Art Hobby Thermic RES

[MonkeyBone]

I,m fixing to be starting on my thermic pretty soon and am wondering does it need spoilers??? If so I was wondering I like the look of planes that have just one center spoiler and the ones with the spoiler at the trailing edge of the wing on the center section. Would either of these type of spoiler do the job?

[fly1milehi]

NO it does not need spoilers! I have mine set up with spoilerons in the computer programming and it knocks it out of the sky just fine. The nice thin airfoil (HN1033?) works really well with the spoilerons, just remember that they need to reverse when they get to about the 70 - 75 degree up position. IE you actually need to lower the aileron to make some lift again to make turns and roll functional with full up spoiler. The total wing area on the Thermic is only about 620 square inches and its really light so the extra weight and cutting and adding spoilers would seem to negate any real gains in glide path control.. IMHO
sorry this photo isnt better its hard to fly and snap shots at the same time somedays

Greg

[MonkeyBone]

Thanks for the reply Greg.... Nice looking bird you have. Did you do any mods to ship?? You have the aileron version right?? this one is the RES version. If it dont need spoilers then I'm not mess with adding them. Any more pics of your bird?? I like the scheme..

[fly1milehi]

Dang,, guess I read your post to quickly because I missed the RES part.. duuuhhh my bad.
Um.. boy lets see.. on the polyhedral version.... I would think adding flaps would be a resonable modification to that version. Cut them out, face the openings with 1/8 inch balsa and use tape hinges.
I did not do any mods to mine unless you call the ultracote covering a mod. Sorry dont have any other photos of it.
Its been a really great ARF glider. Climbs like a angel covers ground really well. The only thing I havent quite figured out is its wind penetration seems low to me. Ballast helped it a bit but the fuselage is so small its hard to get much lead in there.
Greg

[Masterpiece]

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Um.. boy lets see.. on the polyhedral version.... I would think adding flaps would be a resonable modification to that version. Cut them out, face the openings with 1/8 inch balsa and use tape hinges.
Greg

The only suggestion I can add to this, is that when you cut out the flaps (like I did), don't leave them for a few months til you get around to adding the facing 1/8" balsa. They will bow a bit making re-aligning hard as I found out :o . After they bowed I tried to fix it by putting the flaps in a brace to straighten out adding a carbon strip instead of the 1/8" balsa facing. It straighten a bit BUT not enough for this fussy pants ;) . I've since remade some new flaps with TE balsa instead and covered with white solarfilm.

Which reminds me to get back to working on my Thermic for summer

Happy flying your Thermics guys
Glen