Roy Clough jr

A fascinating and inovative modeller whose approach to design was based on an understanding of aerodynamics and a love of the unusual. During his many years of modelling he powered his designs with rubber, compressed air, steam, glow engines, electric motors, and on one occasion, a rocket powered by liquid fuel motor with compressed air oxidiser that blew up with, "a very satisfactory bang".

His designs covered areas such as flying saucers, flying rings, helicopters, (using flettner-type rotor blades), rotating wing craft for control line and free flight, autogyros, and autogyro kites, and the list goes on and on. As a result of his interest in the unusual he was widely known as a designer of "weirdos".

I don't want to go into any great depth here, but I hope the two paraagraphs above will whet your appetite enough to encourage you to read on down this page. However, an autobiography can be found on the AMA website in the section entitled Model Aviation Hall of Fame, if you should wish to read more.

Flying saucer

A friend of mine asked me when he saw this model fly for the first time, "I just want to know, why?". Meaning, of course, why did it fly at all. Well, as I see it it is just an usual shaped flying wing, with the addition of a vent that makes it rather like a flying flea, but with the two wings joined together.

RC made many small models of this design before settling on the final shape, postition and size of the vent. He positioned the vent in different places on each of the models to try and see which postition was the best, and the final position, about two thirds of the depth of the wing back from the leading edge, proved to give most stability and reduce the stall to the mushy thing that the Flying Saucer now exhibits!

The Saucer is an easy model to cut out from balsa, but I then found it rather fiddly to glue together. This is largely due to my impatience, but also because it consists of five large ribs, three of which are cut in half to create the vent. Despite this, the Saucer went together quickly, and I then set about covering it with tissue, doping, and painting the area around the engine bay with coloured dope. The finished model looks good and is as light as a feather.

Will it fly?	. . . of course it does? Power is provided by a PAW 55

First flights proved that my Saucer was a bit twisted (I can't build anything straight to save my life), but that was soon dealt with by careful postitioning of the elevons. I also found out that the Saucer does not like flying in a breeze that is anthing stronger than gentle. It just spins into the ground from the launch. That aside it flies very well, and, for such a low-aspect ratio wing, has a surprisingly good glide.

The other problem with the Flying Saucer is that when you do fly it in a crowd, you cannot escape the barrage of questions from fascinated onlookers. Let's face it, it is such an unusual shape it is bounds to attract a lot on interest.

Finally, and as yet untested by me, is the point made by RC himself, that because it has few protrusions, ie. wings, undercarriage, etc, when it does land in a tree it is quite likely to slip out, and not get caught by the branches.

Pressure Jet

Parasol plane