do anything other than fly around gently, no aerobatics were possible.
I found Optimised the perfect setting as with it Off the plane was a real handful and I quickly switched back to Optimised. Peter soon took over control and managed the rest of the flight but it was definitely twitchier than the models he’s used to flying. At another session later in the month Peter found it was too windy for him to control the Edge and it crashed, breaking the propeller and cracking the starboard wing root. But repairs have now been completed and Peter has flown again on a less windy day although he’s still finding it very twitchy. Turns the rates down a bit Peter until you get more used to it.

Dwayne Pipe had an unusual and interesting problem at the field one day this month while attempting to fly his Splot XL and he’s kindly written a report about what he found: Dwayne Pipe’s very short analysis of an aircraft failure.
There is no such thing as an accident, or at least that was what my previous employer claimed in his safety lectures. Aircraft incidents are 95% are due to pilot error. 5% are due to poor maintenance and faulty equipment installed by the plane’s owner.
This example illustrates my point:
My Splot XL developed a strange behaviour. Ground checks were fine but on take-off the rudder pulled sharply to the right and the plane ground looped and crashed.
After detailed field investigation including the extensive combined wisdom of most of the committee, we hadn’t a clue. They thought it might be a mix error in the transmitter.
I reprogrammed the transmitter, exchanged the receiver, no better.
Like many a tricky problem the reason was a combination of my mistakes.
After the last major plane disassembly (We call that a crash Dwayne!) the motor had to be dug out of the field. It was full of prime Hampshire mud and even after stripping down and hosing through it ran noisy and rough, but it ran, so I reinstalled it.
I had to replace the prop and a well-known model shop were selling the right size, cheap. When it arrived the centre hole was 1mm out of true. I complained but was ignored.
I managed to balance the prop eventually, but the combined motor and prop ran like a bag of nails in a spin dryer.
The third item in the equation was one of HobbyKings’ finest £4 servos which had been in the plane for about 7 years and over 250 flights. Due to the abuse that the plane had experienced at the hands of its pilot, it took it into its head to come out in sympathy and lose contact with its feedback pot whenever the vibration of the replaced motor and prop went beyond about 50%. The servo with no feedback went full in one direction until the vibration stopped when it operated as normal.
Solution: Replace the servo, motor and prop and don’t be such a cheapskate in the future.
Haha, I love the ‘don’t be such a cheapskate’ Dwayne, I’ll try to remember that!

Gordon Bennett bought a new foamboard F-22 Raptor in June, I’ll let him explain:
The Raptor was a ‘Woody Special’. Somehow he got delivered three of them so he flogged the extra aircraft to Mr Palmer and myself for 30 quid. (Not me Gordon, I bought mine from AliExpress, I think Woody kept the other one for himself as a back-up).
Not bad considering that’s everything you need to complete the model (except talent).
It didn’t come with any instructions but I had a good look at Woody’s completed model and went from there. The fuselage is just two pieces of foamboard doubled up for strength, the wing has a carbon fibre spar. It’s odd though as Woody’s model has two spars, one mid-wing and one more rearward, maybe I’ll add a length of dowel if the wing needs more stiffness but it seems ok at the moment. The included motor is a 1400KV powered by a 30A ESC. I’m using a 3S 1600 battery which gives about a 5-minute flight. The battery fits in a slot cut out of the underside of the fuselage, I thought this might lead to a weakness so I grafted in a short length of balsa to act as a stiffening keel. Two 9g servos operate the elevons but the pushrods are too light. They’re fine when they’re in tension, pulling down elevator but when pushing they just bow out. It doesn’t take much airflow over the control surface to do this so I’m going to have to sort this at a later date.
Woody has linked in the ailerons on his model to operate in tandem with the elevons and this would shorten the linkage length. It was a bit blustery on the first flight and lots of trim was required but all in all she seemed ‘about right’. C of G was a complete guess but nothing drastic happened so we’ll call it ok. It’s not exactly fast but what do you expect for 30 quid! It won’t take long for it to get into combat mode with Mr Palmer so I’m not going to spend lots of time perfecting it as Palmer will just ram it at the first opportunity. He took out Woody’s Raptor on Wednesday with his Yak, maybe I’ll try and fit a small cannon or other weaponry. No I didn’t! There was a minor collision on a downwind turn which neatly removed one of the fins from Woody’s Raptor. I landed my undamaged Yak and then grabbed Woody’s transmitter as he was struggling and landed his Raptor. The  wayward fin was retrieved and re-attached and the Raptor is now flying beautifully again.

Towards the end of June Mini-Mike took himself off to the Wings & Wheels Model Show at North Weald and while browsing the trade stands was tempted by a Max Thrust Riot.
There are several Riots in the club and they perform well, a good alternative to a Wot4. Mike flew his the following Sunday but was rather disappointed by the lack of power.
It seems odd as mine has always been fine, certainly not overpowered but adequate, it won’t prop-hang but it’s not far off. Mike says that apparently Max Thrust have recently reduced the prop size and now say that it can be flown on 4 cells as well as the original 3 so maybe that’s it. Although Max Thrust say it can take 4 cells they haven’t altered the size of the battery box, the depth of which was already very tight for some 3 cell packs. So there you go Mike, you’ll have to either fit a larger prop or hack the battery box around a bit!

My wife and I were on holiday in Shropshire for part of the month and while we were there Woody kindly pointed out that the Weston Park Air Show International was on nearby. Well it would be rude not to go wouldn’t it? We went along on Friday 16^th to avoid the major queues and crowds and spent the day watching lots of excellent flying and browsing the trade stands. The weather was hot and sunny with light winds so perfect for flying.
Several international individuals and teams were present but I expect more arrived to fly on the Saturday and Sunday. The event includes some full-size aircraft displays but we didn’t see any on the Friday although we left around 3.30pm so we may have missed them. There was a Bristol Scout from Shuttleworth on the flight-line but it didn’t fly for some reason, it only did a taxi run. It was nice to see it and to hear the rotary engine but a flight would have been better. The light wind was across the strip so maybe that was the reason.

I spotted this van parked up amongst the traders, I wonder which dealer owned it?!
I took quite a lot of photos at the show so here’s a general selection for you:
I also shot some video, it’s not the best quality but should give you an idea of the sort of displays we saw. Unfortunately for you I was too busy enjoying the jets to film many:

Patch News video time now this month with footage by me, Dougal, Gordon, and Peter. Please watch the video full-screen, it’s so much better with small models flying about.
If the video won’t play for you please click HERE

It was the young pilot’s first day and he was struggling in his light aircraft.
Control tower: “Can you give me your position?”
Pilot: “I am next to a cloud that looks like a lion.”
Control tower: “Can you be more specific?”
Pilot: “Simba…”

Colin Cowplain