Patch News – March 2015

Last week Dougal Entendre sent me something he found in the April 1983 Epsom Radio Flying Club newsletter that seems appropriate for this time of year, he thinks it was written by the then editor, one Chris Hodson:

“In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish’d dove;

In the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.”

When Tennyson wrote this immortal verse, it is obvious that he wasn’t referring to an aero-modeller! Most hot blooded fliers that I have met certainly don’t need the spring to trigger off their thoughts of love. They attend to that during the winter months. When the spring comes there are far more important things to think about.

And here we are once again, with mother nature performing her annual miracle. The daffodils are already past their best – and the trees are alive with blossom to delight us all. So with the promise of good flying days ahead, it’s time to get those models down from the top of the wardrobe – check the radios, paint the airframes, and head for the flying field.

Had Tennyson been a member of our club, he might have written:-        

“IN THE SPRING THE SUMMER EVENINGS PROMISE DAYS OF PURE DELIGHT.

IN THE SPRING THE AEROMODELLER LIGHTLY TURNS HIS THOUGHTS TO FLIGHT.”

Sadly it’s been blowing a gale almost constantly since I received Dougal’s email but spring really is here and the weather is going to turn glorious at any moment…

March started much the same as it ended, very windy, and, as I mentioned in last month’s Patch News, on 1^st March I managed to video 1066 and Captain Slow braving the gale. Several others of us also flew but it was a bit of an endurance test at times! Steve was flying his 4 cell Speedy glider which proved to be the ideal model for the conditions. John flew his Zagi, which also seemed unperturbed by the gales. To see the video CLICK HERE

A few months ago I featured Captain Slow’s Ugly Stik (I think I could have put that better!) and mentioned that I quite fancied one myself but felt they were a little expensive. Well in early March HobbyKing had a sale and the Ugly Stiks were half price from the UK warehouse. That was too good to refuse and a couple of days later one duly arrived having cost just £47.15 plus postage. That is an amazing price as it includes the EPO airframe, motor, speed controller, four servos, and the dummy I/C engine. The electric motor is mounted inside the front of the fuselage with an extension shaft running through the plastic dummy I/C engine.Me and my new best friend Captain Slow with Ugly Stiks and Spirits!

The instruction manual is surprisingly good and assembly consists of just eight points, one of which is to fit the prop ‘with the Durafly logo facing outwards’. At the back of the manual is a Trouble Shooting section and one item is: Problem – Model moves backwards. Cause – Prop installed backwards. Solution – Turn the prop around. Err…no, fitting the prop backwards results in greatly reduced power but it still pushes the air in the same direction! In the ‘good old days’ before radio control and throttles we would sometimes fit a prop on backwards to reduce the power of an overpowered free flight model.

The suggested battery is a 3 cell 25C 2200 lipo and I was a little concerned that my 3 cell 25C 4000s might cause CG problems even if they fitted ok, but I needn’t have worried, I can report that a 3 cell 25C 4000 Zippy Compact fits snuggly and the CG is spot on. The extra weight probably reduces the performance a tad but it seems to go well enough to me and the flight times are ridiculous, I tend to land after around 12 minutes and usually have well over 30% left in the pack.

Captain Slow took this as I prepared for the first flight.

I had read reports of the bearing in the dummy I/C seizing and this can cause the esc to blow, possibly resulting in a loss of radio, so I was worried when mine suddenly made strange rev linked noises during the first couple of flights. I landed, checked all was ok, and took off again several times before discovering that the noise was caused by a piece of transparent film over the Durafly logo on the prop. The film had started to lift in the airflow and once these were removed from both blades the noise disappeared.I’m still wary of the bearing seizing and have oiled it several times but so far I’ve had no problems. Like Captain Slow, I managed to pull the undercarriage out after a few flights. The landing really was quite gentle but the plastic undercarriage mounting is simply trapped between the two halves of the fuselage and doesn’t appear to have any glue on it all. So on the first landing that is anything less than perfect the plastic just pulls through the foam underside. Mine was soon put back in position but this time with copious amounts of Gorilla Glue. It’s stayed put for lots of flights since (including a touch and go) so I’m hoping it will be ok now. Fingers crossed…

Away from aero-modelling the supposed highlight of March was the near total eclipse of the sun at 9.30am on 20^th March. Some of us Midweekers decided to go to the patch a little earlier than usual, hoping to get a good view of the eclipse from high up on the downs and then fly from 10am as usual. Sadly the 100% cloud cover meant we saw absolutely nothing of the sun but we were amazed by just how dark it got up there. It was very eerie, there was total silence as it grew darker and darker, and the birds obviously thought it was nightfall.But, unlike them, we weren’t fooled, after a few minutes the daylight returned and we enjoyed the rest of the morning, flying as usual. Needless to say, later on the cloud broke and we saw the sun, typical!

Last month I said that Woody (Alan Wood) had replaced his much loved Seagull Pilatus PC9 with a… Seagull Pilatus PC9, but I had forgotten to photograph it. Well here it is, having corrected the CG it’s now flying just like the first one and we have a happy Woody once again.

Chairman Ron also likes the Seagull PC9, so much so that he actually has two of them. They have very lightweight ‘traditional’ built up structures which are covered in Oracover. I thought they might be a little fragile when I first saw them but in fact they have proved to be pretty durable, light but strong. They are excellent fliers and both Woody and Ron praise them highly. At just under £70 from Kings Lynn Model Shop what’s not to like?

Accompanying Ron’s PC9 in the photo is his Edge 540. This is another Seagull model with a similar light but strong structure and it also flies very well. Both models use the almost standard 3 cell 2200 lipo packs although the Extra can take 4 cells for those that want more extreme performance.Ron’s Edge 540 also came from Kings Lynn Model Shop and if you’d like one, at £71.99 they are just £2 dearer than the PC9.

On 15^th March the weather was windy (again) so not many fliers showed up but it turned out to be an interesting morning as the bottom lane was on the route of the Meon Valley Plod organised by Portsmouth Joggers. This was interesting not only because we were able to watch people even dafter than ourselves enjoying their sport but also because Dougal’s wife Angie was one of them! We lined up alongside the fence to cheer Angie on as she ran past, and then retreated to the comfort of our cars and home for a warm up.The Plod is a very muddy cross-country run of just over 21 miles featuring six big hills with a total ascent of 2300ft…they must be mad! As she passed us Angie said she was struggling but she finished roughly in the middle of the pack with a time of 3 hours 37 minutes so very well done to her I say.

On the same day the other Agate (Dougal) didn’t do so well. As I said, it was very windy and as he attempted to get his Spit off the ground the wind got under one wing and it cartwheeled. Spitfires with scale retracts are notoriously difficult to get off the ground safely, they always try to ‘peck’ the prop into the ground and the pilot has to try to stop it by holding full up elevator until the speed has risen. Then, unless the elevator is perfectly managed, the plane jumps into the air with insufficient airspeed and there are dire consequences.In calm weather Dougal often hand-launches his Spit with the wheels retracted as it’s impossible to stop it nosing in, but he thought he may have more control in the strong wind. Sadly he was wrong, but not to worry, the damage looked worse than it really was and Dougal reports the nose simply glued straight back in position with barely a mark to see.

Stanley Knife (Viv Burgess’ new self-imposed nickname) flew his large Stinson Reliant on one of the calmer midweek days. The model was designed to have a 160 I/C motor but Stanley has converted it to electric.   It has loads of power and flies very well but Stanley is still finalising elevator movement and CG position as the model seems very sensitive to down elevator. So far, despite the motor producing around 2.7kW of power on 10 cells, each time Viv has landed after flights of around 5 minutes there has been around 80% left in the batteries. Once off the ground Stanley throttles back and the Stinson cruises round very regally.On the last flight it suffered the usual ARTF undercarriage failure despite a reasonable landing but it was soon repaired and strengthened somewhat. I took some video of Stanley’s’ latest flight (including that landing) and have compiled it with various others taken in March, including Gentleman Jim, Chairman Ron, and Mike Smith’s new Pitts Python. To watch the video CLICK HERE

Last week I was looking forward to seeing Mike Smith test fly his new Great Planes Tracer aerobatic model that he’s converted to electric, but when he arrived at the patch he was carrying a biplane instead. Turns out he’d got the Tracer out of the car only to discover he’d left the wing bolts at home. What sort of an idiot does that…apparently almost all of us at some time or other! The biplane turned out to be a Dynam Pitts Python, a new model Mike that had recently purchased.The original was designed by Curtis Pitts of course and the Python version was fitted with a Russian radial engine which gave it a superb power to weight ratio. The Dynam model is 1067mm span and only weighs 1300g so running a 650kVa motor on 4 cells means it also has a superb power to weight ratio.Mike spent most of the morning plucking up the courage to fly his new pride and joy so he only had one flight but I’m happy to report that all went well. Being the first flight Mike didn’t do anything dramatic with the model but it certainly appears to fly well, has loads of power, and will obviously be a very capable performer.Snippets of the first flight can be seen in the video mentioned in the previous section.

On the subject of Pitts, for those of you that I haven’t bored to death with the story, in 2010 I was bought an hour long aerobatic flight in a Pitts Special for my 60^th birthday (yes, I know, I can’t possibly be that old etc…) and had a great time. It was from Rochester Airport in Kent with a pilot who competes in the British Aerobatic Association events in Pitts G-TIII. He let me fly a large part of the flight on the way to the aerobatic area on the Kent coast, then did all the usual gut wrenching things an aerobatic pilot does in a Pitts, and then let me fly most of the way back to Rochester. Amazing flight and no I wasn’t sick! The plane is currently up for sale so if you’d like your own Pitts and have £50k spare I can give you a phone number. If you’d like to see a video I did of the day CLICK HERE

Last week we had a lovely day with a reasonable wind that was in a perfect direction for the Sky Surfing Club who use Wether Down, up by the radio masts.  We mostly see paragliders nowadays but the wind that particular day must have been better suited for hang gliders as lots of them were soon aloft and several found enough lift to leave the ridge and thermal soar away from the hill. They gradually drifted southwards, circling in the thermals and passed over our field to the east of the pits. Obviously we kept a good lookout all the time they were in our vicinity but none of them ever got close to the area the models were flying in.  They are fascinating to watch and have advanced hugely from the early days of Rogallo wings, they are now high tech, high performance machines.

The photos aren’t of brilliant quality but you can clearly see that they have some form of tailplane and reflexed wing tips. It was great to be able to watch a totally different type of aviation whilst enjoying our model flying.

With the upcoming election in mind the sign on the back of one of those trucks that sucks out the waste from airliner toilets seems appropriate: ‘Caution – This truck is full of political promises’

Colin Cowplain