Sailplanes for sale
Lee Estingoy [[email protected]]
Welcome to the clinic. They let me have coffee again, so please keep that in mind as you read on.
Sailplanes for Sale: My financial advisor has informed me that hoarded sailplanes cannot be counted as part of my net worth or as part of my retirement plan. I knew I married her for a reason.
Many of us love new toys or adopting those that have been resting in someone else’s hangar. The market for these gems is active this time of year. A great place to sell or buy sailplanes is on the internet soaring forums, such as the sailplanes-for-sale page on RCGroups.
Post a picture and a price. The trickiest part of the whole process is properly packing the models for shipment.
I’ve found that a little lumber goes a long way. Get some cheap 1-inch wood at the home-improvement shop and cut it to fit the internal length of the box to help prevent crushing.
Okay, So They Crunched It Anyway
John Buxton of Bakersfield, California, gave me a repair tip that worked well. He is an extreme DS (dynamic soaring) sloper, but I hope you thermal-duration fliers will not hold it against us.
John suggested supporting crunched areas of the fuselage or wing from the inside with a spongy material, such as foam soaked in epoxy.
The foam can remarkably easily be maneuvered to the wound site and will provide incredible support for that wrinkled part of the wing or cracked tailboom. This repair method is lighter than it sounds. I tried it on a Mini Ellipse that went down in a fight with the shipper. The wing was crinkled roughly two-thirds of the way out to the tip. The spar was clearly bent there as well.
My arthroscopic skills and toolbox aren’t up to John’s standards, so I used a 3/8-inch Forstner bit to drill/cut a nice hole in the D-box section immediately in front of the spar at the site of the crinkle. On the bottom I used carbon to reinforce the spar itself, but a good deal of the wing’s strength depends on the stability of the wing skin. I decided to try the epoxy-and-foam technique.
I cut some gray packing foam to a size that was slightly larger than the length and thickness of the repair site. Then I mixed a small amount of good thin epoxy (laminating or similar). I worked the epoxy into the foam by mashing the foam into the epoxy on a piece of waxed paper. You might be cringing at the weight of this right now. Wrong! Make sure to thoroughly wring out the epoxy from the foam. Twist it, press it, or roll it like a toothpaste tube—whatever you want. You will be amazed by how the epoxy’s weight can be reduced.
Push the foam into the soft area. That 3/8-inch hole worked great for this. A bit of the foam wanted to poke out of the hole, so I covered it with plastic tape. Let this cure for a while and then take off the tape. I was amazed to see that the hole was neatly filled with hardened material that was flush with the lower skin of the wing. The wing skin was nicely supported, and the weight penalty was minimal. This will also work well in tailbooms. But please keep in mind any pushrods that might need to share space with your foam.
Hall Pass for Toledo
The staff here at the clinic gave me a weekend pass in April, and I made the annual pilgrimage to Toledo, Ohio, for the Weak Signals show, where Kennedy Composites, Skip Miller Models, ICARE, and the League of Silent Flight (LSF) showed their wares.
Barry of Kennedy Composites led me to believe that I could take one of the beautiful Elf micro hand-launched gliders home at the end of the show. They feature beautiful carbon layups for the wing leading edge and a novel crystal-clear pod that snuggles the servos, receiver, and battery pack. I was crushed when he told me on Sunday evening that he didn’t want to share the Elf!
Barry had some interesting receiver/servo batteries. They consisted of one Li-Poly cell and circuitry that boosted voltage from the battery to the required volts. This circuit doubles as a charger, so charging from a 12-volt DC source is a snap. These little guys are light!
Skip of Skip Miller Models had the latest in sailplane exotica, as usual, such as the Orca 4-meter tip extensions, the Satori F3J model, and an updated Topaz.
It was good to visit with Cody Remington, a 2010 US F3J team pilot, and see some of the colorful, cool F3J team shirts. Yes, this is the second time I’ve mentioned these shirts in this column; please consider supporting the team!
It can’t be inexpensive to go to Geneva, Switzerland, in August. It is the location of the closest airport to the event in Taveux, France.
On the topic of Switzerland, Etienne Dorig, proprietor of ICARE, quietly passed me a DVD containing some incredible sailplane footage. It seems as though Etienne meets buddies in Switzerland for a slope-soaring vacation. I can’t decide which is more breathtaking: the models or the scenery. He also had the cute mini SZD on display.
Jim Deck and Mike Stump held down the LSF table. I joined them for a bit of a rabbinical discussion about the rules for the electric-powered Soaring class that they are working on.
It looks like there are several options for an altitude-triggered motor kill switch coming to market soon. This will guarantee that the models start at the same height and aims to kill the electric fliers’ predisposition to motoring to great heights and keeping the wings level until the sailplane needs to land to make the target time—or so they say.
They don’t know the innovation we electric-power pilots can display! I’m totally onboard with the concept of having the “winch in the nose of the plane,” and Jim and Mike were preaching to the choir when they explained how much simpler the soaring experience is with the option of self-launching sailplanes.
Summer Events
If you were unable to attend the JR Aero Tow in June or are looking for a great event that is closer to you, consider the Mickey Sullivan Memorial Fly in Wichita, Kansas. It is scheduled for August 20–22 at Clearview Field.
I doubt that you will meet a nicer group of RC fliers than Ken Stitt and his gang. You can obtain information about this event on the web site.
Sources
- RCGroups
- Kennedy Composites
(972) 602-3144 www.kennedycomposites.com
- Skip Miller Models
(303) 442-6454 www.skipmillermodels.com
- ICARE
(450) 449-9094 www.icare-rc.com
- League of Silent Flight
- JR Aero Tow 2010
www.horizonhobby.com/Articles/Article.aspx?ArticleID=1906
- Clearview Field
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
