Patch News – November 2025

The November weather was pretty much what we expect for the south of England. The first couple of weeks were mostly wet and windy and flying was rather limited, but things improved a little in the second half of the month. We had occasional days that were perfect for flying with clear blue skies and light winds although rather cold on pilots’ hands.
Captain Slow has done a great job for us all year, consistently keeping the fence batteries charged and changed so the sheep and bullocks have been kept off the patch which is in excellent condition. We didn’t need to mow at all in November but I suspect there will need to be a cut in December, probably before Christmas, something to look forward to!

Regular fliers will have realised that our chairman Gordon (Paul Bennett) has rarely been flying in the last few months. For some time now Gordon has been volunteering a couple of days a week at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard in Boathouse 4 and earlier this year the chap in charge resigned. Gordon was offered the position and he took it on without realising that there were some big regulation changes looming which would require an initial massive amount a work. The regulations primarily affect the running of the High Speed Launch 102 and Motor Gun Boat 81, a bit like trying to keep a Spitfire flying under regulations designed for modern aircraft. (Did I ever mention my flight in a Spitfire?)!
This has meant Gordon has had to work full-time to get everything sorted out, but the end is in sight, he hasn’t lost interest in the club or flying and he will return. There is an excellent video of Gordon skippering the Motor Gun Boat, which you can see below:

It’s well worth watching and shows the more enjoyable side, away from all the paperwork! Incidentally, it’s worth visiting Boathouse 4 in the dockyard, it’s a very interesting place and it’s FREE to enter. When you go to the dockyard main entrance ticket area just say you want to visit Boathouse 4 and you’ll be given free access. Obviously that doesn’t include access to HMS Victory, Warrior, Mary Rose etc but there’s still plenty to see. In the summer months you can do a harbour tour on an ex-Falklands Landing Craft F8.
Check the website for Boathouse 4 opening times as they are very limited in winter.

Unsurprisingly not many new models arrived at the patch in November, but Dot Cottam brought along what can only be described as a reborn model, I’ll let him explain:
After an over enthusiastic full tilt dive, my WOT 4 Foam-e never pulled out and subsequently expired. In my defence it was a bit blowy! I must have looked at least a little bit perturbed as 1066, managing to control his laughter, immediately offered me one of his older models to “get me back in the sky”. After a tour of his vast modelling empire, I think his house was in there somewhere too, Steve emerged with a HobbyKing MXS. “First electric 3D machine I had,” he said, “don’t worry if you crash it, just bring back the RC gear”…  I was extremely grateful as, right at that moment, I had nothing but a bin liner full of broken up foam, half a propeller and some reconfigured electrics.
Back home I took a closer look at the MXS. The first thing I did was put my finger through the thin foam that covers a lite ply framework – Oops! After removing most of the grass cuttings, I realised Steve had left all the servos, ESC and Motor in situ! There was an additional and therefore somewhat conspicuous component that I couldn’t identify. It was a small PCB with one wire soldered into the LiPo battery connector and the other wire terminating in a receiver/servo style connector. Must be a gyro or something I thought and disconnected it. I put it carefully into a box of bits I’d managed to salvage from the WOT 4, taking out the old Spektrum AR610 receiver. Amazingly it still worked even after it’s high speed foray with the flying field. At least it was nothing that a bit of T-Cut wouldn’t polish out. Eager to see what worked, I randomly plugged the MXS servos into the WOT4 Spektrum receiver including the lead from the ESC which I duly plugged into the ‘thro’ skt. Can’t help but think servo, pushrod & carb but – Hey Ho…. Connecting up a 3s LiPo, still modelling a bit of patch mud, the expectation was high – very high. Sadly there was nothing. No lights, sound or smoke other than possibly a few bleats from the ESC. Back in the box it went whilst I gave it a good thinking! Several weeks passed until one day I went down to the patch, model less but looking for a chat and some inspiration. The wise owls sat down, drank coffee and thought about it then Steve said – that ESC doesn’t have a BEC, it’s separate. At least I think that’s what he said. Later on Google translated that and I realised the ‘gyro’ I’d put in the box was probably the standalone BEC (S/UBEC). Simples! With the Gyro, now BEC, reinstated and providing power to the receiver, everything burst into life. ‘My what big throws you’ve got’ I thought, even with the WOT 4 setup. This gave some of the servos something new to think about but otherwise progress – at last! I just needed to add a new model to my RadioMaster TX16S transmitter and configure it specifically for the MXS.   Just a quick job then I can get flying again….. The ‘add a new model button’ had gone into hiding on my transmitter. No matter, I’ll do it long hand and go through the menus I thought. No chance, I tried everything including using Companion and even overwriting the WOT 4 profile. Then one day that profile disappeared too, leaving me with what the internet delightfully seemed to describe as a ‘bricked’ transmitter. When I first learned about computers back in the dark ages, I used to create hex bytes and words from binary switches set using jumpers. One of those pointless academic activities that we all think we’ll never have to use again. Well what do you know, it turns out to be jolly useful when you try to ‘de-brick’ an Edge TX transmitter. Several weeks and many pause/rewind YouTube videos later I managed to reload the latest brains into my RadioMaster TX. Hurrah and lashings of Ginger Beer!  I have to say though, it’s since performed perfectly without even a hint of a hiccup. A new model was added, suitably called – 1066MXSwithGyro. The config includes Rates – 3 levels and 50% Expo. Steve kindly ‘maidened’ it with a 3S 2200 LiPo as that was all I had. It was like it recognised it’s owner and behaved impeccably. It was wheezing a bit – don’t we all. So I’ve since upgraded to a 4S 5000 LiPo which has changed things – quite a lot!
Good job I have 3 levels or rates and all that Expo to enjoy over 6 minutes of squeaky bum flying time. The wheels also squeak during the few feet it takes to get airborne. I did oil them, must be some grass in there somewhere! Thanks Steve and all the wise owls for getting me “back in the air” after the demise of my WOT 4. Thanks for that Dot, excellent stuff, and it’s good to know that 1066 does have some uses after all! I couldn’t help noticing that when you flew the MXS it seems to have come complete with ‘1066 throttle’…it appeared to be stuck fully open for most of the flight! Some of Dot’s first flight using the 5000mAh 4 cell pack can be seen in this month’s video.

One of just two completely new models that were brought out in November was an Arrows Bigfoot that had been purchased by Captain Slow several weeks ago but he hadn’t brought it out earlier as he was waiting for a day with good weather. The Bigfoot is a 1300mm span foamie that comes fitted with a 3536 850KV motor, a 30A speed controller, and 6 servos. This is what Captain Slow says about it: I wanted a model that could cope with the grass as we don’t, for understandable reasons, keep the Patch that short much of the time and most of my models have smallish wheels and struggle to take-off and land without tripping over. The answer was a “Bush Plane”. There are a number on the market: the XFly Tasman Bob has; the XFly Glastar Woody and Bob have; FMS Kingfisher; Durafly Tundra that Mini Mike has; Top RC S Cub and the Arrows Bigfoot; there are also some others that are silly money. I looked at lots of YouTube videos: the Glastar doesn’t have flaps; at 1500mm I felt the Tasman was a tad large; the Tundra didn’t appeal and the S Cub was, at the time £30 – 40 more, it also had a tow hook that I doubted I’d use.
So, based on this and the reviews plus price I opted for the Bigfoot and I knew the lights would just annoy Woody; I did remove the sequencer that flashed the nav lights.
The only confusion in the instructions was the control throw setting; one page advised one set whilst another page offered a different set; in the end I put both sets on as different phases. The gyro was very sensitive and I don’t think it can be adjusted so I didn’t use it after a brief trial. If you add flaps at too high a speed it balloons and I will correct that by adding a down elevator mix. It flies very slowly which is good because if you land without flaps the tyres are really solid and it does bounce.
Overall I’m very pleased with it. Thanks for that Captain Slow, it certainly looked to be flying very well and incredibly slowly when required. We’re going to have to consider changing your name to Captain Sloth! Of course the first flight is in this month’s video.

The other completely new model to fly this month was a P51B Mustang that Dwayne Pipe has built from a plan that is available as a free download from the Flite Test website.
Dwayne explains: The Mustang is designed for all the parts to be cut from two A1 sheets of 5mm foam board. By foam board designs this is quite complex, but there is a set of photos and guides to building the plane included with the plans. In this case I had all the components, so it didn’t cost me anything extra. (Apart from some silver spray paint).
All the external control surfaces are covered in clear packing tape, and the fuselage was sprayed silver and then covered in tape before assembly. My version deviated a little from the original design and ended up heavier than the prototype.

The main specifications are: Wingspan 762mm, dry weight 425 grams, all up weight 550 grams, motor 1000Kv, ESC 30A, battery 3 cell 1600mAh, and a 9″x6″ folding prop.
After the first flight there are some modifications to be made. Changing the prop size and adding extra side thrust for a start, this is still work in progress! Yes, the first flight was brief as the Mustang torque rolled hard left from the launch and ‘arrived’ rather heavily! 

Next up is some battery information from Dougal Entendre, something to think about next time you are thinking of buying some lipo packs at what seems to be good prices:
When I got my Wasp E2K racer at the Popham show in May, I needed some 4S packs with XT60 connectors to power it. I found some Nihewo 2200mAh packs rated as 100C on Amazon, and parted with about £42 for a pair of them. These proved to be very capable batteries, though I had to limit flight times of the Wasp to about 3 minutes if I really opened the taps for much of the flight.
Soon afterwards I got the HobbyKing Rare Bear, which also required 4S packs. The Nihewo ones proved ideal, but I really wanted more than just two, so I looked on Amazon once again. This time I found a pair of Zop Power 2800mAh 4S packs rated as 60C, at only £27.71 for the pair. I thought the extra capacity would be useful for the Wasp, but they were also small enough to fit the Rare Bear, so an order was duly placed.
Using the new packs in the Wasp, the plane seemed to perform just the same as with the smaller packs, so the 60C rating wasn’t a problem. However, I was disappointed to find that the Zop 2800 packs consistently came down with less capacity remaining than the Nihewo 2200 ones. It was the same story using them in the Rare Bear. Setting a 3 mins 30 second flight time, the Nihewo packs would come down with typically 53% remaining, but the Zop Power ones only showed about 20% or less on the tester.
When I charge from storage voltage to full, my chargers normally report putting at least 1300mAh into the Nihewo packs, but only 850mAh or so into the Zop Power ones. On Sunday I discharged one of the Zop packs from 97% down to 47% on the charger, and it reported that it only took 611mAh to do so! I don’t know how accurate these measurements are, but they certainly suggest the capacity of the Zop Power “2800” packs is a good deal less than that of the Nihewo 2200 ones.
These observations are borne out elsewhere. I found a buggy racing site with lots of negative comments, notably that the cells had been puffing up after only a few uses – often a sign of the packs getting discharged too low. I suppose the message is that “you get what you pay for”, so I won’t be buying any Zop Power packs again. Thanks Dougal.

This month the action shots are all screenshots from FPV videos by myself and Dougal:

Video time now, this month with footage shot by myself, Dougal Entendre, and MacFly. Please watch the video full-screen, it’s so much better with small models flying around:
If the video won’t play for you please click HERE

The Final Funny (provided by Dougal this month)
On reaching his plane seat a man is surprised to see a parrot strapped in next to him.
He asks the flight attendant for a coffee whereupon the parrot squawks, ‘And get me a coke, you cow!’ The attendant, upset, brings a coke for the parrot but forgets the coffee.
When this omission is pointed out to her, the parrot drains its glass and bawls  ‘And get me another coke dogface!’
Now, really upset, the girl comes back shaking with another coke but still no coffee.
Unaccustomed to such slackness from an attendant the man tries the parrot’s approach.
‘I’ve asked you twice for a coffee! Go and get it now, you old goat!’
The next moment both he and the parrot have been wrenched up and thrown out of the emergency exit by two burly stewards.
Plunging downwards the parrot turns to him and says:
‘For someone who can’t fly, you’ve got guts!’

Colin Cowplain