Vale Gliders
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Span : 60"
Wing section : AG04
Root : 200mm
Tip : 110mm
Weight : 27ozs
Wing loading : 9.5ozs sqft
Length : 960mm
Ballast : not yet
This was my first molding project, and was designed after seeing a mini ellipse flying on my local slope. I knew I had to have a lightly loaded acrobatic model like that, and wanted the mold to double up as a HLG as well. I have also used the same wing section and planform as the idea was less work making the seperate hot wire templates, so Flitter, my discus launch plane is pretty much identical exept for layup and dihedral. I have built a few of these now, and have ironed out the weaknesses and made a few improvements, the latest incarnation is bullet proof. The fuse is a wet seam layup with coloured epoxy so no painting to do, 2oz bias veil, 6oz bias cloth, 3oz uni-carbon and another later of 6 oz cloth, plus some carbon reinforcement around the wing saddle as this takes lots of strain with some of my landings. This lot only weighs 5.5ozs. V tail is 3/16th balsa with 4oz cloth vac-bagged on with painted mylars. The wing lay-up is 1oz bias veil, 3oz uni-carbon and 1.7oz bias kevlar, this lot is vac-bagged onto a blue foam core using painted mylars, 40mm softwood inserts for wing bolts and kevlar hinges for the ailerons, wing weighs 11ozs, (might be over engineered but is very strong). I built 30mm of dihedral into this wing and also experimented with upturned tips, a bit like the banana that i have seen pictures of and that people rave about, all done in the vac bag.
Flying
I am very pleased with the improvements I have made to this plane, the previous one's were good but this one is something else. With 30% chord full span ailerons the rolls are pretty snappy, and when used as flaps it can go from fast sky gobbling beast to an impeccably well mannered thermal soarer that climbs out in the lightest lift, ( its a ballasted hlg after all). The slight dihedral and upturned wingtips really make a difference, it will not tip stall and does thermal turns almost around its wingtip, staying up in the lightest of lift, even when you think it shouldn't really be able to fly. I love flying this plane. I flew a previous version alongside a mini-dragon, it was quite a bit faster than my dynamite but is a different kind of plane really and not a fair comparison.
Update 22/06/2006
I have been flying this plane lots recently, its perfect for the light summer breezes, and have been fine tuning the flap and elevator settings to enhance its thermal potential, maybe its because of its light wing loading, but in a powerful thermal it really specs out fast, faster than I have seen a plane climb out in thermals before. Hlg`s must be awesome on the slope, will have to push on and get my Flitter finished. I met some other guys on a local slope recently, finally got to see some lovely little 60"ers in real life. A Banana, mini NYX and 2 shooting stars, wow, gave them all a good examination.....beautiful craftsmanship, especially the Banana, really like that plane, built so light too, almost fragile compared to mine. They are all smaller than I thought, 57" to 58", and much narrower wing chords than my Dynamite. They fly a bit quicker than the Dynamite and are more buoyant in light air, could be the pilot holding the plane back of course. Apart from a ballast tube and maybe a lighter construction there is not much else I can do to improve my Dynamite's abilities without a complete re-design and re-mold, and I am very happy with it for now. Just finished building one for my mate, left out the kevlar on the wing skins which saved around 2ozs, looking forward to seeing how she flies. I am a bit jealous of his colour scheme too, even though I designed it.
See what I mean? looks better than my blue and white one. The slip off nose cone has slipped off for this photo shoot, I am still working on making it a snug fit.
Video to come, will try to capture both planes.
This site was last updated 01/16/07