Patch News – October 2016

Autumn has certainly now arrived, and this month we’ve had a variety of weather including lots of wet and windy days. One windy Sunday morning only Woody and I turned up and, despite the strong winds, we both flew but then, spotting approaching rain, we retreated to the barn just in time. As you can see it absolutely chucked it down!The end of the month brought a mild spell which meant fog in the mornings that often delayed us for a while. This is Basher testing the density of the murk one midweek morning!We managed quite a bit of flying during October but, apart from the Kline Fogleman models, there seems to have been a lack of new models. I suppose I rather shot myself in the foot by doing a ‘special’ Patch News that covered the KF models as it has left me a little short of material but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Speaking of the KF models, I use our third bedroom as my model room, but when it came to building the new one there simply wasn’t any space so Doreen offered that I could use the second bedroom to store a couple of models for a week or two. This was the result. It’s lucky I don’t fly those dirty oily things nowadays!Fortunately, the KF club model was quickly built and I was soon able to move them all back to my usual room.I really must have a clear-out/sale! I consider myself very lucky that Doreen is so understanding.

So, the first of only three new models I spotted this month, other than the KF ones, was Chris P Bacon’s replacement for his Cougar 2000 that was damaged in a mid-air collision with Terribull’s new Fizza. Note my careful wording there, if you want to know more about the mid-air you’ll have to read Patch News September Part One! The Cougar 2000 was rather badly damaged in the collision and Chris P quickly replaced it with… a Cougar 2000.He obviously likes them a lot as this is actually his third one. I must say I always thought the Cougar was the best of a bunch of very similar models that emerged at round about the same time. Sadly Chris P reports that he preferred the old one! The new version has been modified with electric fliers in mind and features a ply plate that the battery sits on. Unfortunately, it seems as if the ‘conversion’ was designed by an I/C flier as the position of the ply plate means the wing has to be removed every flight to replace the battery! Previously, on the I/C version, Chris P simply cut a hatch under the nose and was able to swap batteries without removing the wing. Progress eh!Anyway, it flies just as well are the first one so he’s not too unhappy. Kryten captured the Cougar in action.

Chris P Bacon kindly sent me some photos he took during a recent trip to the Abingdon Jet Meet. There were certainly some beautiful models to see, my favourite is the F-16 but that Starfighter looks amazing as well. The Spektrum model seems to have wet itself…the poor thing was scared, someone told it it had to fly!

The second new model that appeared in October was this one of Basher’s although this isn’t really new, it’s a bitzer. Like Dougal Entendre previously, Basher has built a new balsa fuselage to replace the damaged Spirit one.Dougal calls his a Vignette and it features a V-tail so really just uses the Spirit wing and running gear. If anything, Dougal’s Vignette performs better than the original and I wonder if that’s a result of the new balsa fuselage being less flexible than the original.Basher obviously managed to write-off both a Spirit and an almost identical Kinetic, as his model sports a Spirit wing and a Kinetic tail. Perhaps it should be called a Kindred Spirit! Unlike the original Spirit/Kinetic that both feature an all moving tailplane Basher’s new version has a conventional fixed tailplane and a separate elevator. It also uses a fin and rudder from one or other of the ‘donor’ aircraft.The new fuselage is a bit bulkier than the original, it’s not as streamlined and is presumably a little heavier but it doesn’t seem to make much difference to the flying, it still performs well.

The other day I spotted this sticker sheet on the HobbyKing website for just 40p. I am very tempted to buy it and make an addition to one of Basher’s models while his back is turned one day!

Captain Slow has been happily flying his Art Tech Diamond 1100 for about 6 months and it’s proved to be a reliable performer. But a couple of weeks ago he was doing a low pass over the patch (Slowly of course!) and when he whacked the throttle open the propeller threw a blade. This meant the motor was rapidly gaining speed while spinning a very out of balance propeller, not good, and the resulting vibration ripped the whole nose clean off!I’ve previously seen motors tear their way out of the nose in similar circumstances but I’ve never seen the whole nose come off like this. We can only think that the prop must have suffered slight unnoticed damage in an earlier landing and the sudden throttle opening was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The fuselage damage isn’t too bad and no doubt Captain Slow will soon have it back in one piece, and he’ll fit a nice new balanced folding prop.

I featured Terribull’s Weekender Plus last month and mentioned that I thought it would be much nicer if it had an undercarriage rather than having to be hand launched and belly landed. The original Weekender plan shows an optional undercarriage but Terribull chose not to fit it, and when he scaled it up to the Weekender Plus he did the same. But now he’s seen sense and has fitted one (at last, someone listened to me!) and personally I think the plane is much better for it.When he was flying the other day there was a tendency for it to nose over on landing but it just needs the undercarriage legs to be bent forward a little and it will be perfect.

Stanley Knife is a regular visitor to the patch and he has always liked large models so it wasn’t unusual to seeing him struggling up to the patch with this monster.It’s not a new model and has featured in Patch News previously but it’s worth another mention. The model is 2160mm span (85”) and is designed to have a petrol engine fitted, something in the 26cc-35cc range, but of course Stanley has converted it to electric. The model came from HobbyKing but I notice that Jamara do a very nearly identical one that’s the same size so I think we know it’s origin.It flies on 10 cells (two five cell 5000mAH packs connected in series) and with 2.7kW of power available it’s dragged into the air very quickly indeed. Stanley normally flies it fairly gently and after a five minute flight he’s usually only used around 20% of the available battery capacity.

Stanley also brought this Spacewalker along one midweek day and again, it’s one we’ve seen before occasionally.This one is from Seagull Models and is 1580mm span (a mere 62”) and I think it flies on 5 cells. A lovely model and I believe Stanley said it was for sale so if you fancy a Spacewalker speak to Stanley (or Viv Burgess!).

The final new model to appear in October was well worth the wait. It’s been a long wait as Norwegian Nick’s wife bought him the Balsa USA kit of this beautiful Citabria Pro about twenty years ago.Nick says he started it about thirteen years ago and it’s been finished for four years but he’s been wondering about a suitable electric set-up. The model is 2032mm spam (80”), is covered in Solartex and is fitted with Hitech 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. For the first flight he used a 14” prop and the motor was pulling around 900W which was adequate but a little more would have been nice so I think he’s going to try a larger prop for the next flight. The model flew beautifully and some of the first flight can be seen in this month’s video at the end of this Patch News.

Recently, having become fed up with swapping receivers between models, I treated myself to some new ones. I use Multiplex radio and usually buy receivers online from Germany or Austria as it’s normally the cheapest way. I bought three because the cost took me over the minimum to get free postage and the total cost was just £78.30 delivered, not bad for three top quality receivers. The ones I bought this time were the RX-5 Light M-Link ones of which I already own several. The Light part means they are non-telemetry but I tend to only use telemetry in a few of my models so that’s not a problem. They are single receivers (some of the MPX ones are dual) and only have one aerial but they have proved to be totally reliable in all my models. One of the features I like about Multiplex radio is that you can bind the transmitter to a receiver and also set up the failsafe without having to touch the receiver at all, a useful feature when access to the receiver is not always easy. This is the case with my Saab JAS 39 Gripen (Griffin in English), a little 510mm span (20”) EDF model, the receiver is impossible to reach when it’s in the model.It’s mounted vertically in the duct, immediately behind the battery compartment, and when the battery is in place the speed controller pulls forward and sits on top of the receiver connectors with the aerial running past it.Now if that’s not a nightmare for the radio signal I don’t know what is, but it all works perfectly, good old Multiplex! Kryten took these cracking shots of it flying the other day.

Kryten also took these excellent photos of my Cri-Cri, Captain Slow’s MX2 and BFG glider, Dwayne Pipe’s Citabria, and someone’s Wingnetic, not sure whose but possibly 1066’s.

And finally, it’s time 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

An airline recently introduced a special half-price ticket for wives accompanying their husbands on business trips. Anticipating some valuable testimonials the PR department sent out letters to the wives of the businessmen who’d used the special rates asking how they had enjoyed their trip. Responses are still pouring in from angry wives asking “WHAT TRIP?”

Colin Cowplain