Konrad
Very Strong User
I'm too young to be reliving my youth!
With my latest RES motor assist model I was thinking where had I had a similar experience.
forum.alofthobbies.com
It's Déjà vu all over again, I was in the attic last weekend and it dawned on me, there in the corner was my Astro Challenger wing. This was the ship that taught me about flat land thermal work and that electric power was far superior to glow.
The Astro Challenger was the best American motor assist kit in the mid 80's. It was a 72" 7 cell "05" electric glider using rudder, elevator and on/off motor control. I built my first in 85 and never looked back.
Now the Astro Challenger did have some issues. Mainly she had too much performance. It was a problem getting out of thermals. the structure was a bit light. This was typical in the day as electrics where often though of as being underpowered for their weight. So to keep the weight down the spars where a bit on the small side. With the weight of the batteries and clean performance of the Eppler 193 it was very easy to go too fast trying to leave a thermal. I folded the first wing as a result of flutter. The Astro Challenger does not have spoilers. Latter I think there were development in the ESC that we now had proportional control and prop brakes. This allowed us to fold the prop at the top of climb without needing to loose altitude like we had with the stall to fold blades of old. We also quickly learned that cracking open the throttle would open the blades at idle. With the blades out we found them to be very effective airbrakes!
I think by the late 80's I had worn out my second set of wings/airframe. I think the wing I found in the Attic is my third attempt from the early 90's. To add rigidity to the wing I used a geodesic set of ribs in the center section along with going up one size on the spruce spars. I did this so I could concentrate of thermal hunting and less on airframe speed (structural concerns). I don't know what happened to the rest of the glider. But the wing actually looks in good shape even with the little hanger rash shown.
When I dug though my plan can I found my original set of plans. I also found a lot of my old Astro Challenger motors. Spanning from the small commutator 05 to the FAI 15.
Not sure what I'm going to do. But I think it will have a geared Astro motor as I can use the large prop blades as a brake.
You might also see an uncovered Astro mini Challenger wing in the back ground.
BTW; This is an unsung curse of electric flight, airframe rarely get thrown away. This is because they don't suffer from the cancer that is oil soaked balsa from glow motors.
With my latest RES motor assist model I was thinking where had I had a similar experience.
DJ Aerotech Chrysalis F3-RES to F5-RESt
On the competition circuit the last two years haven't been kind to the DJ Aerotech Chrysalis lite F3-RES. Most of these problems can be traced to a nagging problem with the V tail flutter on the high start. In the USA it is getting difficult to get enough workers to man the lines for a classic...
forum.alofthobbies.com
It's Déjà vu all over again, I was in the attic last weekend and it dawned on me, there in the corner was my Astro Challenger wing. This was the ship that taught me about flat land thermal work and that electric power was far superior to glow.
The Astro Challenger was the best American motor assist kit in the mid 80's. It was a 72" 7 cell "05" electric glider using rudder, elevator and on/off motor control. I built my first in 85 and never looked back.
Now the Astro Challenger did have some issues. Mainly she had too much performance. It was a problem getting out of thermals. the structure was a bit light. This was typical in the day as electrics where often though of as being underpowered for their weight. So to keep the weight down the spars where a bit on the small side. With the weight of the batteries and clean performance of the Eppler 193 it was very easy to go too fast trying to leave a thermal. I folded the first wing as a result of flutter. The Astro Challenger does not have spoilers. Latter I think there were development in the ESC that we now had proportional control and prop brakes. This allowed us to fold the prop at the top of climb without needing to loose altitude like we had with the stall to fold blades of old. We also quickly learned that cracking open the throttle would open the blades at idle. With the blades out we found them to be very effective airbrakes!
I think by the late 80's I had worn out my second set of wings/airframe. I think the wing I found in the Attic is my third attempt from the early 90's. To add rigidity to the wing I used a geodesic set of ribs in the center section along with going up one size on the spruce spars. I did this so I could concentrate of thermal hunting and less on airframe speed (structural concerns). I don't know what happened to the rest of the glider. But the wing actually looks in good shape even with the little hanger rash shown.
When I dug though my plan can I found my original set of plans. I also found a lot of my old Astro Challenger motors. Spanning from the small commutator 05 to the FAI 15.
Not sure what I'm going to do. But I think it will have a geared Astro motor as I can use the large prop blades as a brake.
You might also see an uncovered Astro mini Challenger wing in the back ground.
BTW; This is an unsung curse of electric flight, airframe rarely get thrown away. This is because they don't suffer from the cancer that is oil soaked balsa from glow motors.
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The inside joke with Hank was that he stoped by to pick me up to go flying. He needed something I had in the attic. I had to drag him out kicking and screaming to go flying because, every time he turned around there was something else of interest. Ok, very dated and obsolete but still interesting.
