Before I get thrown out for heresy per mentioning RC, I wish to address something I am running into.
Namely, restricted FF flying space.

The essence of FF rubber is you wind it up & let it go & hope like hell the DT works & it lands in an accessible spot downwind.

In the 'good old days', even if you lived in an urban area you could usually find pasture land on the outskirts & farmers were amenable to your using it.
Now, with urban encroachment & a general reluctance of owners to let people on to open land, [due to litigation risk because you've fallen down a sink hole etc], unless you live in the wilds of Montana or the Midwest, FF access may be becoming more difficult to find.

Where I now live the most open space I can readily access is 3 soccer fields by 2 soccer fields.
Fairly tight to fly FF rubber in, particularly if there is cross wind drift.
Bordering the soccer fields are many trees. Not an ideal land out situation.

Thus to fly FF rubber here I would need a reliable way of being able to 'steer' the model to contain it within the boundaries. I would not want to work the elevator, just the rudder.

I suspect I am not the 1st to strike this issue & wonder if anyone has developed super micro RC gear that is used in FF so that you can control the rudder?
[Battery, Rx. 1 servo]

I have heard of electronic DT systems, so the use of signals appears to have crept into FF.

Thanks

G2
[Apologies for mentioning RC]

There is a large flat grass field here owned by the city where I have been flying. It's maybe 200 x 200 yards. I heard the city is going to build a water park and that is probably where it will go. There is another field at the north edge of the city but the grass is mostly weeds and might be hostile toward tissue during landing. And another grassy field which was part of the old high school football field and parking area for the games. That one is surrounded by trees and houses and bordered by one of the main roads in town. RC rudder assist, in my opinion. is a good idea and a good way to solve the OOS problem, especially when your airplane wants to land on a busy street or crash into someone's window.

Kev

Consider gutting the electronics out of something like the PZ Vapor. That 1S LiPo and gear are quite light.

Hi G2,

Photos show a real lightweight "flight-pack", consisting of a Microinvent RX (Link here), a couple of Spektrum AS2000 servos, plus a 1S lipo, 130mAh.
It works great...I have yet to test it in the air though, but I made range tests, after fitting an 850 mm long aerial (following the manufacturer's advice). At ground level (!), the range is an easy 320 meters (maybe more...).
I can recommend it...



I am currently building a vintage A1-glider for this gear....if you like,
take a look at This thread

I'm doing this for the same sad reason....we're running out of large fields...

Originally Posted by Gluehand

Hi G2,

Photos show a real lightweight "flight-pack", consisting of a Microinvent RX (Link here), a couple of Spektrum AS2000 servos, plus a 1S lipo, 130mAh.
It works great...I have yet to test it in the air though, but I made range tests, after fitting an 850 mm long aerial (following the manufacturer's advice). At ground level (!), the range is an easy 320 meters (maybe more...).
I can recommend it...



I am currently building a vintage A1-glider for this gear....if you like,
take a look at This thread

I'm doing this for the same sad reason....we're running out of large fields...

If you went to 1 servo, [rudder], & ran a 1S Lipo 65mAh you could probably get down to 6.5 gms or better.

The indoor guys have some amazingly light stuff, but Rx range is the issue using that.

G2

Hi all,
I don't have any "no RC" principles, I fly RC, FF and CL, and this idea isn't new (Stan Zurad flew a rudder-only Wakefield in 1965), but there is a huge practical problem that gets lost in all the "pipe dreams".
The problem is related to lightly loaded "duration flying".
What is the gliding speed of your model? Probably around 5 or 6 mph.
That means that in any wind speed exceeding that value, then even pointing the nose straight into wind, your model will drift gracefully downwind at a rate corresponding to the excess of the wind speed in relation to your glide speed, i.e. in a 10 mph wind, you're still going downwind at around 5 mph!
Thus, if the wind speed exceeds the model gliding speed, a model heading permanently into the wind still goes downwind by about half the distance of the same model, in pure FF mode, flying in circles. i.e. RC means that you're only drifting downwind half a mile instead of 1 mile in pure FF mode!
Contests on this basis have been tried by SAM35 in the UK (Flying 15), with always the same problem... on a breezy day, they don't come down in the same county, and you're supposed to be flying RC!
I've given a lot of thought to all this over the years, and my own opinion is that steering "FF" models is only really practical under conditions in which they could equally well be flown pure FF...
The FF only guys don't sufficiently realise that you have no control over any aircraft without airspeed, and duration type competition models fly too slowly to overcome any significant wind. The guys are "pipe dreaming" about gently nudging the model around in more or less calm conditions when, even pure FF, there would be no problem!

Originally Posted by brokenenglish

I've given a lot of thought to all this over the years, and my own opinion is that steering "FF" models is only really practical under conditions in which they could equally well be flown pure FF...

That's a very good point..!...I've had the same thoughts myself, and I am totally aware of the adamant fact, that even at modest wind conditions, "rc-assist" won't bring you home if allowing the model drifting too far downwind....
As an act of curiousity I still wish to try this with my A1-glider though....at least it would add to experience, also providing the odd chance of avoiding "that tree", road, etc...

I also understand that "rc-assist" won't automatically "improve" an otherwise good & well trimmed F/F-model.....about each little tweak of the stick(s) will no doubt reduce the flight time one way or another...
I just wish to land where the model doesn't do any damage, nor beeing damaged itself, and hopefully in a "retrieveable" area as close to the (limited sized) field as possible...

As this will be my first encounter with "rc-assist", it is a kind of "blind date" , with unknown result....
A smaller, faster, more "catapult-glider-like" model (or any "non-duration"-model), would possibly have been a better choice.....curiousity has its price...
We'll see....report to come, later on....

I've seen some 1.5 gram servos and there's a fair number of small receivers that are set up to run off one Lipo. So this is certainly doable.

My own suggestion would be to figure on using a reciever with full range for this use. Even with the "useless RC gear" on board a decent flying model is still going to be thermal worthy. You don't want your safety net to come up short. If that means adding a gram or two to get a full range Rx instead of the lighter parkflyer limited range model then so be it.

Sport flying of free flight models at the sort of places we have at our disposal these days does put restrictions on us that were not there in the past. If adding a single RC control to the models will allow you to fly in these available areas is the cost then I can't see what the issue would be.

The other option is to use the RC to DT the model before it runs off the field or into trees. This would be a more pure to free flight method but if you're simply flying for fun then I can't see the harm in using RC to control a rudder.

For that matter it could be said that you can "free flight" with a regular 3 channel model. Many a time on calm summer evenings I've flown a RC 1/2A Texaco model where I'd launch it and simply hold the Tx loose in my hands until it reached the engine cut. A few clicks of trim to shift from the power pattern to the glide setting and then I'd set the Tx on a picnic table and simply watch the model gliding around. Only at the end did I take up control again to ensure a landing on the club's field where I was flying. Nothing says that you could not do the same with a RC assist rubber power model. I'd rather be able to use smaller fields such as we can easily get these days to fly as I like instead of not be able to fly at all.

Broken English-

I'm going to disagree a bit here. I've been converting rubber powered FF stuff to RC for years- as well as towline gliders and here's what I've found...

The advantage of RC is not that it allows you to fly no matter what the wind. You basically have the same wind restrictions as you do for conventional FF for the reasons you cited. What changes is the size of the field needed. An RC field can be much smaller than a FF field. A lot of this has to do with what happens when the model gains height. FF models often have far better glide ratios than RC airplanes. Let's say that an FF glider has a 15:1 glide ratio. Well, at 100 feet- that's 1500 feet in a straight line. But not only is there a lot of distance covered- the time that the model stays airborne allows the 4 mph wind to work on it for that much longer too. So FF airplanes drift off a reasonable sized RC field quickly.

I haven't gone the rubber powered RC route yet-not sure I ever will. Once I've got to deal with a radio system, it's just easier to deal with an electric power system too.

Like Bruce- I also find that old FF power designs fly very nicely hands off- the radio just keeps them out of the trees.

To me the nice thing about FF designs is the way they fly- not what they're powered with. These days, an RC system can easily replace a rubber motor in most airplanes- the Champ guts work great in a 44 gram airplane.

Conversely- RC towline gliders are great. They allow you to fly a towline ship in smaller fields and you get the airplane back most of the time. Well, my bro managed to put my Satellite in the top of a very tall tree- and that was all she wrote. Plus, the RC gear doesn't change the way the airplane flies- those airplanes need plenty of noseweight anyhow.

Sam

OK Sam, point taken. I've learned something.
The RC doesn't allow you to fly in any more wind but, in calm, pure FF conditions, it does allow you to fly in an even smaller field (i.e. closer to home), and maybe avoid hazards as well.
We have good small fields close by. One day, I'm going to try an A2 with a hi-start launch. I still have at least a kilo of 45 year-old Pirelli that I'm never going to use...

Here is an old Coupe d'Hiver circa 1970 that I recovered and converted to micro RC. Great fun to fly at the smallish local park

Originally Posted by Aeronut41

Here is an old Coupe d'Hiver circa 1970 that I recovered and converted to micro RC. Great fun to fly at the smallish local park

Interested in your specs - ie, AUW, & hardware , prop, controls detail.
Thanks

G2

Specs are AUW 73grams, WS 33.5", Length 31". I used a 3 channel brick from the Parkzone Champ and the motor/gearbox/prop from the PZ Mustang. I launch it in a climbing circle till it gets up to around 300 feet and then cut the power. The plane goes into the nice Coupe floaty glide and I trim it with rudder so that it doesn't stray away from the park. With a 1S 200 mah lipo I get many launches in a session. Haven't tried it on a thermally day yet but plan to as soon as we get some calm daytime weather Best, Aero

Originally Posted by Aeronut41

Specs are AUW 73grams, WS 33.5", Length 31". I used a 3 channel brick from the Parkzone Champ and the motor/gearbox/prop from the PZ Mustang. I launch it in a climbing circle till it gets up to around 300 feet and then cut the power. The plane goes into the nice Coupe floaty glide and I trim it with rudder so that it doesn't stray away from the park. With a 1S 200 mah lipo I get many launches in a session. Haven't tried it on a thermally day yet but plan to as soon as we get some calm daytime weather Best, Aero

Thanks
Interesting spec.
Any idea of the 'dry' weight [non RC gear weight]?
Using a 1S Lipo will have helped keep the weight down.
Amazing what can be done with a 1S Lipo.
Do you know the gearbox ratio?, dug around but couldn't find it.

G2

The airframe dry weight is about 50 grams. I actually have 2 1S batteries on board to get the cg forward to about 60%. I only plug in one and the other is a spare The GB ratio is about 10 to one but that is a guess. Good luck on your projects! Aero