I thought about trying chaff, first developed in WWII to jam radar. Take thin strips of aluminum foil and put a half-twist in them so they spin as they fall. I can do a very simple test with my Oly II that has spoiler bays in the wing. Just fill the bay with chaff or talc, get some altitude, and engage the spoilers.

If the approach shows promise, the next step is to look for a more environmentally friendly material.

What about keeping the sparkly material attached? I was thinking about a deployable strip of holographic Mylar, attached by a cord to the plane. Pull a switch, a bay opens, and a tiny drouge pulls about 5-15 feet of Mylar. Gotta balance weight, drag, desired visibility, and landability.

Get a stabilizer like an fy20a that will keep the wings level or better yet, get an autopilot system to bring it back for you. THe fpv guys have these, me included, and they save our bacon time and time again.

RPV (us pilots, from the ground) is covered by the rules - unless I'm horribly out of the loop, FPV or autopilots are not permitted - at least not yet. Not sure if the Glitter Bomb is OK - as it's not technically a ballast drop but there would be a miniscule loss of weight - rules gods want to chime in..??

Also - those systems are great - at serious expense. A Glitter Bomb is maybe 10 bucks and a spare servo to activate and a total of an ounce or 2 of added weight. KISS rules....

Lastly - I did consider colored chalks or paint pigments - more enviro friendly but I'm guessing a bit messy (and heavier) and you have to select color to offset against sky - glitter would flash - a lot of glitter would flash a lot in a nice cloud behind the plane....

rp

I would be worried about wildlife consuming the glitter. It's the same Mylar gracing our Christmas tress each year, and every vet knows how that stuff does in Fido's tummy.

Both my sticks down in the corner is what I did, I got my plane back almost without a scratch the day after.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...&postcount=164
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...&postcount=166

4.8 ounces pull pin would easily be pulle with a servo
ACR Electronics ACR RapidFire™ Pull-Pin Inflatable PFD Strobe

How about a different approach. Telemetry systems can already send voltage, amps, altitude, airspeed, G-Force, RPM, temperature, and GPS. Horizon has a receiver module that connects to your iPhone or iPad. Since the iPhone has a GPS and compass, and it would be receiving GPS from the plane, seems like pretty soon we could see a physical device that continuously tracks and points at the plane while it is in flight.

Has anyone considered a pyrotechnic flare or smoke canister, for emergency activation? I suppose that could produce some unwanted attention from the wrong people.... oops I see that's been covered to some extent. I would think that one of those day-glow orange smoke sticks would be about the most visible thing. I have a hard time believing you could see a strobe very far in the day time, up in the bright sky.

Actually I would think that dropping radar-reflecting chaff into the airspace might attract some unwanted attention as well, not sure if it is technically violating any laws but...

One thing I think everyone forgets when coming up with all these ideas is wt of the plane, Most XC ships are at, close to or over the 11lbs. Just my 2 cents.

Hi all,
Loosing you model out of sight is a sick feeling, (done it once). So when I designed my XC glider flying out of sight security build in. I questioned the approach of the designs with flaps and ailerons. Can it be a RES glider? Why fly a glider with a large pilot workload, unstable when out of sight? I did not want to build a gasbag either! How are the free-flight guys getting the job done with the models always out of sight re: radio control?
Joe Wurts Moby had no aileron, but still was lost by a out of sight blow up! So, like the free flight gliders, I needed dynamic pitch stability with a conservative CG and a long tail moment. Modern airfoil, no ailerons needed, but flaps and spoilers…. WHY NOT!! I need a glider to fly at a speed limit of 45 mph. Here in Michigan 70 mph and up will put me in jail very quickly.
Handling needed to be easy like RES.
Stability needed to be dynamic stable.
Visibility, yes, good colors will also help
5000 feet up is the max since the cloud base is at that level most of the time.
Go Cxing only down wind (45 mph + 10mph = 55mph) lift and sink will be not as brutal as in desert conditions. Here we get one directional winds for the whole day often.
Maximize FAA rules (2200 squares 5Kg).
Easy glide path control for de-thermaling and landing in thigh spots.
Modern AG airfoil.
Now I needed Troy Lawicki's help. A trip to York, PA was in order.
Together we designed a monster using software to calculate tail moments, stab and rudder lay outs.
Total wing Sq-inches are 2150, weigh 3KG without ballast, 205 in span, a tail moment of 72in... Flaps were added.

So a super super Ava with a solid bagged center section with flaps was designed. The original super Ava center was cut in half and then the rest of the wing finished the design. A blade wing rod joined the old and new center section together. A blade was chosen to change the dihedral angle easily. The tail mounted servo idea was abandoned. The tail is too long and added to much weight.

This is only a long story short. Lots of ideas where hash over and over again. The plane is finished but not flown, due to some problems with the new center section. Troy is working on it...

I have flown a regular Ava at 5200ft over and it is hard to see. With a much larger wing and the new white coloring and all the changes made, I hope i can fly the glider better not worrying blowing up going to fast. With the pitch stability always present i can pull flaps or spoiler or both for save recovery.
The plane is ready for flight testing next week.
Smiles Peter Baumeler

Originally Posted by baum58

Hi all,
Michigan 70 mph and up will put me in jail very quickly.
Handling needed to be easy like RES.
Stability needed to be dynamic stable.
Visibility, yes, good colors will also help
5000 feet up is the max since the cloud base is at that level most of the time.
Go Cxing only down wind (45 mph + 10mph = 55mph) lift and sink will be not as brutal as in desert conditions. Here we get one directional winds for the whole day often.
Maximize FAA rules (2200 squares 5Kg).
Easy glide path control for de-thermaling and landing in thigh spots.
Modern AG airfoil.
Now I needed Troy Lawicki's help. A trip to York, PA was in order.
Together we designed a monster using software to calculate tail moments, stab and rudder lay outs.
Total wing Sq-inches are 2150, weigh 3KG without ballast, 205 in span, a tail moment of 72in... Flaps were added.

Smiles Peter Baumeler

Peter,

I think flying unballasted at 3 kg might be a little slow. Assuming an elliptical wing planform, 2150 sq in area, 205 in span I get a root chord of 13.275 in (very good) but a wing loading of only 7.1 oz at 3 kg. This would be a good floater on very calm light days. At 5 kg (max allowed) you are up to 11.8 oz loading, still very light for such a large sailplane.

Here on the west coast we all fly at 5 kg and around 15+ oz loading. This is because all our XC contests are now races, we dont fly distance anymore (but some of our races are 40+ miles long). And most of us wish we could go over 5 kg and higher wing loadings on windy days. Much over 15 oz loading means reducing the wing area which could lead to visibility problems unless you reduce AR significantly to maintain a large (12+ in) root chord.

Steve

I know all about the wingloading. I can add 32oz of ballast if needed. The plane was build for down wind distant flying. The AG airfoil would be also out of the reynolds numbers at a much higher wing loading. In Michigan we have much more calm conditions, less lift, less sink. The wind will be blowing form one directions for most of the day...

With this problem I can help you.

Use tecnology now widespread in the FPV world.

There are OSDs (on screen displays) that are used to send telemetry over video, most of them have a RTH function (return to home).

They use a simple GPS with a termopile sensor to lock the launch position.

If anything happens, like you loose radio signal, the autopilot kicks in and brings the plane over your head circling nicely until it drops to an altitude where you can see it.
There are some complete ones available for 100-150$ .

Even if you don't use the video overlay feature, you can use the RTH feature.
That's cheap insurance for a 2000$ ship.

Of course RTH can be triggered with a switch on the radio.

Without Sense and Avoid technology, Return To Home is a dangerous feature. To outfit an XC ship with this tech is likely to change it's status from model to UAV.

Don't go there