Patch News – September 2013

I’m afraid I’m a little late again with Patch News mainly because of lack of time but partly because I was short of material. This was because I haven’t been flying as much as usual, mostly due to personal commitments. The last Sunday in September was typical, we had grandson Luke stopping for the weekend and the forecast wasn’t promising so I was almost resigned to not flying.  I looked out at 9.30am, hmm… windy… overcast, with drizzle in the air. Shall I, shan’t I? Decision made, stop home, and earn some brownie points. Needless to say I spent the whole morning watching the weather brightening and the wind dropping…typical!
I said was short of material because the first Sunday in October was glorious weather, bright and sunny with very light winds.  This meant there was a really good turnout and some exciting developments to report on.
 
Mike Smith turned up a few weeks ago with a new EDF, a Phase 3 Squall. Some of you may remember Wonky Wiltshire flying a 4 cell one a while back but it was incredibly noisy and we banned it! But Mike’s is the 3 cell version rather than the 4 cell and it wasn’t at all noisy. It flew very well and although obviously not as fast as the 4 cell version it was pretty quick, I liked it a lot. “Give us a go mister!”
 
September seemed to have more than its fair share of mid-airs, and not the ‘expected’ ones that occur occasionally during combat with the little EPP models.  The first, and the most serious, was between Bob Hill’s all foam Yak 54 and the Edge 540 of Multiple Models Montague.  The models were both just doing their own thing and flying totally independently when they unexpectedly collided. Sometimes when there are several models in the air pilots are aware the models are close to each other but this time neither was aware of the other.  Both models stayed under control, Bob’s lost its undercarriage but belly landed safely.  Steve’s Edge was under control but obviously having problems. It sounded odd and was flying erratically. But Steve managed to get it down on the patch safely and then we could all see the problem!
    Bob’s undercarriage must have hit the left hand wingtip and pushed the whole wing rearward so it says a lot about the strength of the model that it stayed in one piece. Note  the damage to the wooden prop which caused the odd sound. I believe Steve has now successfully repaired it so all turned out well.
The other mid-air was between Gentleman Jim’s E-Flight Pulse and my little combat HK Mustang.  I said in the last Patch News that my Mustang had completed 150 flights…far too smug apparently! On flight number 170 with only me & Jim in the air, each minding our own business and with neither of us being aware we were anywhere near the other, there was a sudden bang!  Fortunately Jim’s Pulse carried on flying, although the motor was making odd noises, and he was able to land safely. It turned out that the impact with my P51 had broken the prop on the Pulse and the imbalance had torn the motor off the mount, but it was otherwise undamaged. Sadly the little Mustang didn’t fare so well, the collision being immediately followed by the dive of death! There were pieces of foam scattered over a wide area and although we managed to retrieve them all the wreckage was really beyond worthwhile repair. Luckily all the powertrain and radio gear was undamaged, even the prop survived, so I decided to just order another one. It had served me very well and was great fun to fly so I didn’t really begrudge sending HobbyKing another £36 odd.  The replacement went together better than the first one and is now flying well.  Obviously the whole event was 100% Gentleman Jim’s fault and he will now be known as Hooligan Hobday!
  
Speaking of nickname changes, Multiple Models Montague seems to have stopped buying new models every week (mainly because he very rarely damages them these days).  He was a very useful source of material for Patch News as I could always rely on him bringing several new planes to the patch every month. However, it turns out Steve has other uses; he has a seemingly endless supply of cyano and kicker if someone has the misfortune to break something. It’s become something of a joke at the patch that Steve is the first person to turn to when repairs are needed and he’s always happy to oblige. So MMM has morphed into Cyano Steve!
 
I haven’t mentioned Keith Evans’ late model Spitfire for a while. Keith has flown the model regularly and it’s undergone a few changes over the last year or so. He has tried a variety of undercarriage ‘systems’, ranging from none at all (looks good in the air but needs a decent chuck and belly landing), through fixed (good for take-off and landing but looks wrong in the air), to an ingenious ejecting dolly system (takes off, then the undercarriage is spat out by springs, model belly lands).  It’s suffered its fair share of damage during a few ’unscheduled arrivals’ but it has always re-emerged to fly again. Keith plans to up the cell count to 4 shortly as he feels it’s a bit marginal on power. I recently snapped this rather grainy photo of the Spit during a low pass.

 
Following the departure of Ian Hewlett the club has been left with just me as a BMFA Examiner.  Having only one examiner means the club would be unable to take any B certs without calling in someone from another club so Chairman Ron asked Mark Agate to take on the task. To become an examiner Mark needs to demonstrate he can fly the B cert schedule to a high standard and that means having an aircraft that can take-off. None of the electric models that Mark is currently flying have an undercarriage so he decided to resurrect a 33 year old I/C model he had stashed away.  I forget what the model is but it’s powered by a Meteor 40 with an 11 x 7 prop and the radio is DigiFleet 35meg.  We all thought it sounded noisy when it was being noise tested but the loudest reading was only 78.4dB, much much quieter than the regulation 82dB. I suppose it just goes to show how used we have become to electric powered models; I think Gary is now about the only regular I/C flier we have.  Anyway the model flew fine and I started talking Mark through the manoeuvres he needs to perfect. But after a few minutes the plane decided it didn’t like being told what to do and intermittently did its own thing! Luckily Mark was able to get it down safely and of course the radio was working perfectly on the ground.

There was lots of muttering about DodgyFleet and I think the set is going to be retired.  Interestingly Mark was involved with DigiFleet many years ago, doing some of their computer programming for the PCM system I believe. He’s giving us a talk about it one club night soon, should be an entertaining evening, I’m sure nobody will mention the problems!
 
With plenty of combat Mustangs present Wonky managed to convince four pilots to have some combat fun. Streamers were fitted and Wonky, Woody, and Tony and I took to the air. I was lucky and managed to take Tony’s streamer clean off as we climbed away from the launch, and it caught round my tail so I had two streamers! Shortly afterwards Wonky cut Woody’s streamer off in all the mayhem. I’m not too sure exactly what happened next as I was careering round the sky with the others but I saw Wonky’s plane suddenly dive into the deck. With the extra drag of streamers the little planes become slightly less agile and I think Phil just got caught out. There was little damage and it was soon repaired with an application of cyano. I got all cocky and did a low slow pass to show off my two streamers, at which point John Wheeley leapt into action and caught one of the streamers! I think it must have been the one that was tied to the tail as the model stopped dead and plonked into the grass.  But there was no damage so I just removed the offending streamer and chucked it back into the air. Loads of fun for all involved.
 
New member Dan (sorry, don’t know Dan’s surname yet) brought two models along on Sunday, a Wot 4 Foam-E and a HobbyKing Walrus. No I’d never heard of it either. It’s a fairly standard 1.4M span EPO foam electric glider although unusually it’s fitted with flaps. But the interesting thing about Dan’s is that he’s fitted it up with an FPV (first person view) system. This is a first for PAM so we were keen to see how it worked.
 
Now when Dan first came to the field he said he was a heli flier and had got an electric glider but needed to be taught how to fly it. I did hear the words ‘ringer’ and ‘hustler’ being bandied about; he didn’t seem to need much help to me! Anyway I flew the Walrus first while Dan wore the FPV goggles. The plane flew very well indeed and the FPV seemed to work pretty well although the prop was causing the usual lines in front of the camera.  The lens was apparently infrared which made the ground look as if there was a heavy frost although the sky was blue. Dan is going to change it to a normal lens that has a wider angle, which should improve it no end.

Unfortunately I didn’t get a photo of Dan wearing the goggles, only Wonky Wiltshire. But when you see him you’ll realise why a large heavily built guy with a beard called Dan can only be known as Desperate Dan. We’ll have to keep an eye on him when the farmer puts cattle back in the field, we don’t want Desperate Dan going for cow pie!
 
A man walks into a pub and says to the barman “Have you got any helicopter flavoured crisps?” The barman shakes his head and says, “No, we’ve only got plain.”             Oh stop groaning…
 
Colin Cowplain