Patch News – September 2021

We had a bit of an Indian summer in September with some lovely days of sunshine and light winds. This came as a real treat following the very poor July and August weather and it brought out lots of members to fly. The patch was cut regularly, mostly on Friday afternoons by the Farts but also a couple of times by Page Boy and Richard Osborn who managed to get the grass nice and short by mowing on dry and sunny afternoons.

Chas started strimming around the very overgrown parking areas but found something more manly was required so Stanley Knife used his brush cutter to finish it all off.
So thanks to all the workers for their efforts we can now park more easily and fly even small wheeled models off the patch without any problems. In the middle of the month the bullocks returned but they are used to us now and tend not to be too much of a problem.

At the end of August, just too late for the last Patch News, young Charlie took and passed his BMFA ‘A’ certificate test. Charlie had taken his Registration Competency Certificate the previous week which simplified the theory part of his ‘A’ test so following the successful flight the examiner, Dougal Entendre, asked questions from the BMFA Safety Code and the PAM club rules after which he was happy to present Charlie with his certificate.
Charlie has since has lots of ‘solo’ flights and proved himself worthy of the certificate.
With the bullocks in the field several of Charlie’s landings have taken place with the fence partially erected and he has consistently landed safely back on the patch and avoided the fence, something several others have failed to do! Well done Charlie, happy landings.

Basher Bob has built himself a foamboard SU-57 which is a copy of the one that Woody bought from Banggood and has been flying successfully for quite a while.
Like Dwayne Pipe’s Sea Vixen Basher’s Sukhoi is made of foamboard purchased from Hobbycraft but with the paper covering removed by soaking it in warm water for five minutes. The paper is heavy and doesn’t like wet grass so for our purposes it’s better to soak it off. The bare foam is rather flexible so Basher has added small pieces very thin plywood to areas of high stress and the resulting airframe is now both light and strong. The motor is an 1800KV 2212 Racestar from Banggood spinning a 7×5 prop. Basher says he’s been running these motors for some time in his other models and has never had any problems despite his many attempts to bury them! He is also using Racestar 9g servos, a 30A esc and flies the Sukhoi with 2200mAh 3s batteries. The model flies very well, just like Woody’s original in fact. I’ve had a go with it and like most of the other foamboard models it will happily fly both quickly and slowly and doesn’t have any nasty tendencies.

Unfortunately Basher discovered the hard way that care is needed when launching the mid-engined foamboard models, it’s very easy to catch the prop with your fingers or in Basher’s case his wrist. The wound was pretty deep and required four stitches but would have been much worse had the prop hit a vein or artery. I know a few of us have caught our sleeves when launching but this incident really brought home the danger. Part of the answer is to hold the model as far forward as possible, not just in front of the motor which is the natural holding place because of the balance point. Basher now wears a wrist guard when launching, a sensible precaution that maybe others should consider trying.
I happened to be videoing when the incident occurred and you can see it (and hear it) in this month’s video. The rest of the flight in the video is actually a later flight as Basher (or should he now be known as Slasher?) had to land immediately because of the injury. 

At the end of last month Chas sent me some information about a lovely little E-flite clipped wing J-3 Piper Cub that he’d just bought. This is what he says about it: I bought this model which had been crushed before it had ever been flown from a PO at HMS Sultan.
I managed to straighten the fuselage and add some doublers to the formers from underneath therefore all the covering on top is original. It has 4 HiTec HS-35 HD servos. The powertrain comprises an E-flite Park 250 2200 Kv motor and 10amp ESC powered by a 2s 450mAh battery. The propeller is a 7×4 APC item. The receiver is a 4 channel DMSS Park Flyer sourced from China. Range check at 50 feet in my garden was OK. Wingspan is 30 1/2″ and the all up weight is 289 grams although the 850mAh 2s batteries from my Mini Wot4 will fit without hardly altering the C of G and only adding 16 more grams. I just need to re-cover the fuselage underside and wait for some calmer weather for the test flight. The wings should be glued to the fuselage but mine are held to the fuselage by aluminium buttons connected to each other via an elastic band.
The heads of the buttons slide into the root ribs through a keyhole shaped slot. The wing load is taken by a carbon-fibre tube that passes through the fuselage and approximately 4″ into each wing. This configuration allows the model to be stored/transported in the original box.
Having completed the covering on the fuselage underside Chas brought the Cub up to the field one midweek morning when the forecast promised light winds.
The model is sold as a park flyer and is only suitable for light winds which are something of a rarity at our field. That particular morning was pretty calm but probably not as calm as Chas would have liked for the test flight. He was also slightly concerned about the range of the cheap Chinese park flyer receiver but the low power range check seemed fine so he went ahead and flew. The little Cub certainly struggled a bit in the wind, it is definitely a calm weather model, but Chas managed several minutes of flying without too much of a problem. We think that at one stage it was right at the edge of the range but Chas brought it back closer again and all was well but he’s going to swap the receiver for a full range one. As Chas has made the wings detachable for transport I imagine he’ll be taking it on holidays and flying it on very calm evenings which should suit it perfectly.

I thought some of the calm September days were perfect for Hummer flying and several other members obviously thought the same as one midweek morning four showed up!
On days with light winds Hummers are perfect models for practising prop hanging but I wouldn’t say they are good for very much else. Although they are extremely aerobatic they can be quite odd to fly ‘normally’ and windy days are most certainly not a good idea.

After years of sticking to I/C engines Gorgeous Gary seems to be coming round to the advantages of electric flight and has recently converted his Cougar to 2000 to electric.
He’s fitted a Roxxy 4250/06 800kv outrunner motor along with a suitable speed controller and is using 4 cell lipos in the 2800-3300mAh range.  He’s also added some air inlets.
Gary says the model needed a lot of lead under the nose to obtain the correct C of G and having to remove the wing to swap batteries is a pain but otherwise all seems good.
He flew the Cougar in September and found it had plenty of power and flew as well as ever. You can judge for yourselves as some of the first flight is in this month’s video.

Gary says he has also managed to get hold of an IC/EP Wot-4, I’m not sure if he means that it’s a brand new one or if he was able to pick up a second-hand one. Anyway he’s fitted that out with electric power as well, using a 40 size 800kv motor so Gary will be able to use the same batteries as the Cougar and should also have loads of power.
As you can see he’s used stand-off spacers to mount the motor, presumably to bring the prop forward enough to fit the cowl. Mounting the Cougar motor in a similar fashion would probably remove the need for some or maybe even all of the lead in the nose.

Fancy an Arrows Hobby P-51 Mustang? Well with the success of his Arrow Hobby Marlin ducted fan model so did Mini-Mike so he splashed the cash and waited for the postman. He says he was a little disappointed when it came as the quality didn’t seem as good as the Marlin but he soon got it all sorted and ready for flight. Everything went well on the first flight, the Mustang flew beautifully and didn’t appear to have any vices. It’s in the video.
Mini-Mike’s first landing was a real greaser and he returned to the pits a happy chappy.

After a long lockdown absence Stanley Knife finally returned to flying in September.
But he hasn’t been idle, he has been busy building a DB Models Expo Eighty. Stanley has always liked larger models and this one is 80” (2032mm) wingspan. The DB Models website says: A cabin type model with spats, Lovely flier and a real joy to build. Ideal for aero towing, piggy backing, etc.  Unfortunately Stanley’s turned out not to be a real joy to build as he had problems with hanger rash before he’d even covered it. He’d carefully stood the newly completed (but as yet uncovered) wings up at the end of his shed when a large spirit level fell over and took out a row of six wing ribs! Undeterred Stanley made the necessary repairs and carried on to complete the model. He has fitted a 4248 490W motor coupled to an 80A speed controller and is powering it with a 4 cell lipo battery.
The all up weight of the model is only around 5lbs so there should have been plenty of power but, as you can see in the video, on the maiden flight the take-off run wasn’t exactly rapid. Sadly as Stanley struggled to gain a little height the model flicked inverted and crashed at which point Stanley was heard muttering things like “Oh dear” and “Oops”…at least I think that was what he said. The damage didn’t initially appear to be too bad but I don’t think Stanley will be in any hurry to repair it.

Once again Kryten has taken some excellent flying shots for us and it seems only fitting for the first one to be of his Max Thrust Riot. Flying and photographing…too clever by half!

Time now for the video which includes footage by me, Dougal Entendre, and Captain Slow. 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 girl at the Airlines check-in desk just threatened me! She looked me straight in the eyes and said “Window or aisle?”
I laughed in her face and replied “Window or you’ll what…?”

Colin Cowplain

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5 Responses to Patch News – September 2021

  1. Pageboy says:

    Another cracking patch news Colin.
    Good to see lots happening.
    Enjoyed that one..

  2. Bob Hill says:

    Surely that motor in Stanley Knife’s DB Expo 80 should pull about 900watts not 490.

    • Colin-Cowplain says:

      Well I agree Bob but that’s what Stanley told me. I also think it weighs more than 5lbs…

    • Pageboy says:

      Yes I agree something not right there. my wotty originally had a 4248 800kv motor on 4cells which pulled 950watts. Sad to see it end like that.

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