Patch News – September 2023

Autumn has definitely now arrived and the weather has changed hugely from the first week of the month when everybody was moaning about the heat, to wind and rain at the end of the month. Never mind, it’s pretty much as expected and club members did quite a lot of flying. Mowing continued throughout September with the supervisors outnumbering the workers as usual but as the weather grows colder the need for mowing will decrease.
The bullocks came and went but the only time they were really bothersome was when Chairman Gordon Bennett sent out an email to all members saying they were no problem at all. Who knew the bullocks could read and were even on the member list?!

I’ll begin with something away from the patch, the two day Popham Model Show which is run by the BMFA Southern Area. Popham Airfield is a great location for a model show with plenty of room for flying, trade stands, marquees for boat and train displays, a bring and buy section, and all the usual catering stands. There is free parking and the airfield is only 25 miles from Petersfield so it’s ideal for PAM members.
Last year the show was excellent with lots of displays by top pilots and a lot of trade stands to browse, the event was definitely growing in size and popularity so members were looking forward to an even better show this year. But sadly this time the show was a real disappointment to most of us. For some reason the organisers had changed the date and the chosen weekend clashed with other model shows at Headcorn and Much Marcle which meant that pilots and trade stands had to choose which event to attend and Popham lost out to the other more established shows. I went on the Saturday with Dougal Entendre and Leo and we bumped into several other PAM members and quite a few ex-members as well but all were saying the same thing, there were almost no trade stands to browse.
There were some very nice models being flown by some excellent pilots and overall the flying side of the show was pretty good but the assortment of models was much reduced from last year. One of the flying slots was for electric foamies and I think there were about a dozen in the air at once, maybe a few more, which was quite entertaining but I took offence to the commentator describing them as ‘ceiling tiles’!
I thought it was a bit odd to basically insult the sort of models that the majority of the spectators present probably fly every weekend. We don’t all want to fly large scale petrol models or turbines although we do enjoy seeing them at the shows. Dougal on the other hand found it rather amusing so maybe I was being over sensitive, those who know me will be aware that I’m a shy, introverted, easily upset sort of chap…
Young Leo was determined to spend some money at the bring and buy and eventually settled on a rather nice Salto electric glider, more of which later. The other club youngster Charlie was also hoping to bag a bargain but was sadly disappointed to find there was almost nothing left to buy when he arrived at around lunchtime. Charlie’s mum Nadine said it was good for her but bad for Charlie! So overall the show was a bit of a let-down for most of us, let’s hope that next year the organisers revert to a weekend that doesn’t clash with other events and it’s better attended by the traders.

There were a few new models flown in September and the first I’ll feature is Gordon Bennett’s MX2. Both Dougal Entendre and 1066 have one of these foamies and they are good, tough little models for practising 3D stuff without breaking the bank. Both of theirs came from HobbyKing but as the HK warehouse in the UK had closed Gordon had to scour the internet where he found one for sale in China and then waited 3 months for it to arrive.
Needless to say no sooner had the model arrived than HobbyKing announced the opening of a new UK warehouse and one of the items on special offer is the MX2! But it’s on back-order and not due until the end of October so maybe Gordon got it right after all.
This is what Gordon says: I’ve watched Dougal and 1066 do amazing things with their MX2s and decided I wanted a piece of the action. I know I can’t fly it like them, but they do seem to have a lot of fun with quite an inexpensive model so I tracked one down. It’s an interesting beast, mainly foam and foam sheet over some balsa reinforcing. It’s light of course and I think this helps it take the inevitable knocks. I had a look at Dougal’s model as mine arrived with no instructions and I wanted to check how he’d set his up. Massive control throws seemed to be the answer. He’s got specially extended servo arms that give huge deflections. I didn’t think I’d need all that to start with so just went with the biggest servo arms I could find in my spares box. The kit only takes a couple of hours to put together, it’s basically glue in the wings, tailplane and control surfaces. I got the servos, powertrain etc. as a bundle and things seem ok so far. For those that like to know what’s under the bonnet it’s an 1100Kv motor, 10×4.7 prop, 40A esc and 3S 1600 lipo. Dougal tells me I’ve fitted the ‘slow flight’ prop, news to me. I played around with where to fit the receiver (superior Spektrum since you ask) battery and esc and didn’t really come up with a suitable answer. Dougal said he’d had to do a lot of hollowing out to fit a 2200mAh lipo. Without any hollowing there was enough space for my 1600 lipo but then nowhere for the esc, so I decided to leave it dangling and post it into the canopy, which is then held in place by a tongue and a couple of magnets. It’s a bit fiddly but seems OK. 
The first flight (Friday) went surprisingly well all things considered. The wheels are tiny and on a flimsy bit of wire so I didn’t even bother trying to roll off the patch and went for a hand launch instead. I’d dialled in 55% expo and max throws. She needed a bit of elevator trimming and that was it. Inverted needs a tiny push. Knife edge will take a bit of getting used to as I don’t need much throttle and only a little rudder. It’s all very different from my Acrowot. While packing up and chatting to Dougal I suddenly realised I’d connected to the outer hole on the elevator control horn so wasn’t getting maximum throw. This needed to be sorted at home as I needed to ream out the correct hole. So, second flight was on Sunday was with new and improved elevator throw. When I say ‘improved’ I should perhaps say terrifying and near uncontrollable. I limped around the circuit with huge altitude and pitch changes even though I was only breathing on the stick. With sweat dripping off my brow, I landed ASAP and dialled in some throw reduction and more expo. This has made it flyable, but I’ll need to try a few more tweaks as I learn to fly it. I have absolutely no idea how to do all the spinning, humpy bump etc., malarkey but I’ll still have fun trying to master a four-point roll. There is definitely a long way to go.  Gordon was kind (stupid?) enough to let me have a flight with the MX2 and I found it to be a good flying model that’ll do whatever the pilot wants it to do. I’m not really into 3D like Dougal and 1066 but found I could knife-edge and prop hang it fairly easily so I’m sure Gordon will quickly get into all that stuff. If you’d like one for yourself HobbyKing are listing it in the UK warehouse at a back-order price of just £64.86 at the time of writing but you will have to wait until the end of the month, maybe longer.

Speaking of Gordon, towards the end of the month I was innocently flying my beautiful Hornet carefully around the sky, minding my own business, when Ghastly Gordon decided to smash his manky old Mig-29 straight into the Hornet! And then, just to rub salt into the wounds, he did a victory roll overhead while I was picking up all the pieces. Nasty man!
Mind you I found two videos this month which prove beyond doubt that we’re all rubbish at flying these things. I’ve combined them both so take a look, it’s less 40 seconds long:

As I’ve said above HobbyKing have announced the opening of a new UK warehouse this month after pulling out of the UK back in October 2021. They say the reason is that the guy who started the company many years ago was taking a step back and wasn’t willing to invest in new products etc. but now some new investors have come along and are pushing development of projects that had been shelved and are expanding the whole set-up. Although the UK warehouse is already open there is currently virtually no stock but they are taking back-orders and much of it is at very good sale prices. A container is due to arrive mid-October so they are saying orders will be sent out towards the end of October.
As soon as I saw the offers I jumped in and quickly ordered 3 x 3 cell 60C 2200mAh lipos and 3 x 4 cell 60C 2200mAh lipos which cost just under £70. HobbyKing work in dollars so although prices are shown in GDP the actual amount you pay will alter slightly with the currency conversion on the day the payment goes through. My order for six lipos showed at £67.93 on the order but was £69.87 on my credit card statement so be aware the price will alter slightly, sometimes up, sometime down. I suppose there is a slight risk with back-ordering from a company that has almost zero stock but at those prices I decided it was a risk worth taking. Hopefully by the time I write the next Patch News I’ll be able to tell you that my order has arrived. Over the years there has been a lot of controversy over HobbyKing, some people hate them and complain constantly about lack of customer service etc. but others (including me) have had few problems and on the rare occasion I’ve needed to deal with their Customer Services I’ve always been sorted out quickly and fairly.

In September Mini-Mike treated himself to a very nice L-39 Albatros from Arrows Hobby.
That’s the same company that manufactures the Red Arrows Hawk that Mike already flies and the Vipers that Gordon and 1066 both fly regularly. Arrows Hobby also produce the T-33 Shooting Star that Chas owns although I’ve only seen that fly once so far.
All of these models feature the same 50mm fan and 2627 4500kv motor so should have a similar performance with only the ducting and drag on the airframe making a difference. Mini-Mike’s Albatros flies very well although he says it’s not as fast as his Red Arrows Hawk, presumably because the fuselage is not as sleek. It comes fitted with the fan, motor, 30A esc, 3 digital servos and unlike the others in the range, a 6 axis gyro. It looks great in the air, very smooth and scale-like, no doubt helped by the gyro,. You can see it in this month’s video. There is also a 50mm fan Avanti coming from Arrows Hobby…tempting!

On 23^rd September Dougal and I went down to Lee-on-Solent to watch a flying display along the seafront. It was part of the Lee Victory Festival, a ticketed three day event that took place on Solent Airport, formerly HMS Daedalus. The Saturday morning had perfect flying conditions and we were able to park up easily and find a prime spot to watch the display which began with a Fairey Swordfish, part of the Royal Navy Historic Flight.
After displaying for a few minutes it was chased off by a Messerschmitt Bf108 which then did its own display. But then a Spitfire roared in and gave chase until the pilot managed to shoot the 108 which then trailed lots of smoke before disappearing over the channel.
Then a Hurricane joined the victorious Spit and they displayed together for the finale. 

Dougal and I both filmed some of the action and I’ve made the footage into a short video:

As I said earlier young Leo bought himself a second-hand Salto at the Popham Model Show bring and buy. If I remember correctly he paid £80 for it which seems good for a largish electric glider that’s complete and ready to fly. It was built from a Wik kit and I’ve scoured the internet for some information but found very little. Apparently it’s an H-101 Salto (Loop) and Wik produced the kit in about 1975 so it’s pretty old.
It is 2.3M span and has a fibreglass fuselage and sheeted built-up wings. I don’t think they made an electric version so presumably Leo’s has been converted and it has been fitted with a high Kv motor and a small folding prop. It looks very smart and, as you can see in this month’s video, it flies well so it was definitely a good purchase.

Woody also bought himself an electric glider in September but he bought a new one, a Max Thrust Aggressor Sport. There’s already several of these in the club and they are excellent performers, they are good for aerobatics, will fly in strong winds, and glide pretty well. Woody bought his from Model Shop Leeds where their website says this: The Aggressor range of gliders offers high performance in more ways than you think. They have great high-speed stability both under power and also on the glide. Constructed from our new super smooth EPOFLEXY with carbon spars in the wings and fuselage giving a very strong airframe. The Aggressor Sport is at home both on the field or the slope where with the high-performance brushless power system you can either hunt out the lift or power through F3A style aerobatics. The model features high-speed servos throughout and even has a metal geared one on the all-moving tail to give you a very precise and accurate tail. With a 1.5 metre wingspan using a 3 cell 2200mAh pack you will be able to get the model into pretty much any car easily. If you really want to extend the ability of the Sport why not order up the Thermic wing extension to extend the wingspan by an additional 600mm to transform the model into 2.1 metre thermal hunter. Chas bought the Thermic wing extension for his Aggressor but I don’t think I’ve seen it fly with the extension in place. 1066 has a Max Thrust Lightning, the predecessor of the Aggressor so he was ideally suited to do the trimming flight for Woody and he had no problems at all.

Bob the Builder was lucky enough to have a flight in a microlight early in September after a visitor to the field turned out to own one and offered Bob a flight that evening.
Here’s Bob’s report: Sunday morning I went to fly my models not knowing that 12 hours later I would be in the air myself! I tried hang-gliding 50 years ago and gave up after 2 crashes. It was completely uncontrolled then and quite risky, things have changed a lot since then. Proper flexible wings have been developed along with reliable engines have been used to produce modern Microlights making the whole thing a lot safer.
You can see from the pictures that the only flight controls are a control bar in front of the pilot and a throttle control. Moving the bar shifts the weight of the fuselage relative to the wing, side to side for turns, forward and backward for up and down.
Really simple and very little to go wrong. It was perfect conditions, dry, warm and no wind. After a suitable briefing by my excellent pilot, Julian James, I got in the back seat strapped in, put the helmet on and checked the intercom was working. After running the engine to get the temperature and pressure correct we taxied out to the runway opened the throttle and we were away in a south westerly direction for a 54 minute flight. The route look us over Winchester Hill, over the M27, down to the coast, over the Solent to Ryde on the Isle of Wight, back to Portsmouth, up the A3 to Butser, then to Stroud and over my house, before heading north west back to the landing field and a safe landing.
I was amazed at how safe I felt, there was never a moment’s anxiety. Views were magnificent and a wonderful feeling of freedom to move in 3 dimensions, just like a bird. Would I do it again, yes please! So if ever you a chance for a Microlight flight go for it. Bob sent me photos and lots of film so I’ve made an edited highlights version of the video:
If you want to see the whole flight filmed by Julian’s on-board camera you’ll find it HERE

Now for some action photos, this month with a few of Kryten’s great photos from August:

Video time now, this month with footage by myself, MacFly, and Dougal. 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

I was sick on my flight to Munich with Lufthansa last week, I blame the airline food.
It was the wurst…

Colin Cowplain