Patch News – March 2013

Time for the March Patch News but with the recent weather there hasn’t been a lot of flying.  Some of us have still been venturing out and making the best of it but it has been very cold.  On Sunday just Monty and I made it to the patch and in the freezing wind we certainly needed our transmitter muffs.
Last month I mentioned that while the rest of us had gone for £8 Turnigy transmitter muffs Smiffy had forked out £44 on a very posh flash one. Well now we’ve seen it in action and…its rubbish!

That’s really not very fair to the manufacturer, the quality is excellent and it’s probably good if you are used to using a TX tray, but none of us are.  I’m sure it would keep your hands warm, but it’s too inflexible for our style of flying, I tried it after Andy had removed the detachable cuffs but still found it to be much too restrictive.  By now it’s probably found its way onto eBay and Andy has ordered one of the Turnigy ones the rest of us are using!  They really are good at keeping your hands toasty.
Sticking with Smiffy for a while, he has been flying an F4 Phantom very successfully for a few months, the only bugbear being that it makes a fairly unpleasant noise. Not overly loud but not a very ‘jet like’ noise.  But he has now flown a second Phantom (this time in US Navy colours) that is fitted with a different fan and motor.
 
What a difference, it goes just as well as the camouflaged one but sounds so much nicer.  Andy is now going to change the fan and motor in the first one.  He did have a slight ‘moment’ when on one flight when he said it ‘just didn’t feel right’ in the air.  He got it down ok and found he hadn’t switched the TX to the correct model, it said PHANTOM when obviously it should have said PHANTOM!  I understand the TX now has CAMOPHANT or NAVYPHANT! 
 
We had a Nature Watch moment a couple of weeks back;  we were walking across the field when Viv spotted a couple of leverets (baby hares) laying in their form.  They were really well camouflaged and I had trouble finding them when I walked back a couple of minutes later to take a photo.

Reading up on them it seems the mother returns to the form for only five minutes a day to feed the youngsters so I imagine these two were fine as long as they weren’t spotted by the kites or buzzards.
 
Multiple Models Montague has been at it again.  As I said in the last Patch News he had been impressed by Steve Hastings’ Yuk and promptly ordered one for himself.  Having explored the entire flight envelope plus a bit and tested the durability on several occasions he decided to buy a ‘fresh’ one.  You’ve guessed it, first flight, more durability testing!  But they are very strong and forgiving as well as being excellent fliers and despite MMM’s best efforts it’s still flying well.
Much more seriously he has also bought an Osiris, a 62” pattern ship.  The Osiris was designed by 2009 and 2010 USA National F3a pattern champion Andrew Jesky.  It is a full-competition performance level pattern aircraft, designed in a medium size to be less expensive and easier to transport than a full 2-metre plane and it flies on 5S 5000mah lipos.

Steve has wisely only brought it to the field once so far, deciding not to risk it in the rough weather we’ve had lately, but had several flights that day and it really showed its pedigree. It’s a superb flier and will enhance Steve’s flying lots.  Sadly I had the camera on the wrong setting so the pic is a bit blurred.
 
It has been really noticeable over the last couple of years that almost all models are ARTFs and more and more are foam.  Foam is especially suitable for EDFs as many have fairly complex shapes that would be difficult to produce as accurately and as lightly using conventional methods, plus it’s very crash resistant and easily repaired if the worst does happen.  But even fairly boxy looking models arrive ready built from laser cut components and ready covered these days.  Many are pre fitted with servos, motors, and even speed controllers.  Lots of modellers still like to build from kits or even from plans but the trend is certainly towards ready built and they seem to be getting better quality yet cheaper.  Last weekend I was in a craft shop in Havant with SWMBO and I wandered off to browse amongst the plastic kits and model trains when I stumbled across a stock of balsa.  I have my own stock at home so it’s been a while since I bought any balsa but I was really shocked to see the prices!  I imagine it would be cheaper in a ‘proper’ model shop but even so…

I thought £8.69 for a sheet of 3/8” was horrendous but at £3.59 a sheet of 1/8” was even dearer!  Balsa cement (remember that?) was around £3.50 for a small tube.  Covering is also a significant cost, a quick search of Al’s Hobbies shows Solartex is £13.53 for a 2 metre roll 660mm wide.  But this week HobbyKing have announced a new Mk24 Spitfire, 1100mm span, complete with motor, speed controller, 6 servos, electric retracts with rubber tyres and gear doors, split flaps, navigation lights, 4 bladed prop etc for £86.79 from the UK warehouse.  All you need to add is a 3 cell lipo and a receiver to get it in the air. Amazing value, and no doubt it’s a large part of the reason fewer people are building their own models these days.  I still like to see a beautiful model that someone has spent months building but it’s very easy to understand why they are fast becoming a rarity.
 
Speaking of foamies, my Sea Vixen has now had 34 flights and the retracts seem to be holding up well.  The only bad point I’ve found is that it really does get chucked around a lot in rough air. I tried it briefly with a gyro on ailerons and elevator but I was only using a 5 channel receiver so I couldn’t switch it on and off in the air. This proved a bit scary as when setting the gyro ‘gains’ the only way to find out if they are correct is to fly and try.  Interesting when you find they are wrong… ask me how I know!  So I moved the gyro to my old faithful EDF Twister to experiment for a few flights, and as it has a 7 channel RX I was able to make it switchable.  The Twister is a smooth flier and didn’t really need a gyro but being a high winger it always tried to roll out of inverted flight.  Not any more, with the gyro on (just one) aileron the inverted flight has been transformed.  So the gyro has stayed put and I ordered a second one for the Sea Vixen.
I then put a 7 channel RX in the Sea Vixen so I could make the gyro switchable in the air and tried again.  It was better in rough weather but it looked as if the tail waggled, presumably because of the air hitting the side of the booms and fins.  The answer would seem to be to put the gyro on rudder as well, but the plane didn’t have one. Well it does now.

It was simple enough to fit and replaced the small piece of lead I had on the tail previously.  I have so far had three flights with the gyro on rudder, elevator, and ailerons but needless to say the air was silky smooth so it proved nothing!  I’ve been too chicken to risk it in the really windy weather we’ve had recently so now I’m waiting for medium strength slightly bumpy conditions!
 
A few weeks ago Gentleman Jim brought his posh SLR camera to the patch and took some quality photos, much better than the snaps I get on my mobile.  I really like this one of the Sea Vixen on finals:

Thanks Jim
 
US Navy pilot: The three best things in life are a good landing, a good orgasm, and a good bowel movement. A night time carrier landing is one of the few opportunities in life where you get to experience all three at the same time.
 
Colin Cowplain