FREE FLIGHT MODELS THIRD PAGE

As with the second free flight page I am short of an imaginative introduction. All I can think to say is that since I wrote the intro to the second page I still have not built another r/c model. I have big plans, but the free flight keeps getting in the way! Ho hum, it's a hard life!

Warden Flyer

I built this for the one model comp at Old Warden on 25th May, 2003, and as I write this on 24th I have only had time for a couple of trimming flights on the 23rd, (day off work)!

The original design was for the model to be powered with a Modela Co2, and I suspect that motor is less powerful, and lighter than the Gasparin 300 that I have used. Initial flights needed large amounts of balsa at the trailing edge of the wing to stop the model diving (the wing is mounted under the fuselage). Even with this change to the wing incidence I still had to add a blob of plastercine to the tail to make the model climb.

In all the testing it had turned to the right (away from the trees), but having sorted the trim it promptly turned to the left, and settled into one of the most ivy-infested trees on our flying patch, and this, despite my friend Peter shouting at it all the time it was flying towards the trees, "Turn, turn, turn now". I just hope there weren't any ramblers out walking that could see or hear us!

Eventually I climbed halfway up and using a long pole unhooked it. There was very little damage. To all forms of model flying, trees are magnetic!

So on to Old Warden, I can hardly wait.

Gray trimming his Warden Flyer	Tony Draper - WF, and Chunky designer

Fishface

Eric Clutton came up with many weird and wonderful designs, and Fishface is no exception. However, such amazingly varied layouts mean that each flying machine has its own aerodynamic characteristics, and the highly tapered wings on this one make the tip-stall quite exciting. However, when the tips do stall the fuselage seems to take over, and the Fish uses lift generated by the flat body, (I think).

Climb under power is quite stable, followed by a steepish glide, and despite the Cox Pee Wee 020 always revving to full power as the last dregs of fuel are sucked out of the tank, the Fish seems to iron out the resulting stall during the glide phase.

It suffers from weak wings, and I have had to remake the wings with a hard balsa leading edge, to help protect them from the gorse and silver birch of Chobham Common. It is also quite small and is easily hidden, inspite of the bright silver paint, by tall grass, or heather, so very close attention to the flight path and landing position is essential.

In one of my old Aeromodeller magazines there is a picture of Eric Clutton holding a flying Cricket - was there a plan, does anyone know? If there is I want to build it.

Vartanian

I have tried chuck gliders in the past, and not been impressed, but the Leo Vartanians 1941 designed Vartanian has changed my opinion forever.

Bought for me by the world famous John Lancaster when he was on one of his trips to the USA, it lay in my "to build" heap of kits for at least a year. Then one day early in 2007 I took it out of the packaging and built it. It is a beautiful kit from Campbell's Custom Kits, containing excellent quality balsa, that has been roughly cut to shape, so requires only a little work with the sanding block, the application of cyano in the right places, and finishing sealers. When it is ready to fly it has an amazing glide, and seems to be relatively easy to throw to a decent height.

Proof of the pudding is in the throwing (he says, mangling his metaphors), and on one occasion this year (2007) at Middle Wallop, Hampshire, John and I launched the same models, into the same patch of lift, at the same time. We skedaddled across the airfield as fast as we could, trying in vain to keep up with the rapidly vanishing models.

After a few hundred meters jogging we could not distinguish which model belonged to John and which was mine, they were just two Vartanian chuck gliders dancing downwind and upwards in lift. After about half a mile the models, which had gone into the lift at the same time came out of the lift at almost exactly the same time. We were lucky that the lift had been patchy, and when they came out of the lift they landed within a few seconds of each other. I went to the first model expecting it to be mine, and found that it was actually John's model, mine having travelled little further down the airfield.

After those two flights we were a little more careful when we launched the Vartanians that day.

One other fact to get excitied about is that Campbells Custom Kits sell several designs for chuck gliders, and I have been so impressed with the Vartanian that I will probably have to try all the others at some time in the very near future!

Powered Glider

Designed in 1951 by Paul Muller this clever and ingenious model is intended as a rubber powered launching system for a small glider. I just love unusual models, and although this one is fairly conventional in layout it is anything but conventional in operation.

I think I downloaded the plan ages ago from either Dave Fritzke's or Garry Hunter's website, but it is so long a go that I can't really remember. Where ever I found the plan it lay in my plan store for some years before I dug it out one wet day and built the model in a couple of hours. It does not require finishing, and the most fiddly part of the construction is the metal fittings for the release system, but as this can be made out of soft brass that can be soft soldered so it is really quite easy.

Detail of the release mechanism	The plan

I am no metal worker, but was reasonably pleased with the end result. However, I had trouble with the fuselage flexing under the power of the rubber motor, and the centre of gravity seemed too far forward. Application of a little plastercene sorted the c of g out, and the flexing fuselage was cured with two strips of 1/32 sheet down each of the sides.

The first attempts to fly at Odiham on a cold spring day in 2007, produced a ground hopping flight, but no climb for the stars. The second, at Middle Wallop at Easter 2007, with the two problems sorted produced a climb that was OK, but hardly exciting. However, the weather was calm and hot, and thermals abounded, and immediately the fusealge dropped away it was obvoius that the little model was in lift.

I followed it the full width of the airfield (about one mile), and as it approached the perimeter trees it started to come down out of the thermal. It continued to descend until it reached about 50 feet above a tall oak tree, then it started to ascend again, but this time at an increased rate. So fast was the climb rate that I stopped walking, as it was quite obvious that the model would very soon be lost OOS. It is (was) a small model, natural balsa wood in colour, so easily lost in the mists of an English spring day.

All that is left of the first model	MkII glider with MkI fuse ready and waiting

Well, I call that a great success, and so have built another copy of the glider. The wing is a little further forward to help cure the c of g problems, and I will try not to loose it on it's first flight.