Patch News – September 2017

Well this Patch News is going to be a bit of an odd one due to holidays. I’ll start with some bits I missed at the end of August but I won’t be able to include the second half of September as I’m going away again. So this edition will be rather shorter than usual but on the plus side the October one should be a bumper edition as it will feature the unveiling and flying of this years’ club models, the Kung Fu’s. Did you spot the unintentional unveiling of Catapult King’s Kung Fu in the August Patch News? Check out the photos of his modelling room for a sneak preview.

What I missed at the end of August was the annual club barbecue on Sunday 27 August followed by more flying on the Bank Holiday Monday. Fortunately both Dougal Entendre and Kryten took some photos for me to use.Choosing the date of the barbecue is always a last minute decision as we have to consider the condition of the field as well as the weather. Fortunately at the end of August the field had been bullock free for long enough for most traces of them to disappear and George the farmer was happy to keep it clear of animals for a while. The weather forecast looked just about perfect so the date was fixed and members emailed. The short notice inevitably meant some (like me) couldn’t make it but on the day the turnout was pretty good. As predicted the weather was very good and I understand both the barbecue and the flying went well, apparently a good time was had by all.Congratulations and thanks are due to the people that did all the work to make it happen, mostly 1066 I believe.

As well as many old favourites several new models made their debut appearance at the barbecue and the first to feature is Woody’s FMS Minimoa which he purchased from Gliders Distribution of Newark.Dougal test flew it for Woody and it went well with no problems. Woody has since let me have a go with it, and I must say I was impressed. This is what the website says about it: As the newest addition to the FMS line, with a wingspan of 1500mm, this mid-sized glider is ideal for both beginning and advanced fliers. This plane comes with four installed servos, a 20 Amp ESC, and a brushless motor. The gentle flying characteristics, from low to high speeds, and the added advantage of a landing wheel, to help protect the foam, makes it a perfect choice for everyone. Simple construction makes assembly quick and easy, so you can get flying faster!I must admit that when Woody first mentioned his choice of glider I was a bit dubious; I thought it was too small and lightweight for his purposes, but having flown it I’ve changed my mind. It only uses a 2 cell lipo, in Woody’s case an E-Flight 1300mAh pack, but it goes very well and handles fairly blustery conditions with no problems.

Last month I included a photo of Dougal’s empty transmitter case at Buriton one evening. He said he’d simply forgotten to put the transmitter in but now I’m starting to think he’s lost it, as next time out he had a new one!It’s another Walkera deVention transmitter but this one is a Devo 10, his previous one being a Devo 12E. He actually has three deVention transmitters now so he’s quite a fan, they are well priced, have all the usual features and never seem to give him any problems. His excuse for buying the Devo 10 was that the Devo12E was too heavy. As well as being a ‘normal’ 2.4GHz 12 channel transmitter it also has a 32 channel 5.8 GHz FPV (First Person View) image receiver and a 5” full colour screen built into it so I suppose that lot does add a fair bit of weight. But Dougal uses a neck strap so I wouldn’t have thought the weight made too much difference, man up Dougal! As far as I can see the new Devo 10 is simply a 10 channel version of the same transmitter but minus all the FPV stuff. So far it’s performed perfectly and he seems very happy with it.

The first new model Dougal got to try out the Devo 10 on was his Lidl glider. Both Dougal and I bought gliders from Lidl a few months ago when they were one of the twice weekly ‘specials’ items.They are just an 850mm span moulded foam chuck glider for kids really but at £7.99 they were quickly snapped up by loads of RC fliers who realised it would be easy to fit them with radio gear. They have been a huge success and as well as featuring on various forums there is even a Lidl Glider Group Facebook page with over 700 members. They were available in various colours, this is my as yet untouched slime green and black one.There have been countless conversions done, some people have simply fitted two or three channel radio and turned them into slope soarers, but many have also added motors as well. I’ve seen just about every conversion possible including one with twin ducted fans! Dougal took the easy route and got his son Cameron to fit it out for him.He used 5 gram servos on ailerons, elevator, and rudder, and used a motor, speed controller, and folding prop from an old HobbyKing Spirit/Kinetic/Wingnetic. Cameron cut ailerons into the inner wing panels and elevators into both sides of the tailplane. The elevator servo is fitted into the bottom of the fin but the rudder servo is mounted just behind the wing. To stiffen the fuselage Cameron has added some 3mm carbon rod along the length. Dougal had to add 20gms of tail weight so it would be better to have the rudder servo at the rear with the elevator one and also mount the battery further back, but that might mean extra strengthening is required. Cameron used duct tape to cover up all the messy bits and tidy it up in general. It seems to fly well, not unlike a slightly larger and more docile Spirit. The only real problem is that it needs a lot of down-thrust on the motor, something not easily achieved, so I imagine Dougal will shortly be mixing some down elevator in with the throttle control. It can be seen flying in this month’s video at the end of this Patch News.

Catapult King has built a Sunbird from the HobbyKing laser cut kit and, as this was his first balsa model build, he used the kit parts as templates and cut his own replacements to use for the build.So now he not only has a very nice Sunbird, he also has a Sunbird kit. There has been lots of discussion about the wing and Catapult thinks it’s wrong and should have polyhedral but I’m not convinced, looking at the HK photo and others that have been built I think he’s wrong, he got it right! It seems to fly well enough anyway and he’s made a nice job of the building and covering so I think Catapult should be well pleased. The motor is a Turnigy 2830/1000kv connected to an HK 30A ESC and a 3 cell 1300maH Zippy Compact lipo. So far Catapult has been using a 7×4.5 folding prop but it’s a bit underpowered and is only drawing 9A so he’s going to try a 9×5. I think it’s probably going to be more suited to light winds rather than the strong ones we tend to get at Chidden Down but I’m happy to be proved wrong. You can see it flying in this month’s video.

At the first club meeting in September JP gave us a very interesting talk on photography. Club member JP has been a self-employed commercial photographer for around twenty years and hasn’t starved yet so he must be doing something right. The talk covered the basics principles of how and how not to take a decent photo whether you’re using a mobile phone, a compact, or an SLR camera. As well as covering the composition of the picture (being careful of what is in the foreground and background and focusing in the correct area) JP explained about balancing shutter speed and exposure. With all this in mind I snapped JP during his talk and think I covered just about everything he mentioned in this one shot, even including Captain Slow who was asleep by this time!Thanks JP, I think we all found it a useful and informative talk, hopefully my Patch News photos and videos will show some improvements in the future.

We were pleased to welcome back ex PAM member Alan Flux at a recent club meeting. Alan and his wife Pam emigrated to Australia several years ago but he has remained in touch with some of the club members and has visited us before. He took a Splot plan home with him at the end of his last trip to England and built one back in Australia. Apparently it flies inverted even better down under…Alan wanted a photo with his old buddies and the Squire snapped this shot of me (Colin Cowplain), Viv (Stanley Knife), Alan, and President Don, all long time PAM members.

This month the high quality flying shots are all from Kryten.

Time for this month’s video which this month begins with Norwegian Nick’s tiny Trojan: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

Q: What do you call it when you’re sick of being in the airport? A: Terminal illness.

Colin Cowplain