Patch News – May 2016

Times flies, I’ve just realised it’s almost month end and I haven’t even started Patch News, so this edition may be a little rushed! There was lots of flying during May and, although I was away for a couple of weeks, I made it to the patch several times and I took lots of photos. The grass has now started growing in earnest and the patch has been mown several times already. Squire Nick snapped this photo of 1066 helping some poor old bugger who was exhausted by pushing the mower.

We have recently been joined by a prospective member, Terry, from Southampton. He is already a member of Firebirds Model Club and has been flying a three channel foamie Cub and an E-Flite Apprentice.I think Dougal has mostly been looking after Terry as he works his way towards taking his ‘A’ certificate. Another ‘A’ certificate candidate is Mike Creamer and he is coming along very well as can be seen in this month’s video at the end of Patch News.

Last month I featured the wreckage of Dougal Entendre’s Wingnetic, it took him several attempts to achieve total destruction but he got there in the end! Throughout May both Catapult King and I have been flying our new Wingnetics and neither of us have had any destructive problems with ours.They are great little planes that have a very wide envelope of performance. Dougal’s now fits nicely into a small envelope! I haven’t flow Catapult’s Wingnetic yet so I’m not sure how twitchy his set-up is but mine is pretty hairy. I’ve got large movements on the surfaces and even with a lot of exponential dialled in it’s quite a handful when flown flat out, I may have to up the expo even further.

My favourite manoeuvre at the moment is to climb until it’s a speck, and then perform a vertical dive (motor off) with full aileron applied. It rotates at an incredible speed with the rotations getting faster and faster as it descends. It looks as if it will destroy itself on the pull-out but it’s a strong little model. I’ve resisted the inevitable shouts of “LOWER!” from the pits; I don’t want to perform a ‘Dougal Demise’.

There was a very strange mid-air collision this month, featuring 1066’s Mini Sbach 342 and Tony Neal’s Durafly T-28 Trojan. I didn’t see what happened so I can’t apportion blame; I just heard a bang and looked up to see a cloud of descending debris. The Sbach definitely won the battle and it looks as if the only damage was the neat removal of the nose, complete with motor.The poor Trojan fared rather more badly, amongst other damage one wing was reduced to a few pieces of foam clinging vainly to the spar.So what was strange about this collision? It didn’t involve Basher Bob!

Speaking of Basher, he brought two new models along during May. The first is an Alpha Jet Mk2 from FRC Foamies. Not sure why it’s called that as it’s nothing like an Alpha Jet, it’s a very futuristic looking delta made from Depron.You can read all about the Alpha Jet and others on the FRC Foamies website if you CLICK HERE.  I assume FRC Foamies just sell the plans and sheets of Depron rather than a proper kit. It looks as if it should be ducted fan but in fact it has a centrally mounted motor driving a conventional propeller.I test flew it and it flew pretty well although it was very twitchy on ailerons at first, but unfortunately it was very noisy. That is a problem we often find with propellers that are mounted either through the wing (as in this case) or very close to the wing trailing edge. The first flight was with a 4 cell lipo and there was more than enough power so Basher swapped to a 3 cell pack in an effort to reduce the noise but sadly it didn’t make a huge difference. I’m not sure if there’s a way to cure it without a major redesign so we may not see much of it in the future.I managed to record a brief bit of Basher flying the Alpha Jet which can be seen in this month’s video.

Basher’s other new model is an HK Walrus, a 1400mm span foamie that comes complete with motor, esc, and six 9g servos driving ailerons, elevator, rudder, and flaps, all for around £60.It was rather windy the day Basher brought it along and he wisely declined not to risk a first flight but the reports on the website are good and I’m sure it will be a good performer.

We didn’t see a lot of Modelling Clay during May; he said it was something to do with getting married next month, what a pathetic excuse! But he did turn up with a new model on one occasion, an Extra 260P from HobbyKing that was yet another large raffle prize.It’s a 1220mm span profile 3D machine that comes as an ARF, so requires a motor, esc, 4 servos, and a 4 cell lipo of around 3000mAh capacity. Modelling fitted an NTM Prop Drive 4238 750kv motor which seemed to give it plenty of performance.I can’t say it looks anything like an Extra and is unusual these days in that it’s not a foamie, it’s actually has a built up wooden structure and is film covered is a very eye catching colour scheme.It appeared to fly very well when 1066 test flew it and he was soon performing all kinds of 3D manoeuvres. Some of the first flight can be seen in this month’s video.

Amazingly Captain Slow finished not one but two new models this month although we are still awaiting the appearance of the much talked about auto gyro. The first to appear was his Extreme 3D, another one from HobbyKing. I managed to snap a decent photo of Captain Slow at last!This one is fully moulded in EPO, is 1100mm span, and it’s Plug’N’Fly so you just need to add a receiver and battery. It is fitted with a 2814 1100kv motor connected to a 40A speed controller, and there are four metal geared digital servos already installed. The recommended battery is a 3s lipo with a capacity of 1500-2200mAh. Although it’s described as a profile model the fuselage does actually have a bit of shape to it and the esc and battery fit inside behind a hatch on the side.To my mind it’s much prettier than the usual completely slab sided models. There are carbon reinforcing rods in the wings and tail to ensure the structure is stiff enough for those stomach churning 3D moments. Side force generators are included but Captain Slow hasn’t got them fitted at the moment.The colour scheme is painted on and, with the topside being red/black and the underside being green, there is a great contrast which shows up well in the air. How does it fly? Extremely well seems to be the answer, it does all the usual 3D stuff with ease, and will fly nice and slowly when required, perfect for the Captain.

His second new model is an Art Tech Diamond 1100 that came from Sussex Model Centre.It looks very much like a larger version of the 815mm span Spirit/Kinetic mini gliders that have proved so popular, the most obvious difference, apart from the 1100mm span, is that the Diamond has a T tail.Captain Slow reports that it flies very similarly to the Spirit but being that bit bigger means it’s not so easy to lose sight of or mistake for a different model. Now what sort of idiot would do that…ahem…

Last month I included a photo of 1066’s Piper Cub with its rudder hanging off, damage he inflicted whilst assembling the brand new model. The model has now flown and Steve has managed to do a bit more damage to it! When he turned up at the patch with it there was a lot of muttering and the general consensus of opinion was “Why on earth has 1066 got a Cub?” We are so used to him always flying 3D machines that a Cub just didn’t seem right, but 1066 confessed to having a weakness for them.To be totally correct it’s actually a Piper L-4 Grasshopper, the military version of the Cub, but basically the same thing. This one is another from HobbyKing and is 1400mm span, fully moulded in EPO, and comes complete with a 3648 700kv motor, 45A esc, and four 9g servos.I was surprised to see that it uses a 4s lipo, I’m sure it would fly on a 3 cell pack, but having watched it flying I could see it had loads of power with 4 cells. Steve was really wringing the thing out and doing all kinds of very un-scale aerobatics with it so I would imagine that if you just want to cruise gently around in a scale like manner 3 cells would be fine. I watched it land and although it wasn’t perfect it was pretty good but the undercarriage failed. On closer examination the undercarriage wire just pushes into a slot and the moulded plastic fairings are retained by one small screw on each side, so on anything less than a perfect landing on tarmac the wire pulls out of the slot and the plastic fairings either snap or rip out the screws. Not ideal. Speaking to 1066 about it he was fairly scathing about the model in general, saying that it was a rubbish ‘kit’.It seems that the completed model looks good (very good I think) but the quality of the fittings just isn’t up to standard and lots of niggling things break all too easily. Some of the comments on the HK website also criticise the weak undercarriage etc. It’s a real shame because I was certainly impressed by the flight performance but maybe if you want to fly in a non-scale manner you’d be better off with a non-scale plane.

I don’t have any photos of members shed/modelling rooms this month but I did find one of Dougal Entendre’s charging set-up. Dougal doesn’t believe in parallel charging and instead he uses multiple chargers.Here they all are, safely laid out on the concrete floor of his garage.

While we were down in Cornwall this month we visited the Cornwall Aviation Heritage Centre (CAHC) at Newquay Airport (previously RAF St. Mawgan). On trips to Cornwall in previous years we had visited the Classic Air Force museum at Newquay (see Patch News June 2013) but it closed suddenly last year and all the airworthy aircraft were sold. Some of the static aircraft were handed over to a group of volunteers, most of who had worked for Classic Air Force, and they set about establishing a new museum which has now become the CAHC. The authorities at Newquay Airport were very keen to help and provided the group with a Hardened Aircraft Shelter (HAS) which is now home for many of the exhibits.It is relatively small but there are also quite a few aircraft outside, including the two largest two, a BAC1-11 and a VC10. But the thing that sets it aside from other museums is that visitors are actively encouraged to enter virtually all the exhibits, and the enthusiastic volunteers are anxious to share their knowledge and ensure you have a good time. It’s a fantastic place to visit and I urge you to drop in if you are anywhere in the area, entry is just £5 for concessions. Check out the website by CLICKING HERE.  I’ll do a separate write-up for the website in the next couple of weeks but in the meantime here are a few photos:

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

A pilot has engine trouble and lands in a field. As he walks around the plane to check out the problem, he hears a voice behind him say “You have a clogged fuel line.”

Looking around, he sees no one, except a cow. Startled out of his wits, he runs across the field to the farmer’s house and pounds on the door. When the farmer appears at the door, the out-of-breath pilot stammers that his cow has just talked, and it even tried to explain what was wrong with the airplane.

The farmer drawled, “Was it a brown cow?”  “Yes.”  “Did it have a white patch on its forehead?”  “Yes, yes, that’s the one.”

“OK, that’s Flossie. Don’t pay any attention to her, she doesn’t know anything about aeroplanes.”

Colin Cowplain