EPP/Foam 2 Meters?

[thelocust]

Hmm.. I'd love to have a beater 2-meter that can take a light winch launch, but it would seem that no one is kitting them anymore! The Highlander EPP isn't made anymore, the Trick R/C Floater is no more.... it would seem that only Dave's Aircraft TG-3 and 1-26 (http://www.davesaircraftworks.com/home.htm) are the only options anymore.... Maybe a Steelhead Products Panther (http://www.steelheadproducts.com)?

Any suggestions?

[John Gallagher]

Maybe the Defiant from northeast sailplanes.
http://www.nesail.com/defiant/defiant.htm

[jlk]

Just finished two Beaters in June. Both were built with removable stabs and rudders with shortened nose to allow packing in a 40" box. I might be willing to sell one. They have HS-325hb servos and Hecell 1100 ma battery packs. See the two planes in the middle of the photo

Jordan

[SchiessCo]

I ordered a Steelhead Panther some years ago. I sent my money, waited, e-mailed, waited, e-mailed, waited, and finally recieved the pink foam wing and fuse. I e-mailed again asking for some insrtuctions, but never heard back. Hopefully he has his act together now, because his customer service was terrible.

Dave's on the other hand, has good customer service and some nice flying planes, so that would be my choice for an epp 2M.

Another option is to pick up a cheapie balsa kit, like a House of Balsa 2x6. It builds fast and easy, has a strong 1/4 dowel leading edge, and flies pretty good as well. Heck, I still have the wing off mine, and it was the first plane I ever built or flew - and I learned on my own :D, so you know what kind of abuse it went through. Just another option...

Pete

[Jeff Charlot]

I loved my TG-3....enough to talk several friends into buying their own. I've owned several 1-26's and still have one of them in active service. As for customer service...Daves is great. If he had more planes, I'd give him more money. As it is, I've built and flown most of his designs.

As for Steelhead......when he asked for Beta builders, a friend of mine volunteered to help out and was promised a kit, told that it was shipped, yup, it's on the way.......you know the story....This was several months ago. I wouldn't hold my breath with this guy.

Jeff

[webguyjv]

I have two DAW Sschweizer 1-26 2-meters and I LOVE 'em.

I also have a DAW Dragonette MHLG which is very nice in light lift. I had a DAW Me-163 Komet that I loved. It was lost when a buddy was flying it.

In short, everything DAW that I've ever flown -- and the DAW TG-3s and 1-26 HLGs that my friends have -- are EXCELLENT planes.

In my opinion, you can't go wrong with them.

Hapopy Flying ;-)

JV

[thelocust]

Hmm... sounds like a lot of DAW fans out there!

The Defiant looks like a MAD Highlander to me, but $94? Sheesh! I could go and buy a Windstar or Spirit ARF from Tower for that! (But would I trust it in the hands of a new pilot? That's another question :) )

I've PM'ed JLK regarding those cool little birds he put up there.... I like the look of them for me, whose flown a bit, but a poly wing would probably be better for the newbs.

Any more suggestions, guys? Thanks for the quick responses....

[rloose]

Mr. Locust-

One option is to have an EPP wing custom made. I ordered a DAW glider from a Hobby Shop in Albuquerque and waited and waited and waited. Finally the shop called, apologized and offered to cancel the order. I'm not knocking DAW, I hear his planes are great, but it is a part time family business and I think he is swamped with success. See my thread at http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=138895

This wing has turned out to be a super flyer and has been crash tessted into a cedar tree. Learned another lesson. Get rid of the Tamiya connectors. They corroded and left my glider a free flyer. After about 10 minutes of circling, it was 'tree tested' and did just fine.

Rich

[John Gallagher]

Mad Highlanders were going for $79 last year. $94 is a bit more.

[Jim Poor]

It's only 60" but it will work. Steve (the srhobbies guy) has done several mods on it. He'd be glad to explain how to manage a winch launch.

[jlk]

Daw makes very good kits. I also have several of them. The poly wing planes in the picture above are the smaller Daw 1-26. They are a very nice flier but would not take a winch, they would take a small high-start.

Jordan

[Soar_dude]

You guys missed one Globals Spirit 2K great trainer it actually thermals nice if fact I use it as my Avatar. The thing is really durable the only thing I "mod'ed" on it was put in a thicker spar

Soar Dude

P.S. Oh yeah only 64.00 from hobby people

[thelocust]

Well, yeah. The club i'm in has a few, but I was looking to get another one -- too bad Mad Aircraft seems to be out-of-business. Their website ( http://www.madaircraft.com ) is gone!


Originally posted by John Gallagher
Mad Highlanders were going for $79 last year. $94 is a bit more.

[John Gallagher]

I was just trying to say that the Defiant is only $15 more then the Highlander was.

[rloose]

The "Gentle Foamy" looks like it has possibilities. Huge wing and would be easy to motorize. I ordered one from Isthmus and it came right away, but I have not had a chance to put it together. Anyone have experience with this plane??

Check it out at
http://www.isthmusmodels.com/mtntoy/gentle.html

Rich

[thelocust]

RE: Highlander vs. Defiant

Yeah, I guess I had underestimated the costs on these things... But am I crazy to think that $95 for a foam plane seems a little out there?

RE: Gentle Foamy
That $65 Gentle Foamy looks interesting. I'm betting I could beef that up to make it winch-able. Maybe use an arrow shaft of fiberglass pushrod for the spar and some filament table to beef it up... And that wing! That wing is HUGE! 822 sq inches on a 36 ounce plane = 6.3 oz/sq in. wing loading. Hmm....

Sounds like either the DAW TG-3 or this Gentle Lady is the way to go... More on this later...

[Jack Hyde]

I guess I am the only one that is not a DAW TG-3 fan for thermal flying. My first plane was one and it was a 10 for ruggedness and a 3 for flying. I was a poor flier but I could not get the thing to stay flying more than about 1 min. When I switched to 2m built-up I was suddenly much better. It may be that some of the TG3 fans are slope flying the plane. There was on flier that posted he specks out his TG-3 from a hand launch routinely. I would as soon believe you could speck out a brick from my experience.
A few years later I was flying at a club with a winch and 100 power fliers that all had a glider at home that they wanted to try some day. The problem was they had seen several gliders fold their wings during a winch launch. This happened when the 3-d expert stunt fliers figured winching a sailplane looked real easy and would give it a shot with a kids new ARF 2m , exploding the wings at the top of the launch. So my friend got a TG-3 that he built really stout for winch training. He didn't set it up well - it veered wildly and if it got up sank like a rock. Too heavy to float and not trimmed.
I managed to eventually break the spar of my TG-3 winching it. Up to that point I had never broken a wing winching.I have winched most of the popular 2m builtup balsa planes and many flights with a kit built Spirit without problems but I am very careful.

[thelocust]

Well, the TG-3 isn't really meant to be a fantastic flyer by any stretch of the imagination -- but it does have a similar wingloading as my Spirit Elite does, and I've been having a ball with it. The question does remain as to whether or not it could take a winch-launch.

I like the larger wing on the Gentle Foamy, though, which I think would help the stability and floatability of the plane (I'm guessing).

My ideas about beefing up the spar include a carbon fiber tube instead of the the basswood or spruce spar coupled with filament tape.

[Ollie]

Even an empty plastic bag will go up in a thermal by virtue of its light weight and in spite of its lack of lift. It is all drag. The plastic bag has less than zero ability to penetrate.

Heavy planes with lots of drag may perform well on the slope but are hardly better than a plastic bag for thermalling in light lift at low altitudes. The best thermalling planes have light wing loadings so they can turn tightly in small thermals at low sink rates. The planes that can penetrate back to the field after chasing a thermal down wind have low drag. The two numbers that best characterize high performance for thermalling are low wing loading and high L/D.

[fprintf]

I love my Highlander. Too bad Mad Aircraft is gone. Perhaps someone on RCSE knows whether they offered the tooling/design to anyone to continue the Highlander success?

What is so special about the Highlander anyway? I don't know because I have never flown a TG-3 or DAW plane. I do know that according to the reviews I read at the time that the Highlander had a winch proof wing, was a bit lighter than the other planes, and had excellent results at thermaling (vs. the others that seemed a little better on the slope)

[thelocust]

I think the "winch proof wing" was the important part. I've flown one of the club's Highlanders, and it is a sturdy birdy, if I do say so. It won't take a full winch launch, but it will certainly take a hardy one!

It wasn't a gas bag or anything, but it had good flight characteristics, perfect for new guys, and it's a must-have when first learning to launch off a winch! (Remember to throw the thing!!)

I may go with that Gentle Foamy and see if I can't beef it up considerably....

Originally posted by fprintf
What is so special about the Highlander anyway? I don't know because I have never flown a TG-3 or DAW plane. I do know that according to the reviews I read at the time that the Highlander had a winch proof wing, was a bit lighter than the other planes, and had excellent results at thermaling (vs. the others that seemed a little better on the slope)