Blog 06
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31/12/06
Another year over, time for some new year resolutions. Firstly I would like to resolve the lack of workshop articles, waiting until I have mastered this molding lark probably means nothing for you to read for ages, so starting next year I will begin with what I have learnt so far, and add on stuff as it crops up. The second thing is more extreme soaring, have had a taste for speed this year with the Jart, and learnt that I really enjoy strong wind flying and high speeds, so plan to take a few visits to the coast and try out some cliff soaring, get about more and fly some different slopes, and maybe some Welsh mountains. the other thing that really appeals is to learn dynamic soaring, have had limited success so far with Backdraft, it has survived a couple of fairly horrendous practice sessions so seems up to the task, just need to get a feel for where that boundary layer is, getting together with some experienced pilots can only help me improve, so will be driving down to Mere and Westbury white horse to see how they do it.
As you can see from the workbench shots, I have been busy working with the Nitro mold over the Christmas period, spend several hours re-polishing the molds for a better finish, and have been experimenting with gel coats, the seams are getting better but I am running out of materials, and have a surplus of fuselages, might have to see if I can sell one or two. Keep a check on the for sale page as it will be a very limited run. Well that's it for this year, I wish you all safe landings for 2007, and may you finish every building project that you start, happy new year.
10/12/06
Have added a Backdraft video, it was shot on headcam, my multi-tasking is getting better but manage to go out of shot several times, it will give you an idea of how it flies though. It is carrying 2 slugs of ballast at 12ozs each, so carries energy well in the stall turns, need to work on the landings though. (mental note, ballasted plane stalls at normal landing speed).
5/12/06
Wow, what some fantastic winds this last week, Jart flying has never been so good. Even managed to get a bit of video footage with the help of Mr Nelson, check it out on the video page. It came out pretty good for his first attempt with a dv camera, cheers mate.
On the bench there are a brace of Toucans, I have sheeted my wings with 6oz carbon and 1/32 ply, and have just glued on 3/4" mahogany leading edges, it should end up around 60-65ozs AUW, and with those 6% thick wings should be interesting to fly! A decision was reached on the beaky-ness of the thing, and the nose has been shortened by a couple of inches, after much thought in the end I just kept trimming in off on the bandsaw until it looked right. What else? Nitro is coming together nicely, best nose cone yet and fits a treat. The wings are bolted on, v-tail glued in place and nose boat glued in, it looks like a plane. Just got to do the hinging, fit the radio gear and sand down then paint the fuse, wont be long now. Also have pulled a new backdraft fuse from the mold, nice strong part. 6oz bias glass,6oz bias carbon, 10oz glass, 6oz carbon and then 6oz glass. Theory is to sandwich the carbon to gain extra strength, who knows? Very strong though, and with wet seam layup wont be falling apart like my last one. This will be its 3rd fuse, I am determined that the wing will now be the weakest part, want to make a new one using the PW51 section.
18/11/06
Ok, its not a very frequent blog but there will be more postings now that winter is upon us. I don't seem to do much building in the summer, cant even keep up with repairs, so I have a backlog of maintenance and half built things to finish off before starting anything new.
I have pulled a Nitro fuse and bagged a wing for it, am now working on the nose boat. The workbench pictures below also show the latest repairs to my Jart, poor thing is looking rather sad, its replacement will be another project....maybe over the Christmas holidays. The latest little scar happened yesterday, 25mph winds tempted me up the hill with a headcam helmet, my idea is that painting a black dot onto a pair of sunglasses and then keeping the black dot on the plane will keep everything in shot as it forces you to move your head not your eyeballs, and I have been getting some ok footage but nothing good enough to post yet. By concentrating on the dot I seem to loose some peripheral vision, (like where the ground is at the end of a big loop) and also by concentrating on two things at once my flying goes downhill, only being so so to start with, the videos end up looking a bit boring. You would have thought that I would have a great crash vid to show, but no, the camera was pointing low and all my flying was out of shot. Guess I need more practice!
22/06/06
Everyone seems to have a blog these days, so thought I had better join in. I will also mention the basic updates I have made to the website like adding Jart information + picture, and an update on the Dynamite page for instance. I will also use this blog to show you what I am currently working on, and of course a few pictures to help clarify things. So what's on the workbench?
Here is a plug and coresponding molds I have just pulled for a 60" sloper called Nitro. Will be working on the nose cone next as I really like slip on noses, more work to make the molds but so easy to do a wet seam lay-up with. The idea is that it will be around 15/16oz sqft loading and a four servo wing so I can land it when its running with about 30oz of extra ballast when the wind is up. Section will be a transitional Don Ayers profile, 7% thickness at root, to 6.5% at the tip. Use the same planform as the Dynamite, wont need to cut any mylars then.
This is the re-modeled Backdraft with its splitter plate in the background. I am getting experimental again, this is a kind of cut and shut fuse, fin and nose of fuse is original, the back half is wood that I have spliced in, then planned and sanded to the required shape, this will allow access from the rear which allows me to use a wet seam lay-up, fin will also be pressed polystyrene core. Experimenting with the splitter plate as well, 12mm mdf cut to the outline of the plug then stuck onto polystyrene, hollow out some of the foam so that the fuse sits down snugly to half depth, then varnish with G4 pond polyurethane, same as the plug. Because its a solid foam block, I can put the whole lot in a vac bag after laying up the mold half, its how I did the nitro mold above, just giving it another go to make sure it works, and will then do a detailed description in the workshop.
Just finished off this plane for my mate. Hope he likes it!
Do a bit of work on this now and again, this is my Flitter, a discus launch glider...Dlg. Wing section and planform are the same as the dynamite, just lots of dihedral to help with the thermaling. Nose to rear of wing is also Dynamite, but a light layup. Carbon boom going to custom tail feathers, it weighs around 9ozs but still needs radio gear and control runs installed.
Finally there is this....Toucan. Once upon a time there was a build thread that went very wrong, but I persevered, and made a polyester mold of the few parts I pulled from the original plaster molds, why o why didn't I use epoxy......I'm just a cheapskate and thought polyester molds would be ok, my others where, but the thicker you make them the more they warp I've found. They are probably still serviceable, but will need lots of filler and sanding of the finished product. These two fuses are ok though, and I am very happy with the nose cone. Might have overdone it with the pointy nose thing though.
This site was last updated 11/03/07