Patch News – May 2018

We had some lovely summery weather during May, and in particular it was ideal for the first flights of this year’s club models on 6th May. The field remained bullock free for most of the month partly due to the Sustainability Centre using it as the car park for their Green Fayre on 13th May. The fence was left in place that day but switched off just in case some little darling decided to see if the warning notice was genuine. We added red/white striped tape to the top wire to make it more visible in the hope that the visitors wouldn’t drive right through it. They didn’t, and all was well when 1066 went to turn the fence back on in the evening. We are expecting the bullocks to return any day now but we’re ready for them, the fence is armed and dangerous…well switched on anyway. Woody did a ‘hands on’ test of the fence the other day (accidentally) and it certainly gave him a jolt… Oh how we laughed!In the meantime the Friday afternoon mob have been working well rolling and cutting the patch and it’s now it is in excellent condition. Barring any fence problems the patch should just get better and better through the summer.

The highlight of May had to be presenting and flying of the 2018 club models, the Mini Blitzes. The presentation was at the meeting on 3rd May when no less than 13 models were brought along. There are at least 2 others that couldn’t make the meeting so I know of 15 that have been built, a good number from a small club.Most were built more or less to the plan but there were a couple of ‘oddities’. Firstly Dwayne Pipe decided the Mini Blitz was going to be too small and too fast for him so he built a twice size version. Having flown my ‘correct’ size Mini Blitz I have to say I can see his point, mine is very fast and being so tiny it disappears all too quickly. The second model that wasn’t to plan was Bob the Builder’s Blitz Fu. In a brief moment of insanity Bob decided to mount last years’ club model, a Kung Fu, on top of his Mini Blitz. So he ended up with a twin engined (one above the other) biplane, the lower wing being a delta and the upper one a swept forward flying wing. The normal Kung Fu elevons became just ailerons, with the Mini Blitz elevons being just one elevator. What could possibly go wrong?! All the other Mini Blitzes looked to be pretty much standard although Kryten’s was made from Depron and had a Kline-Fogleman stepped wing section (more shades of the Kung Fu). Modelling Clay’s Blitz stood out for being very heavy, I think he’d made it out of modelling clay! The customary judging by all present took place and the winners were: Best Looking Model – Tony Neil and Dan Handley (Page Boy) tied for first place. Least Likely to Fly – Bob Hill (Bob the Builder). Most original design – Bob Hill.

Neither Captain Slow nor Dwayne Pipe could make the official first flight day of 6th May so they both flew theirs the day after the meeting. Dwayne’s just flew away perfectly from the launch with just minor trimming required, all rather boring really! Captain Slow’s was rather hairier and, much like most of the correct size ones, it was fairly fast and disappeared rapidly. After much protesting and shouts of ‘I hate it’ etc. from Captain Slow we let him land to have a coffee and a lie down! But later both I and 1066 flew it and found it was a nice flier with no vices. To be fair to Captain Slow, the Blitzes really do need to have very different colours or markings on the top and bottom surfaces, it’s all too easy to lose orientation with such a small model. Captain Slow’s is almost identical top and bottom and I think that’s a large part of why he hated it!

On Sunday the 6th the weather was perfect for the test flights and 10 of us turned up with our Mini Blitzes. As various ones flew we discovered that very little reflex was needed, much like the Kung Fu’s last year. Modelling Clay’s didn’t get away from the launch, I think it’s going to need a bigger motor to overcome the weight problem.Kryten’s Depron Blitz failed to get away from the launch the first time but after minor tweaking it is now flying well.All the others flew well, some are relatively slow, others, like mine, are scorchingly fast and difficult to keep up with! Orientation is a problem as they disappear so quickly. Although mine flew well I did manage to break it a week or so later but it was soon repaired and flying again. Dougal was good enough to photograph it for me…so kind…The biggest surprise was Bob the Builder’s Blitz Fu, not only did it fly but it actually flew well and was nice to fly. Sadly on a later flight, it lost the battery retaining hatch, closely followed by the battery; the result was inevitable.

This month’s video includes several snippets of the first Mini Blitz flights but they are a bit too small and fast to get much decent quality footage so it’s a bit limited. The video also includes a couple of models that first flew last month, Stanley Knife’s Excalibur and Norwegian Nick’s Sprite, but I forgot to include them in the last video. Some of the video and superb photos this month come from Captain Slow, Catapult King, Dougal Entendre, Gentleman Jim, and Kryten, many thanks chaps. I think it was Kryten who took these lovely shots while I was flying John Warren’s newly repaired (again!) Albatross. Note the trailing rigging wire and the wheel with a tyre hanging off! I always like photos of the buzzards and kites that we often seen when flying. Gentleman Jim snapped this superb one of a buzzard with amazing plumage and Kryten took the one of a kite having a close look at my Ezio glider. As well as all the Blitzes several other new models first flew in May. First up we have Page Boy with his Phoenix 1600 that was a Big Raffle prize last year. We’ve seen several Phoenix 2000s flying at the field but this is the first 1600 as far as I know. It’s basically the same model but with 400mm less wingspan and (I think) a slightly shorter fuselage. The powertrain is the same in both models so the slightly lighter 1600 version has a bit more go and is a bit more aerobatic, but presumably doesn’t glide quite so well. It’s Page Boy’s first electric glider and it will take a bit of time to figure out how to get the best from it but he seemed to enjoy the first flight and had no problems.Next we have Catapult King with his new Altagerra.  When we first saw it several of us oldies said it looked like a control-line stunter and it turns out that’s exactly what it was originally. The Altagerra was a free plan from the Outerzone website and drawn up by someone referred to as Old Pilot so Catapult sends his thanks to both of them. It is a conversion from a 1961 control line stunt plane and Catapult’s is powered by a 2200 3 cell lipo connected via a HobbyKing 40A esc to a Turnigy D2836/8-1100Kv motor fitted with a 10×6 prop. Catapult says he needs to do a power check to see if he can increase the size of the prop as it could do with a little bit more pull. That said its flight characteristics are fine and it will do a loop from level flight. All the throws are wound in quite a lot and have a large amount of expo as it was originally extremely twitchy as you can imagine being a stunt plane with a short fuselage. A quote from the designer Old Pilot: I’m converting the Altagerra, a 1961 control line stunt plane, to a 5 channel R/C electric for a contest build on RC Groups. Had to change the feathers a bit to tame Dutch roll and porpoising, along with the size and location of the ailerons for better roll response…

Wonky Wiltshire has had an EFX Racer for quite a while and flown it lots. It’s pretty quick but when Durafly announced the EFXtra Racer version he couldn’t resist. He first showed up with the new EFXtra Racer back in November last year but he decided not to maiden it in the howling gales present that day.It’s a clipped wing version of the EFX Racer that has an uprated motor and esc, better servos, and ball link connectors. There is more battery space and also more glass fibre and carbon fibre reinforcement.The website says it’s suitable for either 3 or 4 cell batteries, with just a different prop size to suit the cell count you choose. I’m not certain whether Wonky was using 3 or 4 cells but from the way it went I’m guessing 4 cells. Watch it on the video see what you think, if that’s 3 cells I don’t ever want to see it go on 4!

The next one is far from being a new model, in fact it’s pretty old, but Dougal has recently given it an update. It’s an Olympic 100” span glider and Dougal has flown it at the field occasionally over the last couple of years when he has fitted it with a pylon mounted electric motor. It worked well enough but it certainly wasn’t pretty.But in May Dougal decided to bite the bullet so he chopped off the nose and fitted a permanently mounted motor.It looks a lot neater than the pylon mounted one and the model flew well, although the climb rate is rather sedate.

Dougal also flew his large scale Spad XIII a few times during May. I’ve featured the Spad before in Patch News but it’s only had one outing previously so many of you won’t have seen it. The model is an ARTF from Maxford USA and at fifth scale the Spad is 1727mm (68”) span and weighs around 6kgs (13lbs). To power it Dougal chose a Turnigy Aerodrive SK3 – 6364-245kv brushless outrunner motor which swings an 18 x 8 propeller at about 6000rpm. He uses two 5800mAh 4 cell Zippy Compact lipos in series (8 cells) linked to a Robotbirds Pro-80 amp Brushless ESC V4 Opto HV speed controller. He’s fitted a separate high voltage BEC to ensure the radio gets the voltage it requires.There is loads of power available and the lipos still had around 50% capacity remaining after each 7 minute flight so there’s plenty of reserve. Dougal says it’s lovely to fly around and he’s now progressed to doing gentle aerobatics with it, but the landings are taking a little longer to master. A big heavy biplane with inter-plane struts and rigging wires has a lot of drag so it needs to be flown all the way down with some power applied which makes it difficult to touch down on our small patch. But Dougal is getting there, each landing is better than the last and, as you can see on this month’s video, he’s pretty much cracked it now. Assembling a large model at the field is a bit of pain, and then it has to be carried along with all the usual equipment as well as a ‘back up’ model. This is Dougal’s solution:

The video also features another previously featured large model, Norwegian Nick’s gorgeous Citabria Pro that he built from a Balsa USA kit. The model is 2032mm spam (80”), is covered in Solartex and is fitted with Hitec servos. The all up weight is 11lb 9oz so it needs a powerful motor and Nick eventually plumped for a PPPO 5065-380Kv from 4-Max which should provide 1820-2100 watts. He has fitted a YEP 100A speed controller and it is all powered by a 5 cell lipo of 3000mAH capacity. When he flew it previously Nick felt it could do with a little more power so he has fitted a larger prop and it now has more than enough get up and go.As you can see in this month’s video Nick enjoys doing lovely smooth low passes with the model, some very low!

Things don’t always go perfectly for even the best fliers and some tend to get a little over confident at times, especially with older, small, almost throwaway type models. 1066 in particular tends to get a little carried away with low level manoeuvres, and one ‘mad moment in May’ resulted in this:Ouch! 1066 says the Kung Fu is (was?) such a great little flier that it will soon be repaired or replaced.

I was sent an interesting photo by Gorgeous Gary of his Jive that had lost a large section of covering one flight.I think I can see the problem, the name’s a rip off…  Oh stop groaning you lot!

We had a flying visit (literally) one May day when a paraglider overflew the field and landed in the bottom field. It looked as if he had simply come too far downwind from the Mercury slope and was unable to penetrate forward to the slope again. Obviously all models were kept well clear as he drifted across our field, it’s just another occasional hazard for which we need to keep an eye out.

A few Blitz in action photos:

Now it’s time for this month’s video. It’s a bit longer than usual but hopefully you’ll think it’s well worth watching:

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

This month’s joke doesn’t have an aeronautical link but hopefully Woody will enjoy it:

My friend asked me to help him with his crossword puzzle as he was struggling with 4 across.
“What’s the clue?” I asked.
“Overworked postman,” he said.
“How many letters?”
“Thousands!”

Colin Cowplain