Author: Lee Estingoy
Edition: Model Aviation - 2010/05
Page Numbers: 110,111,113
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Radio Control Soaring

Lee Estingoy [[email protected]]

That's the way to go

Hi. My name is Lee and I have a soaring addiction. I’d like to welcome a new patient to the clinic: Jim Scollen of Florida.

Jim wanted to share some memories of a day at the field in 2001. His submission follows.

"We flew RC gliders right on the edge of the ocean in Punta Gorda, Florida on Wednesdays. One particular day was just a little different.

"The field of about 50 acres had a row of mangroves at the north shoreline. To the south lies a large subdivision with lots of cement sidewalks, cinderblock homes with tile roofs, driveways and roads. The wind was coming from the subdivision towards us and then it continued out to the ocean.

"Around 2 p.m. a club member launched his 'Bird of Time' (BOT) with a high-start into a 5–10 knot breeze. It was a monster thermal, perhaps the 'Perfect Thermal.' I launched my 2-meter beater into the same air but he hit the thermal and I did not.

"I no sooner landed and all the guys were oohing and aahing. 'Look at that thing go up,' they said. I turned around to find the BOT at about 1,500 feet, going up and holding steady against the wind. While directly overhead it continued to gain altitude.

"I sat and watched for a long time. As the flight approached an hour, even the pilot, whose eyes were very good, was beginning to suffer 'rapture of the thermal.'

"The pilot started muttering things like, 'Don't talk to me now!' 'I'm really busy here, guys, I don't want to talk.' And, 'Yes, I can still see it. I need to get it back upwind now.' Then we heard him say, 'Boy this thing is sure getting hard to see. I gotta be careful to not give up too much altitude or dive too steep and blow the wing.'

"Eventually there was the, 'Ya, here it comes. No! Where did it go? Oh there it is — was that a loop? Which way is it going now? Can you see it? Oh man, I don't seem to be making much headway into this wind. It seems that the wind aloft has gained speed. Gosh, I don't think I'm going to get it back. Boy, isn't it flying beautiful?' And boom — it was gone!

"The field got real quiet and the pilot sat down with a big grin on his face. He shook his head and said, 'Man, if you gotta kiss one goodbye, that's the way to go. I'd rather do that than crash.'

"For that comment, I walked over and shook his hand, and said, 'That sure was spectacular.' So, that day a 'Phantom BOT' was born in the Perfect Thermal in Punta Gorda, Florida. Its ghostly image of white and orange still occasionally appears to a few of us and we think of that afternoon. We smile as he did and recall that, 'If ya gotta kiss one goodbye that's the way to do it.'

"His spirit will live in the sky for all that care to tempt the gods of flight. May a little of the 'Phantom BOT' live in all of us."

Jim’s afternoon sounds appealing to us here in Kansas on a cold and dreary February afternoon. However, spring isn’t far away, and there are a number of new goodies, airframes, and build tricks that I’ve come across over the past few months that I’d like to share with you.

AMA’s Expo took place in Ontario, California in January 2010. Bob Breaux and the guys at Soaring USA are happy to have several new airframes and a few updates to old airframes. One that caught my eye at the company's display at the AMA show was the Stobel V3 discus-launch glider.

This is a piece of art — a sculpture in molded carbon. This model uses an extraordinarily widespread tow weave as the leading edge (LE) of the hollow molded wing.

The Stobel V3 spans 1.5 meters and weighs 240–330 grams. The wing is hollow molded. The empennage is molded fiberglass and carbon over a CNC-milled Rohacell core. The workmanship was amazing. If it flies anywhere nearly as great as it looks, it should be fantastic.

Barry Kennedy of Kennedy Composites has commissioned several changes to the AVA line. The molded D-tube is now more curved at the tips, and the stabilizer is a bit cleaner.

The spoilers on the show sailplane, at the Visalia Fall Soaring Festival in California, sported an ingenious linkage system. I’ve always found the installation of spoiler servos and linkages to be fiddly. Sure they go up, but how do you make them stay down?

Magnets are okay, but they don’t always release as easily as you’d like. Barry’s model had one of the most elegant solutions I’ve ever seen.

Each year I’m amazed by the breadth of sailplanes that large and small European model companies such as Graupner, Robbe, and Simprop have on display at the International Toy Fair in Nuremberg, Germany. The event was held in February of this year.

Graupner has integrated the Tangent Company, a longtime maker of wing sets for sport sailplanes, into the firm. A large portion of the Graupner booth was devoted to its great soaring lineup.

I am not sure how to feel about the displays of ARF vintage sailplanes by Chinese vendors. It looks like we’ll soon see ARF models of Minimoas in both 1/3 scale (220.5 inches) and 1/4 scale (171.7 inches); SGC2-33s at 204 inches; and a Reiher at 251 inches.

This group is also making molded discus-launch gliders and F3B and F5B sailplanes. This will certainly give the established manufacturers a challenge. Let’s hope that there’s room for all in the market and that the result is more sailplanes soaring the skies.

Visiting hours are over here at the clinic. Thanks for stopping by! MA

Sources:

Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.