To my amazement this thread has seen over 10k views is a period of 1 month.



Kurt

Interesting thread, thank you for initiating it! Any recent flights With your Viking Mk I?

Originally Posted by HIR/Cer

Interesting thread, thank you for initiating it! Any recent flights With your Viking Mk I?

I have not been out flying since I had the Viking MK I out for its maiden. The weather here is the North East starts to get somewhat unpredictable and of course when the weather is good I have something else planned.

As you have been seeing I am working very hard to get my Miles done before the holidays. My initial goal was to have it completed before the end of October. I don' think that is realistic, but it isn't going to be that far off. I have a few more things to do on construction then I want to install the radio before I final sand and cover.

When the Miles is finished then I have some really big priority issues to deal with then of course the holiday season. My building problably will not pick up until the end of December or into January.

Next building effort after the Miles is a modified Sagitta. I have a glass fuse for it and I'm going to modify the airfoil from the E205 to S3014. That should take a good part of the building season. Beyond that I'm into repairing a Lovesong along with a recover job.

I agree with you this has turned out to be a great thread. I am glad all are enjoying it as much as I am.

Kurt

Kurt,

How was the Miles build? I love the tail feathers on it...hemmed and hawed whether to build it...was about to pull the trigger, and it's out of stock....still trying to decide now, maybe a Chrysalis 2m, and the Houston Hawk short kit...I'll either use my OLYIII plans and build a fuse, or use the Houston Hawk Grand Poobah wood plans, that he is about to release to us, yesterday.....

Originally Posted by Mr Smith1

Kurt,

How was the Miles build? I love the tail feathers on it...hemmed and hawed whether to build it...was about to pull the trigger, and it's out of stock....still trying to decide now, maybe a Chrysalis 2m, and the Houston Hawk short kit...I'll either use my OLYIII plans and build a fuse, or use the Houston Hawk Grand Poobah wood plans, that he is about to release to us, yesterday.....

The Miles build is a lot of fun. Lots of parts, but all in all you wind up crafting a really neat, straight ship. Phil Kolb is an amazing designer and I don't know of my issues/problems with any of his designs. A true craftsman for sure.

I have become a big fan of the HH and think that Jack W. was well ahead of times when he designed it almost 10 years ago. I found that my spare Addiction fuse looks to be a perfect match to the HH wing & tail group and think would make for another fun project. Maybe, just maybe, if I'm good, Santa will be leaving me a HH short kit under the tree... one can only hope... dream

For those who are missing out, I truly hope to see the Miles kit start back up in production. I know the anticipated start up date is the beginning of next year. Let's hope.

For now I'm looking forward to finishing the Miles... then onto the Sagitta, which has been in my sights ever since Lee released the kit in the early 80's.

Kurt

Originally Posted by kzimmerm

To my amazement this thread has seen over 10k views is a period of 1 month.



Kurt

What can we say? Who doesn't love bent wings?

:Pretty hard to thermal without a bit of bendiness somewhere!

^ Actually that is not true, you can thermal stout foam sloping race planks front and backside of a slope when the bubble pop and they have nothing in terms of a bendy factor.. Still..

Here's my Guillow's "Arrow" which is from a rubberband/prop powered freeflight kit converted with LOADS of modifications structurally(there's a build log here on the thermal forum in the past year I think) and converted into a 2 ch glider. It was a 27" wingspan per plans, but this version is a 38" wingspan.

For what it is, it flies decently with a few quirks but not bad. I've actually thermaled it a few times to speck height,which for this isn't "that" high, but still high enough. Good plane for late trips to the park with 30min or less until sundown, launches well on a mini-hi-start or my bigger hi-start I use on my 2M gliders or just hand-launch javelin style to try to circle back for a catch landing.

Adios - Paul

Paul, excellent! Little wooden sailplanes are great, looks a lot of fun. As a kid I built a bunch of Aeroflyte Nomad FF'ers and each one became more modified and floaty over time, and as a kid you didn't mind running for hundreds of meters follwing them across the countryside or rooftops. RC'ing them back then just wasn't practicle given the radio gear of the time, but it would have been fun. Still i lost count of the hours and days spent launching and following them and trimming them.

Hey Steve! I've heard of the "Nomad" but not sure if I've ever seen one, What's the wingspan of that plane?

It looks like with a few(or practically none) modifications, one could put the same dinky servo's battery, and reciever in that plane too.

Funny thing about my Guillow's "Arrow" is that although it manuevers OK (with a few quirks to watch out for) with 2ch RC control, it still wants to be a free flight at heart, it really flies well on it's own and the less I mess with it, the longer it stays up, that's true for pretty much any glider when thermals aren't abundant, but even more so in the case of the Arrow I built.

Adios - Paul

Paul,
A google search gave the wingspan as 40".

I think what I did to them over time was stretch the wings a bit, modify the airfoil; it was a very standard flat bottomed wing, and make holes in the fuselage panels to reduce weight play around with CG and towhook point.

Those were the days of tissue and dope. I remember painting my first one by hand a bunch of different oil based colors then wondering why it didn't fly all that great! It was pretty like your Arrow but less so without the neat transparent film. I'd love to do one in solarfilm light.

I have a sneaking suspicion that you are right, I might find the same thing- if I were to put micro rc gear in one today I might find that its quirks lend it more to flying well in FF rather than me trying to bludgeon it around the sky with my thumbs.


EDIT; forgive if we strayed off topic a little. These may not be our best floaters but they were fun sailplanes made to float as best they can.

Originally Posted by kzimmerm

The Miles build is a lot of fun. Lots of parts, but all in all you wind up crafting a really neat, straight ship. Phil Kolb is an amazing designer and I don't know of my issues/problems with any of his designs. A true craftsman for sure.

Hey Kurt, I just ran across this thread and noticed your comments on the Miles. I've got one that I bought well over a year ago, heck, maybe close to two years(?) and have yet to get building on. I had thoughts of doing some mods to it, but then got distracted with other ships/ build projects, so there it sits. Do you have a build thread going somewhere that I could peruse? I may need to build it after all, but I'm currently in the midst of an OLY II SX build, with a slope project coming soon, so it may be a while until I get to it, we'll see.

Thanks!

Rob

My best floater and favorite model, is my electric powered Mirage.

All up weight in ALES contest mode is 33.1 ounces for a wing loading of about 5.2 oz/ft.

I just recently finished the tail feathers, pod and boom for the Bubble Dancer Im working on. the wing will take me another loooooong while to finish

Anyway, I decided to try out the Mirage wing on the BD fuse.... its works great!

It also shaved off another 4 ounces on the all up weight which gets it down to about 4.5 oz/ft.

With the reduced drag and lower weight it floats even better now than it did before.

Here are some cell phone shots of both versions.

Originally Posted by robh

Hey Kurt, I just ran across this thread and noticed your comments on the Miles. I've got one that I bought well over a year ago, heck, maybe close to two years(?) and have yet to get building on. I had thoughts of doing some mods to it, but then got distracted with other ships/ build projects, so there it sits. Do you have a build thread going somewhere that I could peruse? I may need to build it after all, but I'm currently in the midst of an OLY II SX build, with a slope project coming soon, so it may be a while until I get to it, we'll see.

Thanks!

Rob

Rob;
I did not create a building log only because there was one already there. You can follow the building log from this link:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showt...highlight=mile

Just wondering what mods you were thinking of making. My build I choose to leve things along, keeping it a 2m RES.

I'll post pictures of my covering efforts.... I have 1 outer panel finished... Much more covering to do.

All the best;
Kurt