engine needed?

[GreenAce92]

If your a pretty good pilot is an engine needed? Once i set myself up with a hot wire cutter from an article written on soaring digest i believe is the publication, i would like to build my own F3X type planes(just the idea of really nice airframe etc..) and i still am leery on a sailplane without an engine, i plan on having it have all the required parts of a good sailplane such as variable camber, spoilers etc... so i guess all i need is a way to get up there and soar from there on?

[sparkysko]

You've built DLGs before... I'm confused why you'd ask if we need motors in our sailplanes since your blog shows that you already own sailplanes without motors.

I own a sailplane with a ridiculous motor setup in it, and I rarely fly it. I prefer to fly DLGs, and am building all of my new larger sailplanes without motors.

Although at the larger sizes, I don't think the weight for a modest motor setup really has much effect on the plane, so it could go either way. I think you'll sacrifice fuselage durability by adding a motor for those precision landing attempts.

[Bernd Brunner]

Hehe ;-)
A motor i need for the tug only!

m2c
Bernd

[atjurhs]

... so i guess all i need is a way to get up there and soar from there on?

simple, get a winch or high-start

[GreenAce92]

Yeah i guess it was a retorecal question, i just lost my Parkzone Radian soo... looks like its engineless for me for a while :)

[mlee8249]

Actually, if you're a pretty good pilot, you don't want an engine. The biggest reward from sailplanes is to challenge yourself against the elements and get your plane to fly without any type of powerplant for periods of time longer than if it were powered. It's you against nature and yet, in harmony with nature to fly. And if you fly handlaunch, that's a damn good start!

Mike

[GreenAce92]

yeah im building a scratch DLG right now maybe alittle on the heavy side but yeah prolly a 40+in span 30+in long im looking at for figures at the moment, R/E model pretty hard core using a spinner for a tip lol