Plane Talk: Sig Sun Dancer ARF 2008/04
THE SUN DANCER arrived in a large box; it was well packed
to prevent any shipping damage. I removed all the components
and performed an inventory check to make sure everything was
there, and it was.
HL-2 Electric!
SO YOU'VE never heard of the HL-2? Don't be embarrassed. Probably even most aviation history buffs have never gotten wind of this little Polish aircraft, built 64 years ago this summer. Only one was produced, and it lasted just a little over three months. The 1927 home-built was damaged beyond repair after a dead-stick landing in a muddy field during a cross-country event. It had probably logged less than 50 flight hours. Why did I think such an obscure airplane worth reviving? Because it's an attractive design, and one that symbolizes the aviation fever that swept Europe and America in the decade after the First World War.
A Train
If you are a rudder-and-elevator hotshot who is looking for new places to go, take the A Train! A is for ailerons; Train is for trainer. You get elevators, ailerons and throttle. Coupling the ailerons to a steerable tail wheel gives you control on the ground. The throttle makes you the boss over takeoffs, power in the air, and landing where you want to. A Train assumes a healthy modicum of rudder-elevator experience and familiarity with orientation; that is, knowing how a model looks in the air, coming and going. It is not intended to be a raw beginner's model; its design aim is to introduce aileron control. Ailerons must be used-there isn't a rudder. Newcomers to aileron-and-elevator models sometimes get into trouble at low speed when the drag and disturbed airflow over a deflected aileron results in wingtip stalling. This can cause a snap-roll on takeoff or wallowing into a spin from a slow landing approach.
Faker D-8
The Fokker D. VIII, a superior WWI German fighter, arrived on the scene in 1918-too late to offer much aid and comfort to beleaguered German fighter pilots. Nicknamed "The Flying Razor," its lack of external bracing, a factor in its reputation for being almost invisible when coming head-on at adversaries out of a bright sky, was not an unmixed blessing. Despite the success of the D. VII, Fokker had not yet mastered all of the intricacies of cantilever wing design. High-speed dives in the D. VIII could result in wingtip twisting, leading to catastrophic failure. Despite the original's structural problem, the basic design remains a good aerodynamic layout. The hundreds kitted and built over three-quarters of a century reflect its enduring popularity with model builders everywhere.
Merry Widow: Fast, stable design for 1/2A reed-valve engines
The Merry Widow is fast, and is stable enough to be easy to fly, but it's also lively enough to perform a wide range of dazzling two-channel maneuvers in the hands of any moderately proficient pilot. Glide is unusually good. It allows comfortable landing options despite the two-channel flier's lack of throttle control. Unlike many tail-draggers, the Widow is not "rabbity" on the ground. The rigidly mounted tail wheel, and a bit of back pressure on the stick, ensures arrow-straight takeoff runs. The Merry Widow was designed around the popular .049 Black Widow engine. This is one of the Cox engines taken over by Estes that seems to have an assured future. Actually, the airplane should fly well with any of the Cox tank-mount reed-valve engines. A one-piece fun-time flier, Merry Widow needs no field assembly. It's ready to fuel-up and fly, just as it comes out of your car's trunk.
