by "TheRealBicycleBuck" (therealbicyclebuck)
Published 10/28/2017 at 10:26
by "TheRealBicycleBuck" (therealbicyclebuck)
Published 10/28/2017 at 10:26
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STARS: 3
Pictured below are the remnants of my first two R/C gliders. I found them in the loft of one of my mom’s storage buildings. I had no idea she kept them.
The blue and white one is a Top Flite Metrick. It’s a pretty advanced design with a full flying elevator and polyhedral wings with an advanced airfoil. They attached to the fuselage with a pair of connecting rods instead of rubber bands like most designs. It’s difficult construction for a beginner. Get any of the angles even slightly wrong and it will fly funny. I wish I could remember how I crashed it. Here’s the picture from the box:
The purple and white one was a Goldberg Sophisticated Lady. This was a much simpler design with a one-piece, flat-bottomed wing. These are so much easier to construct. All you need is one big flat surface. I used an old door. The fuselage was a simple tapered box. The only advanced design feature was the T-tail, but even that was simple to construct.
I smashed the Lady my first time slope soaring. If you’ve never heard of this, it’s flying in the updraft created by a hill facing the wind. I was trying to avoid the power lines at one end of our hill, over-corrected and rolled too far. I might have made it if the wind hadn’t died. The Lady just fell out of the sky and landed on her left wingtip, crushing the structure. I took the opportunity to move up to powered flight.
Between the two, the Lady was a much better plane for a novice builder and pilot. The Metrick was a lot more difficult to build, but would reward an advanced pilot with much better performance.
It was neat to find them and see how much my building skills have progressed since then.
"CaptDale - is secretly British" (captdale)
10/28/2017 at 11:21, STARS: 2
I didn’t even know R/C glider were a thing. Very cool!
"wafflesnfalafel" (wafflesnfalafel1)
10/28/2017 at 11:48, STARS: 0
very cool - we have a fairly popular field out here. I’ve never had one but have watched them fly. They sometimes use a big surgical tubing “rubber band” launch thing to get them up.
http://www.seattleareasoaringsociety.com/soaring/FAQs.shtml
"TheRealBicycleBuck" (therealbicyclebuck)
10/28/2017 at 14:13, STARS: 0
That’s a high-start. My first flights were launched with one! The high-start has 50-150' of surgical tubing with another 50-150' of string attached at the end. The worst part of using one is retrieving the end after each launch. Well, the worst part may be rolling it up at the end of the day. Both require a lot of walking.
"TheRealBicycleBuck" (therealbicyclebuck)
10/28/2017 at 14:14, STARS: 1
It’s a good way to learn how to fly. The wings are BIG (2-meter wingspan) and they fly slow, so there’s usually a lot of time to correct errors.
"CaptDale - is secretly British" (captdale)
10/28/2017 at 14:28, STARS: 0
Ah, well that is cool. That is why I bought a cheap drone to practice with before spending big money on one that could hold a real camera.
"TheRealBicycleBuck" (therealbicyclebuck)
10/28/2017 at 15:00, STARS: 1
Flying quadcopters is a much different experience. Even the cheap ones have sophisticated electronics which stabilize the aircraft. Although you could build a plane with similar equipment, the ones I built were really old-school with just a receiver, a battery, and two servos for control. Back then we were still using AM radios and we had to physically change crystals to change channels. Someone with a powerful CB radio could cause enough interference to knock one out of the sky. Today’s radios are now spread-spectrum on 2.4 ghz and you can operate many, many planes simultaneously without interference.
It’s smart to start cheap. Anytime you fly models, you WILL crash. It’s just a matter of time.