Patch News – September 2025

I was away for two weeks near the start of the month and from what I hear most of what I missed was rain. The UK summer had been incredibly dry with record lows of rainfall so I suppose more rain than usual in September was not unexpected. Since I returned the weather had been good, many days have been dry with lots of clear skies and sunshine, but rain stopped play on the last Sunday of the month so it was time for beverages in the barn.
It’s now officially autumn so, as we head towards winter, our flying opportunities will decrease but no doubt many PAM members will still make the effort to fly regularly.
With the rain, the grass greened up nicely but of course it also grew a lot. As the patch grass became too long for many models Woody and 1066 took it upon themselves to go up one morning to mow and found it took two cuts as it had grown so long. Cutting the entire patch twice is a lot of work for two people and is something that we must ensure doesn’t need doing again. Huge thanks to them both for the hard work, we are very grateful.

There seems to have been a lack of new models flown in September, the only completely new model I spotted was Woody’s foamboard F-16 Fighting Falcon that he’s decorated very nicely in the colour scheme of the USAF Thunderbirds aerobatic team.
The model was built from a plan published on rc.tomhe.net, a site that has plans for several similar foamboard models including the Eurofighter Typhoon that Woody has already built and which flies very well. The F-16 has a wingspan of 720mm, is 1180mm long, and Woody has fitted a 2212 2450KV motor controlled by a 40A speed controller. The F-16 differs from most of the foamboards that have been built by club members in that it has a rear mounted pusher motor rather than the usual mid-mounted motor. For Woody the F-16 has been a very radical departure from his usual builds, no, not because of the rear mounted motor, but because on this one he hasn’t fitted any lights, not a single one!
The original construction is for the model to be built from Depron but, as is much more usual for PAM members, Woody has built his using Hobbycraft foamboard. This is 5mm thick and consists of a dense foam core sandwiched between sheets of white paper and comes in A1 size (841mmx594mm). At just £12 for four sheets it’s a very economical building material. If required the paper can be removed by soaking in warm water which has the advantage of making the board lighter (but also weaker) but this also highlights a problem. If the paper covering is left in place there’s a tendency for it to lift if the model is left on wet grass for too long, a waterproof mat is required! As the Thunderbirds colour scheme is largely white Woody has left the paper in place but has taped the cut edges of the board to seal them and hopefully prevent any peeling. The designer says that the F-16 can be flown using tailerons only but the ailerons are also marked on the plan and Woody originally built his with two servos, with each servo driving one elevator and one aileron.
This seems a strange set-up but lots of foamboard models use this method and it works well. Unfortunately, in a rush to finish the plane, Woody’s linkages weren’t running freely enough and we didn’t want to risk a test flight with them like that. After a general discussion the consensus amongst those present was to disconnect the ailerons and rely solely on the tailerons, something that Woody was able to do at the field.
The first flight attempt showed there wasn’t enough movement so changes were made. The next try was much better and the F-16 flew reasonably well for a couple of minutes. After more adjustments the third flight was much more successful and the plane flew well and looked good in the air but needed more roll control, so Woody took it home and added two servos and aileron linkages so it now has separate controls for the elevators and ailerons.
Next time out the F-16 flew beautifully, a great improvement and fully under control. Dougal filmed the first three flights goes so you can see them in this month’s video. At the moment I don’t have any footage of it flying with the ailerons connected, hopefully I can include some next month. Well done Woody, after a few hiccups Thunderbirds Are Go! Yes, I know that expression was the puppet Thunderbirds not the aerobatic team but…!

Sticking with TV for a minute, here’s a Star Trek quote: It’s building Jim, but not as we know it… it’s 1066 building a building board. Following his build of the twisted Blink that featured last month 1066 realised that he needed a building board that was actually flat:
My wife has never been in our loft, but is adamant she knows everything that is up there so I often find myself crawling around, looking for things that have been thrown away years ago. On one such occasion recently I came across a large piece of chipboard, and an old piece of flat pack furniture which must have been there since we moved in, some 26 years ago. You’re probably thinking, what has this got to do with toy planes? Well, with my newly discovered enjoyment of building, I had been thinking of making a building board for some time, so, by chance I had found some of the material needed.
The construction was straightforward, the sheet material from the loft was squared up leaving as much useable area as possible, the frame and cross bracing (parts from an old airing cupboard shelf I was given) was then glued and screwed to the chipboard.
Because the chipboard was not moisture resistant, and because it will be stored in the garage, all the internal parts were coated with some old varnish.
The piece of Conti board (that’s Melamine faced chipboard to us non-woodworkers) was left slightly longer and screwed to the framework, this would be the bottom of the board and also create the bottom of a small trough at one end. I took a lot of care to make a flat building surface, clamping the board down when gluing and screwing, however when it was all dry, and I put it on the bench, building surface face down, the whole thing was rocking, very disappointing. Further investigation found the chipboard had got wet at some time in its life and had a swollen in the middle, something I hadn’t noticed. Fortunately the fix was straightforward utilising a belt sander and spirit levels. The trough at the end is used to store my glue bottle, and it’s also very handy for catching offcuts of balsa etc. Up to now I hadn’t spent any money, but I needed something on the building surface able to take a pin, traditionally this would be cork, but that would mean spending money! So I eventually used some Hobbycraft art card that I already had, so still no money spent :-). Next, a small piece of sacrificial ply was added to use as a cutting area, this is only pinned on, so it can easily be replaced as and when necessary.
Finally, a handle was made from an old handbag shoulder strap, so it will be easier to carry indoors to continue building when it’s too cold out in the shed. I get a lot of pleasure making things from stuff that would often have been thrown away and, as I mentioned at the start, some of the materials used will be over 26 years old. They have now been used to make something that should be flat and useable long after I’m gone.
Having built the board 1066 thought he’d better build a plane, so here’s a preview of his latest model, an Electro Streak that he’s building from the Great Planes discontinued kit.
It’s looking good so far, let’s hope it’s not twisted! More on the Electro Streak next month.

Mini Mike has repaired his Arrows Hobby Albatros after an ‘unexpected arrival’ last year.
Fortunately he was able to purchase a new nose and it looks as good as new again now.
Mike says the Albatros isn’t as nice to fly as either his Arrows Hawk or Avanti and thinks he needs to keep the speed up more than with the others but maybe he just needs a bit more stick time. It was a windy day when he flew it in early September which probably didn’t help and Mike has since found that that the gyro that came with the Albatros doesn’t seem to be working correctly so he’s removed it and will see how it handles without a gyro.
It appeared to go well on three cells though he’s contemplating trying it on four cells.

One day at the end of August Dougal Entendre was flying his Durafly Rare Bear when it suddenly started making a rather nasty noise. Dougal got it down safely and discovered that the motor was obviously far from well, so there was no more flying that day.
Back in the workshop he removed the 3536 1700kv motor, disassembled it, and discovered that at least two of the magnets had come loose. The Rare Bear is very fast when running the stock set-up of four cells with an 8×5 propeller but HobbyKing say that it can handle six cells if the propeller is swapped to a 6×4.5. As Dougal’s motor didn’t last for too many flights on the supplied set-up I would be wary of trying it on six cells. I reckon it’s plenty quick enough on four cells anyway, and Dougal tends to only go to full throttle for short bursts during a flight, but maybe  that’s because we are all getting older!
This is what Dougal did to solve the problem: I re-motored my Rare Bear with a cheap 3536 1450kv unit that I found on eBay. The shaft is different from the old motor so I couldn’t use the spinner originally supplied, but at least you can see more of the dummy radial motor now! Plenty of torque, as I found out when I launched it with a little too much throttle. On the second flight I flick-rolled it fast enough for the canopy to fly off. I landed OK, and fortunately the canopy came down in our field. I am now trying to devise something a bit stronger than just the one magnet fixing. Dougal thinks it’s not quite as fast as before but it still looks crazily quick to me and it’s definitely a little quieter now.

Back to 1066 now, who recently broke the wire undercarriage on his Night Visionaire. Dwayne Pipe kindly picked up a length of 10g wire for 1066 on a recent trip to SMC so all 1066 had to do was bend it to shape, not an easy task with tight ninety degree bends close together. But fortunately 1066 remembered that he had saved a useful wire bending jig from the sale of the late Chris P Bacon’s (also known as Nigel Baker) modelling goods.
The jig turned out to be excellent and 1066 soon had the wire bent to the correct shape. Having the jig helped enormously and the Visionaire is now ready for another outing.

This month the action shots are all taken from the video:

Video time now, this month with footage shot by myself, Dougal Entendre, and MacFly. 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 Final Funny:
It was the student pilot’s first cross country solo and the nerves were kicking in:
Control tower: Can you give me your position?
Student: I am next to a cloud that looks like a lion.
Control tower: Can you be more specific?
Student: Er…Simba…

Colin Cowplain