110 MODEL AVIATION
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
[[email protected]]
Radio Control Soaring Lee Estingoy
Also included in this column:
• Stobel V3 at the AMA Expo
• Changes to the AVA line
• The International Toy Fair
T h a t’s t he way to g o
Bob Breaux of Soaring USA looks to have had Xplorers coming
out of his ears in a funny shot at the 2009 Visalia Fall Soaring Fest.
This design comes in a wide variety of spans.
T h e 2010 I nt ern atio n a l To y F a i r had a g reat selec t i o n o f
sailplanes. This is the Topmodel booth. You don’t see this level of
focus on Soaring in the US.
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.
05sig4.QXD_00MSTRPG.QXD 3/24/10 2:05 PM Page 110
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 pm 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 more than landed and all the guys were oohing and
ahaaing, ‘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 discuslaunch
glider.
This is a piece of art—a sculpture in molded carbon. This model
uses an extraordinarily widespread tow weave as the LE of the hollow
molded wing.
The workmanship was amazing. If it flies anywhere nearly as great
Soaring USA’s AMA Expo display is one of the most impressive for
those of us with a Soaring problem. Avoid this aisle or suffer from
a much lighter wallet!
Check out this tidy servo and spoiler installation on one of Barry
Kennedy’s models at Visalia 2009. So simple, yet effective at holding
the spoiler down as well as up!
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, at
220.5 inches, and 1/4 scale, at 171.7 inches;
SGC2-33s at 204 inches; and a Reiher at 251
inches.
This group is also making molded discuslaunch
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:
Soaring USA
(626) 967-6660
www.soaringusa.com
Kennedy Composites
(972) 602-3144
www.kennedycomposites.com
Graupner USA
(941) 925-9653
www.v-eastonline.com
Lanyu model
(086)0372-2510863/2511863 (China)
www.lanyumodel.com/English/index.asp
Topmodel (France)
+33 2 54 94 01 01
www.topmodel.fr
League of Silent Flight
www.silentflight.org
