Dodgson Saber-just cuz

[belouder]

Watching the Comano build thread-thought I'd show folks what a Saber looked like. Bob's first full-house 6 channel glider and I believe the first of any to use the 7037.

Bri

[erich]

Bri

Please, give us some more information:

What were each of the 6 channels used for? Would love to hear about the control setup. Was it a kit? When did you get it? What kind of ship is it (wingspan, slope or thermal, contest,F3B, etc.)? Come on share...

erich

[belouder]

This was Bob Dodgson's entry into the full house computer radio realm. 121 inches of obeechi covered white foam with carbon strips in the trailing edge, seperate servos for each flap and aileron, ballast tubes in the wings, a cool pushrod arrangement for the rudder and elevator controls (the rudder wire runs inside the elevator carbon kite tube and so are self supporting-no need to dribble CA down the insides of the fuse to get pushrod tubes to stick!!). The kit was the first anywhere to use the SD 7037 foil and everyone followed suit quickly as this became the versatile cross section that we are used to today. As always, Bob was way ahead of his time. Classic Dodgson kit instructions and very complete materials and hardware. You had the option of using double stick tape or epoxy and bagging the wings. I went with bagging the wings (first time to do this!!) but unfortunately dropped a hammer on one of the wing panels right after I took it out of the bag!!!. Cool thing about expanded white foam is that heat will re-expand crushed foam so the clothes iron was used to re-shape the wing.

The plane flew great-fast when you needed to be, slow and gentle when coring a thermal, slowed wayyyyyy down for landings. It was very fun. Ballasted up it screamed on the slope, a pre-cursor to the unlimited racing machines soon to be developed in California.

Anway, it was a joy to build and even more enjoyable to fly. Now I just need to fix the flap servo and wait for the weather to clear........