Model airplane news contacted me on fb to feature my TSR-2 rocketplane this month!

I built a second version of my 4" diameter upscale Estes Interceptor modified for R/C Rocket glider recovery and using 29mm H-13 longburn motors. This second version I modified with more forward placed spars top and bottom of the wing to avoid flex/twist and made the wingtip pods removable with carbon guide pins, plastic recepticles in the wing tip and a magnet to hold them in, I can now remove them for transport. I also laminated a 6mm sheet in the center section of the wing to help with wing stiffness as well. 62" long, 35" wingspan, 35 oz ready to fly with the 7.25 ounce motor included. I updated my elevons to be full span instead of barn door and reduced their chord and mounted the metal gear digital servos more toward the center of the control surface through the wing itself. Maiden went great, I had to make some down trim adjustments during boost leading to some roller coaster on the first flight, second flight was golden. I sized this to allow the elevons to be able to trim out the CG shift due to the 4.75 ounces lost in the tail during the motor burn. Glide elevator trim setting via a flight mode on a switch setting.

Highpower Estes Interceptor Upscale for R/C Rocket glider recovery (6 min 10 sec)

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Nice, was featured in the magazine this month..

Although I like the Buran shuttles simpler lines I decided to have another go with a U S version, with the oms pods, turned out ok. 1:37 or so, 26" wingspan, 13.4 oz rtf for 24mm motors. A little heavier than my Buran at the same scale due to the oms tail weight and extra balast. 9mm wing, tail and formers, formed 3mm skin, oms and nose are laminated 9mm hollowed and carved. Nozzles were photo p paper. Markings are all hand cut vinyl.

1/37 scale Space Shuttle R/C Rocket glider (3 min 14 sec)

Here is my second version the Shuttle Discovery where I pulled out all the stops and reduced the fuse profile a bit, lightened all the formers, spar etc and got the weight down to 12 oz rtf, boosts higher and glides longer.

More 1:37 Scale Shuttle Discovery R/C Rocket glider flights (2 min 13 sec)

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I did full builtup fuse versions of my Buran this week in 1:37 and 1:52 scale, 9mm, 3mm and 6mm depron, shown with my 1:26 scale version. Used the same structure, just scaled down. 1:26 for H rocket motors, 36" wingspan 34 oz rtf, 1:37 for E motors, 26" span 11 oz rtf, 1:52 for 18mm D motors, 18" span 5.3 oz rtf. Some pics of the little one being built as well.

1/52 scale Buran Shuttle R/C Rocket glider (2 min 21 sec)

Lightweight 1/37 scale Buran Shuttle R/C Rocket glider (3 min 7 sec)

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I built this over the last few days, 9mm, 6mm and 3mm depron, 36" span. A 2x upscale of a kit I make for E class motors. This is designed like my other large rocket gliders to use the 17 second burn Aerotech H-13 rocket motor. Standoff scale to save weight, right at 33.75 iz rtf, the motor weighs 7.25 oz. This is right at the sweet spot for a vertical launch. Constructed with foam safe ca+ and 3m-77 spray adhesive, all markings and black areas are hand cut vinyl with an exacto knife

Large 1:26 scale Soviet Buran Shuttle R/C rocket glider flying on H motor (5 min 58 sec)

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I updated my shuttle kit design to be about an ounce lighter and a bit simpler, this time done in US, Soviet Buran and Moonraker schemes, along with some test flights in very windy condititions. 6mm depron wings/tail and 12 piece laminated nose carved and shaped with a cardboard coupler as a shoulder fitting into the light cardboard body tube with 3mm depron side plates. Elevon control. 23" long, 18" wingspan, 7.7 oz rtf using a 24mm E-6 rocket motor for flight. Cut vinyl markings and line work. I used a decal for the OMS pods which allowed me to mount the rail guides on the top right insead of the bottom of the wing to avoid landing damage on the rail guides.

Dynasoar Rocketry R/C Shuttle Rocket gliders(sorry for the wind noise) (6 min 55 sec)

I spent the morning creating this, an easy building F-14 for rocket boost, 19" wingspan, 28" long in fixed swept wing configuration, 6mm depron, 9.3 ounces ready to fly when done.. I used some tubing and a nose cone for simplicity and to allow mounting the launch guides. Cockpit shape was the best I could do with the cone I had. I'll add panel lines after painting which will help give the swept wing more detail. My older version used a larger cone and tube and simple profile sides and weighed 10 oz but still flew great, this should be even better. Small hinged tail surfaces for roll and pitch.

My Tomcat model will have the tail markings of a "Bombcat" which is also a term used for the B model sometimes as it could carry ordnance. My cat "Tommy" is also a "Bombcat" since he likes to do late night Bomb runs in our bathtub and leave a nice steaming 500 pound penetrator, sometimes dumping high octane fuel or "napalm" as my wife calls it as well, then put in afterburner literally go "feet wet" and egress the bathroom at full speed and head back to the boat. He looks so innocent. Reminds me of the Phantom Shitter from Flight of the Intruder....Continue Reading

I've been thinking about doing a TSR-2 for a while, wingspan is short so I had to make it fairly large to have good wing area. I did move the tailplane in line with the wing for simplicity of construction. The fuse on the real thing is fairly boxy so I went with all foam 6mm depron sheet box construction with hand rolled 3mm intake cones. Just need to sheet the bottom, round it all off and make a cockpit. 42" long, 22" wingspan before the tips were cranked down. Fuse is about 3 3/4" tall and about 1 3/4" wide. 5 oz dry, 10.3 rtf with rocket motor. This was a fun one day(long) design and build, left unpainted to save weight, hand cut vinyl markings and a sharpie for panel lines.

TSR-2 R/C rocket glider flight (3 min 24 sec)

BAC TSR-2 R/C Rocket glider flight (1 min 23 sec)

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I wanted to do something simple that would be reminicent of a Mig 25 and a Vigilante, R/C rocket powered, I went with a single tail but kept the Foxbat shapes and I did a simple box fuse, the body tube is a little more than half length as it is only there to support the launch rail guides and hold the nose cone. The motor mount glues directly to the rear of the wing/tail. Cockpit and nose shape are the best I could do using a cone/tube, as I didn't want to do a full built up.

For simplicity I also put the stabs in the same plane as the wing so I could cut them as one sheet, and I'm using hinged tail surfaces for roll and pitch, no aileron/rudder.

6mm depron, from rcdepron.com, BT-60 tubing.

They turned out nicely, the Firebat(calling it that since it isn't really a foxbat) and the Vigilante are both 32" long, 20" wingspan for the Mig, 24" for the Vigilante, 1.65" tubing. Weight ready to fly using a 24mm E-6 rocket motor is 7.5 oz for the Mig and 8.25 oz for the vigilante. The only paint on these is the gray for the Vigilante, all other color is hand cut trim vinyl including the white on the nose cones. They should really scoot at those light weights.

R/C Mig-25 inspired rocket glider flights (5 min 51 sec)

R/C A-5 Vigilante rocket glider flights (5 min 16 sec)

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I decided to revisit one of my profile designs I did back in 2008, the EE Lightning. I chose the F.Mk1 since it is the least pudgy of the designs. On this one I decided on a core of 9mm depron for the cockpit, stab and intake cone and hollowed out in the middle, with two 1" wide 9mm outline doublers to give some thickness and 6mm depron side plates. This gave me plenty of meat to round the edges a lot and help the look not be so profile-ish. It also allowed me to fit the rx, wiring, esc and battery inside accessible via a hatch. For the wing I used 9mm depron with a 3mm carbon rod A frame arrangement slotted, glued and taped in place. 6mm depron for the horizontal stab. I decided to leave it white to save weight and did all the color with hand cut vinyl done with an X-acto knife, then heated and pressed in place after application. I'm running a grayson microjet V-3 with apc 6x4, 3s 800mah pack and 20 amp esc. Just waiting for the servos to arrive to finish and balance it. Should be around 14 oz rtf, 35" long, 22.5" wingspan, so around 1/18 scale. I did not have a phoenix in my stash of decals so I used my newly arrived tower hobbies logo. This was a nice simple fun build. The Lightning was pretty thin relatively so I don't think it looks too terrible done this way and much simpler than formers and skin. I basically scaled a 3-view for the profile, reduced it for the side plates to not include the stab and cockpit and intake cone, and used the top...Continue Reading

Three lovely flights on the new Maule M-7 on floats and the Polaris. Loving the pond.

First time in a long time with an arf, my wife got this for me for xmas before she convinced me to scratch build the Polaris.

Maule wing mounting stud fit was tight, very hard to install the wing screws, no diagram for routing/installing the float servo wiring, float spreader bars had flats pre filed for the set screws but they were too far apart to line up and be usable, gear and spreader bar set screws had to be tightened a lot to avoid gear and spreader bar slippage to the point where the brass nuts caused the plastic mounts to crack, one float hangs down at the front more than the other. Radio setting recommendations were ok except low rates which were useless in flight and elevator flap down trim needed to be 3x more than recommended. The instructions did not show the stab securing screw which I discovered when I had one left over. I did not trust the sparless stab to rely on just the plastic struts for strength so taped a 3mm spar in place.

I used a 4s2200 pack and the model just made cg at 70mm from the le of the wing with the floats installed.

However once trimmed it flew great, just hold back stick for taxi and and acceleration to keep the float tips up, once on step relax elevator and it comes right off the water on takeoff flap. Sluggish roll without rudder input but nice cruise at about 1/3 throttle. Lights are very visible. Snaps, loops, hammerheads very nice. Set landing flaps and line up to land at low throttle and just a touch throttle before touchdown and slight flare, easy peasy. With the water rudder it steers very nicely. I did make a stand to support rear of the left float to keep the water rudder off the floor and and avoid the plastic getting damaged during transport since it hangs down a lot and is not spring loaded.

This is the first scratch built I've done since probably 2015 that wasn't a rocket glider, I rejoined one of my old clubs that has a nice irrigation pond and wanted something to fly off of it so I went old school with a shumate Polaris. I built almost entirely with foam safe medium CA and a little 3M 77 for laminating and only used epoxy on the top and bottom fuselage pieces to make sure they were sealed in places where I couldn't get at the joints from the inside as well as the outside. I used a Grayson micro jet V3 and an 800 milliamp hour 3s battery to give me a nice light ready to fly weight of 18 Oz.

Shumate Polaris R/C seaplane maiden (4 min 39 sec)

Hound Dog Nuclear Cruise Missile R/C Rocket glider 2 versions! (9 min 29 sec)

Large R/C rocket gliders flying on longburn H-13 rocket motors (11 min 40 sec)

R/C Estes Wolverine upscale rocket glider modification (3 min 49 sec)

Some flight photos from this Weekend, all are 4" based BT-101 models in the 5-6' long range and 36-48" wingspans, all nearly right at 32 oz rtf using 29mm 17 second burn H-13 Aerotech motors, photos by Jim Wilkerson.....Continue Reading

5 flights this morning on the upscale Mach 10, really nice flyer for as draggy as it is.

Upscale R/C Centuri Mach 10 rocket glider (6 min 47 sec)

Perfect motor for this model, doesn't push it too fast, nice altitude, light weight.

Moonraker R/C Shuttle Rocket glider flights, the perfect motor! (3 min 47 sec)

Got the family together for a photo today...All are in the ~30-36 oz ready to fly weight with H-13 rocket motor, motor weights 7.3 oz of that rtf weight.