Patch News – November 2017

Aargh! I said last month that the bullocks had gone, the patch was recovering, and we should have a decent patch over the winter months. I was wrong, we’ve now been joined by some fresh new ones. This lot are young and inquisitive, although they do seem to be quickly getting used to us and not bothering us quite as much as at first. They were especially keen to welcome Bob the Builder one morning.On the plus side, being young they don’t weigh so much as the older ones and haven’t messed up the patch as much as the full grown ones…yet. I don’t remember a year when we’ve had bullocks in the field so often, we need to do something about it. Suggestions on a postcard to ‘What a load of bullocks’…

October was Kung Fu month and Norwegian Nick was the only one who didn’t get to fly his new toy (our fault for switching the competition date). But he put that right early this month and quickly discovered that like all the others it doesn’t need any reflex and the centre of gravity needs to be well forward. Once that was sorted it flew brilliantly. So that’s all ten of the Kung Fu’s now flying very well, they really are great little fliers. Woody’s was the one that needed the most sorting but he persevered and he’s now loving it. Woody’s features at the end of this month’s video, doing a low pass and then…oops. I’ll say no more, you’ll just have to watch it!

I added a last minute ‘Stop Press’ to the October Patch News showing the damage that occurred when Chris P Bacon’s Cougar 2000 had a mid-air with my almost new HobbyKing F-16. I was very polite and didn’t apportion blame, but Chris P just couldn’t resist having a dig when he repaired his Cougar. For that he becomes Nasty Nigel for a month! At least the Cougar was repairable, unlike my F-16. The F-16 was the Plug’N’Play version that I bought in the HK sale for £45, but, as that sale had finished. I had to pay £44 for a replacement ARF version. It’s basically the same thing but minus the servos, fan, motor, and esc. To add insult to injury just a couple of days after I ordered it HobbyKing reduced the price of the ARF version to £22 in yet another sale. Bob the Builder jumped in quick and bought one, the swine! Anyway, I’ve put the new one together and it flies just like the first one. I haven’t bothered with any photos as it’s identical to the original in the last Patch News. I didn’t have time to include the maiden flight of the original in last month’s video so it’s in this month’s, and if you want to see the maiden of the second one just watch the video twice, it’s exactly the same.

The collision crown of Nasty Nigel and myself was forgotten almost immediately when 1066 managed three collisions during November earning him the title Hacker Hastings. First, during a fast downwind pass, his Delta met Captain Slow’s Art-Tech Diamond that was innocently dawdling across the patch.Both models were damaged but the Diamond came of worse and Captain Slow decided not to repair it.Both of Hacker’s other collisions occurred on one flight and both with the same model, Bob the Builder’s Kung Fu. Hacker Hastings was doing a flat out into wind pass with his Kung Fu while Bob’s Kung Fu was just climbing away from a hand launch. The impact broke the prop of Bob’s model so he simply glided round and landed on the patch. Hacker’s Kung Fu still seemed to be flying ok but of course he needed to land to check for any possible damage, but as he landed he managed to hit poor Bob’s plane again as it lay on the patch awaiting retrieval and this time he knocked off one side of the V tail. That’s just adding insult to injury! The damage to Hacker’s model was just a gash in the right-hand wind, remarkable really for a Depron model.

Hacker had only recently repaired his Kung Fu having had an unexpected arrival due to a battery failure.Well that’s what he said caused it, but then he would wouldn’t he…

At the start of the month I was contacted by Dave Durnford, a friend from many years ago in the early days of electric flight. In those days Dave was an Air Traffic Controller at West Drayton but he moved to Locks Heath when he was transferred to NATS at Swanwick. He’s since retired so can spend lots of time modelling and, being a BMFA Instructor and Examiner, spends time teaching and testing. To his credit he’s just bought a Multiplex transmitter the same as mine, hence the reason for contacting me with a couple of technical queries. Yes, he was that desperate! Dave is a member of the Alton club but, at my invitation, came and flew with us one midweek day.He flew a Max Thrust Riot, a type that I don’t think we’ve seen before at our field which is surprising as it’s very much a Wot-4 lookalike. I think I read somewhere that the Riot has a stronger undercarriage than the Wot-4.

A few new models appeared this month, the first one I spotted being an E-Flite Sukhoi SU-29 belonging to Geoff Berry. Geoff was a very active PAM member a good few years ago and an excellent flier so it was great to see him return after a break from flying. I think the Sukhoi is his first electric powered model and it seems to suit him well, he’s flying as if he’s never been away. All the E-Flite models seem to be good and the SU-29 is no exception.It’s an 1120mm span Plug’N’Play model that comes ready fitted with a 15 size 1250Kv motor, 40A speed controller, and 4 servos. It uses a 3 cell 2200mAh lipo and weighs around 1150gms ready to go. Geoff’s been flying it with no problems although he’s been complaining that he’s not happy with his landings; they look perfectly ok to me Geoff. You can see one in this month’s video, it was the worst he did on that particular day and I reckon it was fine anyway. Geoff deserves to have a nickname and with the surname Berry it should be an easy pick, so how about Goose? With it links to Top Gun Woody will approve for sure.

Page Boy has just completed his first ever scratch built model, a Millie Bob which was a free plan in RC Model World in May 2015. It was designed by Tony Wright and is billed as a high wing electric trainer so it’s well within Page Boy’s flying capabilities but is an ideal model for a first scratch build.He’s made a lovely job of both the build and the covering, which is HobbyKing iron on shrink film. The Millie Bob is 1120mm span, weighs around 850gms, and is 3 channel (no ailerons). Page Boy has fitted an Emax 2830 motor, a 10×4.7 prop, 2 x 9g servos, and a Turnigy 30A esc.He’s using 3 cell 2200mAh lipos and the set-up gives around 300W so there is more than enough power. As you’ll see in the video it flies extremely well, just requiring some additional down thrust to handle the excess of power.

Doreen and I spent a few days in the Peak District during November so some of the photos and video in this edition were taken by Captain Slow and Dougal Entendre, thanks chaps. It seemed an ideal opportunity to make a detour on our way home and visit the BMFA National Centre at Buckminster, about 10 miles south of Grantham. Andy Symons spoke about Buckminster at his recent club talk and I’m sure we’ve all read about Buckminster in BMFA News but I wanted to see it for myself and also support the endeavour. I must say I was very impressed by what I saw, it far exceeded my expectations. We were greeted by Mannie Williamson, the BMFA Development Officer, and given a guided tour of the facilities. We both know Mannie from our days on the Southern Area Committee and helping at the Nationals etc. so it was good to catch up with him again. The site was previously an equestrian centre but everything was very rundown and some of the buildings were virtually derelict. It’s still a ‘work in progress’ with just Stage 1 of 3 completed so far but the original farmhouse has been converted to reception, offices, and meeting rooms, along with kitchen and toilet facilities. A building that was previously used for exercising/training horses has been transformed into an Events Building and now has lots of uses, education, corporate events, indoor FPV flying etc. although the ceiling is a bit low for larger indoor flying. When we visited there was a track laid out for RC cars, a local club uses it for their weekly meetings and leaves the track down when the BMFA don’t need the building for other things. The building will be used for a Christmas Swapmeet in December when it will be set up with 60 tables. The building also houses toilets and workshop facilities. Everything has been done to a high standard, both buildings are first class. Much of the basic work has been done by volunteers from a local club who turn up each week and do whatever is required. The flying site is superb, there is a huge grass main runway with almost bowling green like grass, and another smaller crosswind runway at one end. The pits area is enormous with mown paths linking it to the runway, there are two control-line circles, a large gravelled car park, and toilets are nearby. Trolleys are provided to transport all your gear from the car park to the pits, although it’s much closer than we are used to at our field. There is a large camping area and the plans for Stage 2 include converting existing stables into simple overnight accommodation. I had taken my Kung Fu along so I felt obliged to have a couple of flights just to test the facilities for you guys! Anyone can go and visit and/or fly so if you are in the area pop in and say hello. If you want to fly it’s worth checking the website to see if there are any events on before you travel. There is a daily fee for flying but Mannie refused to charge me for just having a couple of flights so I made a donation. I took a short video of the flying area and have included it in this month’s video.

Back to PAM now; Wonky Wiltshire made a rare appearance in November, making the usual excuses about son’s rugby sessions, daughter’s gymnastics, his work, blah blah blah….! Unfortunately he chose a particularly windy day to fly but he had a few flights with his Durafly EFX Racer and enjoyed it lots. But he wisely decided it was just too windy to test fly his new EFXtra Racer, basically an uprated, faster version of the EFX Racer.This is what the HobbyKing website says about it:

If you’re craving speed, the EFXtra is where it’s at, with out of the box performance in excess of 100mph+. Durafly retained spirit of the EFX Racer and focused on adding extra performance, like the incredible roll and climb rates.

There are plenty of high-performance features and new additions over the EFX Racer. The Durafly EFXtra boasts a new clipped wing (975mm) to give extreme roll rates. An upgraded 3536-1780kv brushless motor (using ultra-high-speed Japanese bearings) with a 60A Aerostar ESC has been added, and optimized, for up to 4S performance. Higher speed, higher torque digital 9g servo’s (metal geared on the ailerons) together with ball link connectors provide true precision control of all surfaces no matter what speed you are traveling. We’ve even included FPV mount in the box for the Adeline junkies that love to live life on the edge.

Durafly heard your calls and redesigned the airframe to fit larger capacity Lipo battery packs resulting in longer flight times. The aircraft is stronger than ever with both glass and carbon fibre reinforcements throughout whilst keeping the airframe as light as possible. Super Compressed EPO foam and polished finish to deliver the ultimate in performance with the sleekest of looks. How fast you go depends on the propeller and battery size. The plane comes with two propellers, for the standard setup of 3S an 8×6 prop or for performance setup of a 4S a 7×6.5 prop.

That says it all then, it’s for hooligans, I can’t wait to have a go with it!

The last new model to feature this month is Captain Slow’s Multiplex FunGlider, bought to replace the Art-Tech Diamond that got eaten by Hacker’s Delta. It’s available in various versions and Captain Slow plumped for the RR (Ready to Run) package which Multiplex says only takes about 15mins to assemble. So in his usual rush to get it finished Captain Slow managed to get it all done in just a few days, although to be fair he did have to change the battery connector. The 1300mm span FunGlider comes with 4 MPX Nano S servos and a BL-20SD 20A speed controller which is coupled to a BL-0 2816-900 Permax brushless motor. Multiplex suggest using a 950mAh 3 cell lipo but Captain Slow has lots of 1300mAh 3 cell packs so that’s what he’s using. There’s plenty of room in the fuselage and he intends to fit an SM Modellbau Unisens-E telemetry unit soon. He’s set the control movements and two stage spoilerons exactly as Multiplex recommend and the first flight proved the settings were spot on, it flew very well indeed. Captain Slow let me a fly and I really liked it…tempted.

As it happens I might be in the market for a new electric glider having badly damaged my Swing Plus last week. I was climbing away from the launch when at around 300ft I suddenly had no control (much to the delight of Spektrum flier Nasty Nigel!) and the model went in vertically. I haven’t yet had a chance to investigate fully but the initial conclusion at the field was that the cause was a loose XT60 connector.When I reached the wreckage the radio wasn’t working and the receiver LED was off but as soon as I pulled the battery out of the fuselage everything burst into life again. The installation is a bit messy as the battery plugs into the telemetry unit which in turn connects to the speed controller and the whole lot sits alongside the receiver. Not an ideal arrangement but I’ve never had a problem before despite having flown at extreme distances. I found that by waggling the connector I could make/break the connection, and on the transmitter the LQI (Link Quality – the strength of the signal the tx receives back from the rx) showed 100% when it lost the signal which would tend to indicate loss of power rather than a signal problem. But I’m not totally convinced and will investigate more fully in due course. The Swing Plus is fairly badly damaged and I’ve yet to decide whether it’s worth repairing or not.

Time now for a few flying shots, these are not all from November but I think were all taken by Kryten:

Ok, it’s video time: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

This month’s tall tale was sent in by Dougal:

One day at Area 51 a radar tech spots a single engine plane on final approach to the secret Air Force base. The plane touches down and is immediately surrounded by armed guards. The plane is impounded and the pilot is whisked off for questioning. The pilot claims that he had been flying from Las Vegas, got lost, and nearly run out of fuel, so he put his plane down at the first runway he saw. After extensive background checks, it is proven that the pilot isn’t a spy and he is set to be released the following morning.

Before he is allowed to leave, he is given the “You didn’t see anything” talk, and is told that under absolutely no circumstances is he allowed to tell anyone where he was, or what he saw. The Air Force fuels up the man’s plane, gives him a proper heading to get back to Las Vegas, and sends him on his way.

Later that day, the man’s plane is again spotted getting ready to land at Area 51. This time there are two people in the plane. When the plane touches down, it is immediately surrounded by guards again. As soon as it comes to a stop, the man hops out and yells: “Do whatever you want to me, but SOMEBODY has to tell my wife where I was last night.”

Colin Cowplain