Should I Keep Them????

[tigerstrike]

Received from a friend who picked these up from another....

AIRTRONICS OLYMPIC 650, completely built with a Cox .049, and radio, presume has flown and the motor was to get it up into the air.
Worthy of keeping, maybe changing to Electric Speed 400 power, or replace engine with a new balsa nose cone and fly like a reg. sailplane??
----------------------------------
Also have:
AIRTRONICS SAGITTA, wings built, rest of the plane needs to be assembled and covered
--------------------------------------
Keep them Or should I take them to the next RC auction and purchase something else??

[Michael Heer]

The Sagitta 900 is a great looking and flying plane. The fuse is a bit of work in the shaping etc. but worth the effort. It is not so much hard as time consuming. I would recommend keeping it. As to the Oly, while I love the Oly II, I never had the same feeing for the 650. If you keep it I would suggest as a true glider if you don't want to fly it as is. If it were me I would sell it. It simply isn't the classic that the Oly II or Sagitta 900 is. That's my .02 worth. Michael Heer

[ramair]

i would keep both of them ,if you have to ruin one with power let it be the oly,i love the saggittas but please try to remember that sailplanes are best as pure sailplanes so if you must add power ,you are moving backwards!!if you build the fuse for the 600 sag. you will see how much time and effort that goes into building a sleak fuse,,seems a shame to mess up the airflow with the power option
on the other hand the oly doesnt have as good an l/d and is more of a floater so at the slower speeds the drag isnt that important ramair

[ramair]

i just wanted to mention that; i hear a lot of talk on here about electric sailplanes but i dont understand why more guys dont aerotow them,there are a lot of glow engine guys that are willing to pull tug and its really easy to do even for a newer flyer, all you need is about 100 ft of 25 lbs fishing line then you run behind to handlaunch the glider and usually the glider tends to sit up a little higher than the tow planes and there is very little else to do except release
just my 2 cents ramair

[rcav8r2]

I agree with the towing idea. My buddy and I did this...basically just to prove a point. A lot of the guys at our field tried it, and all of them crashed either the glider, tow plane or both.
If you go this route, go with a tow pilot you trust. FLy the glider on the outside of turns to keep the slack out of the line. Communication between pilots is a must. We just launched the glider by pulling the tow line tight, and resting the glider on the runway.
For a realease I made a very simple one attached to the spoiler servo. It had 2 small eye hooks in the nose of the glider. Then a cable went from the servo through the 2 eye hooks. We slipped a key ring ( tied to the tow line) beween the eyehooks, and captured with the cable. The servo just pulled the cable, releasing the key ring. Worked every time. :D

[Lee R. Wheeler]

Hi! You don't know what you got! These are Airtronics wood kits, The man who designed them is no longer on this earth! His sons and wife took over the company and everything was going fine! And I think Cox took over the company. and one of the sons went out on his own. He sold the wood part to over companys. The Sagetta is only kitted with ribs and plans. Same with the 650. The Oly II is not made anymore by Whye Wings. So take the motor off and get some balsa block and drill a hole in it for the lead. that you will be putting in it. Late!

[tigerstrike]

I'll be keeping both, my buddy has the Oly like mine , has a diesel engine on it, he loves it, over 600 flights....tried to convince me real hard to put a deisel on it also. He doesn't want to walk up a hill ( he's a smoker and out of shape). Personal I'd rather use the high start or walk up the hill, no fuel mess to deal with. I already have the nose block drawn out on a block of basswood, just need to cut it out. The Sagitta will be worked on as soon as I get the 5 boat hulls finished .

[denete]

You might want to check the real info on the Airtronics kits. Dream Catcher Hobby has purchased the rights to probably 93% of those planes. Skybench Aerotech has recently purchased the Olympic from Ed Whyte. They are all very good flying planes and most (not the Sagittas or Legend, etc.) are nostalgia-class legal.

- David