Patch News – November 2016

Cripes Carruthers, another Patch News, I don’t know where the time goes! The November weather was much as expected really, some good days but also plenty of less good ones. The Midweekers got caught out by early morning fog a few times (look, 10am is early for us retirees) but we managed to fly most times after a coffee and a chat.

As I proof read this Patch News on 30^th November I’ve just returned from the flying field and the weather today was absolutely perfect with wall to wall sunshine and virtually no wind at all, one of those gorgeous cold and crisp winter mornings. Kryten snapped some great photos including this one of Norwegian Nick’s twin ducted fan Sea Vixen.And also this one of Dwayne Pipe just taking off with his 48″ span Splot XLWe had some ‘away from the patch’ highlights in November, Percy Vears brought his Vulcan along to the first club meeting of the month and did a couple of short taxi runs across the room for us.It’s looking very good and is now pretty much ready for glass-clothing and painting.

At the other November club night we were fortunate enough to have a talk on helicopters by Ken Gale. Ken is the Southern Area BMFA ACE (Area Chief Examiner) for helicopters and has built many of those strange egg whisk things over the years, including I/C, electric, and gas turbine powered ones. He brought along a couple of models for us to see and chat about, a sixth scale (big!) Bell 47G and a turbine powered Eurocopter EC135 in the colours of the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Air Ambulance. As I’m not into helicopters at all most of the technical details of them washed over me somewhat but they were both beautiful models built to the highest standards.

Petersfield Aero Modellers entered a team for the recent Southern Area BMFA Balsa Brian competition which was held on 25^th November. The team members were myself, my wife Doreen, Gentleman Jim, and Woody. Woody is recovering from his replacement knee operation but made the effort to support us at the event. The questions were very hard, most seemed to be aimed at folks even older than us, but we managed a top ten position. OK ninth. How many teams entered I hear you ask? Ahem…moving on…

Following the September Patch News Part Two which featured the Kline-Fogleman models I was surprised and pleased to see a comment from Dick Kline himself. It was great to hear that he appreciated our efforts and took the trouble to comment. He also sent a link to a video of a model B-17 with a KF wing section and on-board cameras which is worth a look: CLICK HERE.

There was also a comment on the Patch News video on YouTube from an English guy who has been playing with various KF sections for some time. Again, it’s worth a look: CLICK HERE

As it’s now December and the time for frivolities I’ve decided to run another Caption Competition. Kryten took this photo early in November and I’m sure you guys can come up with something suitable!There will be a decent prize for the winner which I’ll award at the first meeting in January so get commenting chaps.

Basher Bob has been at it again! He built a Depron wing for his Splob (a Bob variant of a Splot) and several members were asking about the construction method. Always one to oblige Bob, promptly broke the wing in half so we could all see exactly how he’d built it. Wasn’t that nice of him?!I’m not sure if Basher managed to repair the broken wing or if he built a complete replacement one but one way or the other it’s now flying very nicely again as can be seen below.I only spotted one new model at the patch in November; that must be a record. It’s a 47” span E-flight Extra 260 that Gorgeous Gary has put together. The motor is an O.S. 3805-1200 and it’s linked to a 40A esc and a 3 cell pack.He’s only had one flight with it so far as he was having problems with a shortage of power. It was a very windy day and as soon as it got into the air it was obvious that it didn’t have enough power, so a new model, a lack of power, and a strong wind; not a good combination.After a fraught few minutes Gary managed to get it back on the ground without any damage and he’s now gone away to try to figure out what is causing the problem.  I think the speed controller probably needs setting-up as the motor is capable of delivering over 500W and the model only weighs 29ozs! You can see some of the flight in this month’s video at the end of this edition.

Also in the video you’ll see Kryten flying his E-flight Apprentice early in the month. He’s been practising hard for his ‘A’ certificate and I’ve been making him do endless figure 8’s, rectangular circuits, and dead-stick landings. The latest version of the Apprentice comes fitted with SAFE (Sensor Assisted Flight Envelope) which is basically a multi axis gyro that recognises the aircraft attitude relative to the horizon. It can be switched in different modes to provide either gentle assistance to smooth out turbulence or an almost fool-proof setting that won’t let the model stray too far from straight and level and immediately returns the model to straight and level flight when the sticks are released. It seems to work very well and I’d go as far as to say that in full SAFE mode it would actually be difficult to crash. Kryten seemed totally underwhelmed when I explained that he’d have to fit a non-SAFE receiver to take his test but he duly did just that and continued to practise. I had barely taken control even when he first started flying and he’s now reached the stage where I just get bored watching him so I suggested it was test time.I’m pleased to say that towards the end of month Dougal Entendre took and passed him, so very well done Kryten.

Christmas is almost upon us and Doreen absolutely insisted that I should buy a new plane for my present (well that’s not exactly the wording she used but I’m sure that’s what she meant). I’ve been flying my little EDF Gripen a lot recently and I fancied another EDF, in particular an F22 Raptor as they have a decent wing area and generally look like they should fly well. So I duly Googled ‘EDF F22’ but most of the ones I found were large expensive ones with retracts, requiring six cells etc. when all I wanted was a cheap, 3 cell, hand launched, chuck it in the back of the car type. The Gripen is 510mm (20”) span and has a 50mm fan. But then I stumbled across a Kyosho F22 that is 635mm (25”) span and comes with a 55mm fan, so it’s a bit bigger than the Gripen but not by too much, perfect.The model seems to be discontinued, I think it was first produced in 2008 and the only negative I can see is that it’s made from EPS (polystyrene) not the now normal EPO. The only place I found that was selling it was Kings Lynn Models and they showed the RRP as £140.93 but had it for just £49.90. For that price it seemed rude to refuse so I ordered one and it arrived the next day, excellent service. It’s the PIP (Plug-In-Play) version which comes complete with the fan unit, motor, speed controller, and 3 servos. There’s actually a reasonable amount of work to do to complete the model but I don’t think it will take too long, although I’m not allowed to start it until after Christmas! On Black Friday I wondered if Kings Lynn Models had any kind of sale on so I checked the website and discovered that the Raptor has gone up to £99.90! I wonder if it had been incorrectly priced previously and they’ve now corrected it but I don’t really know. Maybe it will be reduced again in a January sale? I’ll have some more photos in the next Patch News but in the meantime you’ll have to make do with the one of the box.

I couldn’t make it to the patch on the last Sunday of November but Dougal Entendre and Captain Slow were good enough to send me some information and photos of what I missed.It was a windy day so only a few members turned up but seems like I missed quite a lot; firstly Dougal managed to fold the wings of his Vignette. The Vignette is Dougal’s variation of a Spirit, using the Spirit wing attached to an own design fuselage and V-tail and fitted with a Wingnetic motor. This is what Dougal said about the failure: On the first flight with my Vignette, all seemed well until I pulled a fairly violent turn and the wing folded. She went in from about 80ft high, breaking the fuselage into three on impact. As the photos show, the carbon fibre main spar of the Spirit wing had failed. The Vignette fuselage was only a little bit heavier than the Spirit one, so I don’t think that explains the failure. The ex-Wingnetic motor was definitely more powerful than that in the Spirit, so that may have contributed. The wing had previously had a breakage of the foam about 2 inches outboard from the spar failure, but that repair held up OK. In the end, I think it was just a result of pulling high-G manoeuvres on a windy day. I haven’t decided what to do with the bits yet – I still have the Kline-Fogleman wings, so I’ll either stick the fuselage back together, or might do a new one eventually. The Spirit wing has definitely had it though. You’re not kidding Dougal!

The other notable occurrence was 1066 having a launching problem with his Speedy electric glider. Apparently he had one good flight (the launch can be seen in this month’s video) but for the second flight the launch didn’t quite go to plan. 1066 is right-handed so when he launches he has to quickly move his right hand back to the stick to make any necessary corrections. Unfortunately this time his hand landed on a switch instead of the stick and despite pulling really hard on it the switch didn’t add any up elevator at all!The resulting dive into the mud damaged the wing mounting but everything else was intact apart from 1066’s pride.

Captain Slow captured this shot of Mike Creamer’s Freewing Pandora just about to gently touch down on the patch on the same gusty Sunday, nice once Mike.He also took this lovely photo of John Warren’s Wot 4. Actually it’s the HobbyKing version of a wooden Wot 4 but you’d find it hard to find any differences.

I recently had one of the HXT900 servos fail on my Delta and I needed a replacement fairly promptly. It never seems worth ordering just one servo so I wanted to buy four, but that would have meant paying around £6.50 postage on a £10.50 order if I ordered them from HobbyKing. So I searched on eBay and found Coolwind Models were selling four HXT900’s for £14.30 including delivery. They arrived quickly and the Delta was soon flying again. The Coolwind Models website is worth checking out, their main interest seems to be in autogyros but they are also good for many of the smaller things we use such as servos, speed controllers, props and so on. They also sell silver steel rod in various sizes which might be useful to replace bent motor shafts. You can find them HERE.

Many of us use XT60 connectors on our batteries and speed controllers and most people seem happy with them. But did you know there is now an XT60U (Upgrade)? This is what HobbyKing say about them: The best battery connectors on the market just got better with the development of the XT60U. Like the original XT60, this connector is made from high-temp nylon with gold connectors so the XT60U continues to provide an excellent high-amp connection for applications up to 65A.The change in design has made it shorter and lighter and far more user-friendly for connection and disconnection with an improved grip area. The XT60U is completely compatible with the original XT60 connectors so you can use them straight away.

Purely in the interests of my readers (obviously) I ordered some of the new ones and they seem good. Here’s a photo of the old and new ones so you can see the difference in sizes.Rather oddly, at the moment they have a special offer for pairs of them and it will cost you just £1.48 for 5 male and 5 female connectors, but if you buy either 5 males or 5 females they will cost you £1.56! These prices are from the UK warehouse. Incidentally HobbyKing have recently introduced a ‘letter’ postal rate of £1.24 for up to 100gms. There must also be a size limit as a pair of HXT900 servos will cost £1.24 postage but if you add a third servo the package will come via Parcel Force at a cost £5.19 even though the weight is still only 57gms.

Dougal sent me this photo of how he stores his models in his ‘hangar’ the other day. To my mind the most surprising thing about it is that he has an artex ceiling in his garage, how posh is that!

Now for this month’s video: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 plane is on its final approach into the airport and the pilot comes on the intercom “This is your Captain speaking, we’re now on our final descent. I want to thank you for flying with us, and I hope you enjoy your stay”.

But he forgets to switch off the intercom and the whole plane can now hear the conversation from the cockpit. The co-pilot says to the pilot, “Well, what are you doing today?”

Now all the passengers are listening intently to this conversation. “Well,” says the captain, “first I’m going to check into the hotel and brush my teeth, then I’m going to make a move on the new stewardess.”

The new stewardess is so embarrassed that she runs from the back of the plane to try and get to the cockpit to turn the intercom off. But halfway down the aisle, an elderly lady grabs her by the arm to stop her, leans over and says, “No need to run, dear, he’s got to brush his teeth first.”

Colin Cowplain