This is My Gliding Circular or is it my Thermal Flyer? ~ Sailplanewerks, my blog

Late 80's sailplanewerks...

I used to fly and build RC sailplanes. I started out with a Gentle Lady and a four-channel split stick Futaba transmitter. I'll try to remember by numbers, that way I can serialize my builds moving forward.

#001 Gentle Lady ended in a horrible crash. I had hand launched it a couple of times to check it out before I high started it and it would climb and stall to the soft grass. I chalked it up to inexperience on the stick and put it up on the high start and same thing but bigger, faster, finishing with a wad of very pretty and new but broken balsa and plastic covering… I was alone at the old field by Scottsdale Community College, by the big tree, dejected and sad.

What happened?

I had forgotten to balance it, the CG (center of gravity) was too far back.

#002 Gentle Lady, went much better. I learned to thermal, loop and catch it. I eventually broke it during a ground loop.

That’s ok, I’ll build another.

#003 Bird of Time, big build, it took me a year to complete. I flew this one on the Pima Indian Reservation. I would speck this thing out and I knew I was going to lose it. It would get so high in the hot summer thermals, I sometimes had to fly a long way straight at speed and I knew I was going to rip the wings off of it or flutter it to disintegration. I had a few dozen flights with it and the thing was, I was flying it in too small of a field. No spoilers, I couldn't force it down and it would glide in ground effect so far. I remember once standing in a field looking down on some old ancient pottery. Very cool design, I stuck a piece in my pocket and forgot about it but my plane was disappearing in the sky, so high! I started praying to get it back. I remembered that piece of pretty clay in my pocket, "G~d of Indian artifacts, I will leave it here, just let me get my sailplane back." And I dropped the cool piece of pottery on the ground. My Bird of Time started to get bigger, I circled to de-thermal it and finally landed it at my feet.

This was my first mistake, learning to circle in sink. Maybe it would not be my first mistake, maybe I learned this just right. I don't know but I do remember having to circle in sink in my hang glider in the Painted desert, I was going up like a rocket everywhere I went and getting blown downwind into un-drivable (across the Little Colorado at Grand Falls) so I circled in sink blah blah blah, that's another story I will tell later.

I traded the Bird of Time to a pilot in Flagstaff that built and raced Soap Box Derby with his kids. I had this beautiful soap box derby car for son #1. He was a CASL member, and it was a good trade. I bet my Bird of Time still lives. Ian G knows of him...

#004 Gentle Lady, I flattened the wing, added winglets and learned to balance by moving the electronics forward. I flew the heck out of this one and started to fly slope at one of my hang-gliding launches. I can’t remember how this one died but it did.

#005 Gentle Lady, I got a new radio, a new Futaba that had the gold seal. I flattened the poly and dihedral. Flew this one a lot.

#006 Dynaflight Skeeter, a 1.5m hand launch glider. I was living by Coyote Park, and I specked this thing out on a overhead launch from an index finger hole in the bottom of the fuselage. No high start hook on this one. It would sometimes tip stall, but it was so light! I finally broke it.

#007 Gentle Lady, flattened wing, winglets, I learned how to do the dowel plug in with a nylon bolt on the Skeeter, so I finally got rid of rubber bands! I'm getting this. The flattened wing made it a little less twitchy in turns and I liked that. It made my flying a little smoother. Crashed it, RIP.

#008 ELECTRA, one of my hang-gliding friends, Len Clements and I flew our hang gliders together a lot. He was an accomplished RC builder/flyer and a news helicopter pilot here in the valley. I asked if he would teach me about RC and he suggested that I build a Electra, basically just a gentle lady with an electric motor. He said the motor in the kit was grossly under powered, so he suggested a geared Astro motor which I bought. He used German folding props so I had to get one of those too, I think it was a Freudenthaler, can't remember. My radio was compatible with his so he taught me to fly advanced maneuvers like the Split S. Sort of hard to do with a rudder elevator control, but he taught me, and I would do it on my own.

We flew Torrey Pines in our hang gliders, and he also had a slope glider. This rocket glider with short stubby straight wings that flew I swear 70-80 mph. When I flew on the buddy box, I would lose it sometimes not knowing which way was up, down, away or coming at me. I would just tell him to "take it" and he would and instantly things smoothed out, that dude could fly. We were the best of hang gliding and RC friends but when I quit and sold him my hang glider, that was it. Also, about the same time he had a problem with drinking, I didn't. The ELECTRA was crashed one blustery stormy day. I was exploring the sky but ground looped at Coyote Park. The motor was so heavy, he literally blew out of the fuse and I had it bomber cleanly attached.

#008 Sophisticated Lady, fully built but left uncovered with no electrics installed. I was going through a divorce and could not take it with me, so many years of collecting stuff, I was moving into an apartment with my two children, no room. I broke it to bits testing the wing strength and fuselage was tossed like an arrow into the bin. This ended my RC flying, I think the year was 2002.

I might post a bit about hang gliding or soaring flights that I've taken with friends in two place sailplanes. Now that I think about it, I may post about a lot of soaring things but make no mistake, this is all about my building and flying radio-controlled gliders.

…from the ashes I will begin (again) my sailplane making: January 2024 start this time.