Oldscooler's Model Glider Collection

MY LIFE WITH GLIDERS...

My story begins at 5 or 6 years old when I got a Testers control line P-51 Mustang. It was Christmas 1960 at my cousins house for morning presents. Dad, uncle Fred and my cousins took me and my shiny new red model out to an open field down the street.

As I am clutching very hard onto that amazing new plane, my dad takes it from me over to the center of the area, and they all elected my older cousin Donald to take a hold of the controls. "Not me" I said to myself. I was nervous. They get it started and Donald with his best effort never flying one of these things ever, began to let the plane roll on the ground, and all of a sudden, the plane goes up like a rocket! My eyes are peeled on the red beauty as it starts rounding all of us 20 or so feet off the ground. The sound was amazing until Donald lost control after a couple laps. The plane flying in a semi-horizontal position suddenly rocketed straight up, then looped over and dove right to the ground turning into a thousand pieces!

We all gasped and just stood there. Donald looks at me and said sorry cuz. The other cousins’ thought it was funny and dad didn’t say much. Me, I was mad and felt betrayed I never got a chance to fly my plane. That was the end of that.

30 years later my friend Mike, the boys and I went down to Point Fermin in Long Beach Calif to watch the aerobatic kites flying off the slope there. Its amazing what one can do with a kite! And it just so happened we had some Whitewings paper gliders we had made from a set I had purchased.

Tossing those Whitewings was a lot of fun and I began to ever so slightly see the thing I'm holding in this photo really had a great flying characteristic for a paper plane. The wheels in my mind are beginning to turn. Then we watched RC glider pilots flying what they called "Led Sleds" off the point. They ware amazingly fast! The glider bug took hold that day.

Later that year on Christmas morning again which is quite ironic, I gave Mike a Carl Goldberg kit. Then shortly thereafter I bought myself a kit, Well do you know he and I spent all of Christmas holiday in his garage day and night building those Lady's? One Gentle and one Sophisticated. The glider fire was by now blazing within me and still is 30 years later.

My first glider, a Carl Goldberg Sophisticated Lady, 1990

Since that Christmas here is my path with glider modeling. Some very basic and some very sophisticated, even World class performing. At first it was just about flying and staying aloft doing circles high up. The first time I high started my Sophisticated Lady, I was shocked of how beautiful it flew in the blue. Then it led into speed and maximum G forces at terminal velocity. After learning and flying many styles of gliders, now its about maximum fun performing sophisticated and dangerous aerobatic figures in VTPR style. Most of the time is spent flying inverted! The photos here are in a timeline from beginning to current modeling efforts.

Hobby Shack Ridge Runt with conventional tail mod. I'm already changing kits.

This was my first aileron glider. We didn't know but we thought these simple lightweight gliders flew great. It was so exciting to fly ailerons for the fist time.

The Bob Martin Coyote was my first dip into big aerobatics. She was pretty docile and safe to fly. Learned a lot about basic aerobatics and handling a bigger heavy ship. This was also my first foam core sheeted wing construction experience.

Thank you Taylor...

OK by now I'm getting the itch for speed and big air. This is my design called the Excel-O-Rator. I was inspired by a famous model produced by VS Sailplanes called the V-Max. All wood having difficult building techniques for the long and thin tail boom. And a very thin and long 80" E374 airfoil. Single servo aileron control with cables and very heavy. A real handful! 

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Continuing on the speed path, the 80" Raptor was designed utilizing a fiberglass Swift 800 fuselage and a 4 servo wing having flaps and ailerons. This plane flew fantastic and it propelled me into more sophisticated building techniques. This was my first full-house glider.

This one is the Gigolo designed by Dale Winder. It was my first scratch built (not a kit) glider. The plane flew smooth and performed radical aerobatics. It was pretty quick with its symmetrical airfoil. Just a great fun ship. Dale was later able to pair up with the Hobby Shack store chain and offer the kit through them. I still have an original Hobby Shack kit in the box untouched. 

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I developed the Steletto glider based on the Gigolo plan-form above with a bit of pizazz. I swept the wing, thinned the tail boom and shaped the tail feathers more stylish of sorts making it my own. The plane flew great and faster than the Gigolo. 

Next up is the Super Cheetah combat plane designed by Larry Pettyjohn. Quite ugly but what a super durable and fast glider. Look at those thick tail feathers! Its thick airfoil with a long chord down the length of the wing makes the plane very maneuverable, predictable and a whole lot of fun to fly. This model is still one of if thee most fun gliders to fly in my hanger.

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Another Super Cheetah I built just to have another. They are very underrated, a sleeper on the slope that gets all the looks when in the right hands of a capable aerobatic pilot. If you are flying with one on the slope you better give it the right away. She wins a midair every time!

Now I'm getting serious about real big soaring and maximum speed without worry of folding the wings. This is a real scratch built F3B Eagle Mark Allen developed, and the US Soaring Team of Jolly, Perkins, Spencer and Wurtz flew. This is a full carbon fiber/fiberglass composite ship capable of a 10G turnout at full speed. It was also a great thermal ship but was primarily a multitask glider. The full gammit of designing and building techniques were learned on this iconic model. I kept all the US F3B Soaring Team design notes if you would like to build one.

Now for something completely different. Wanting to soar closer to home, I decided to try CR's super light Climax so I could fly in the park. The glider is a hand launch design that picks up thermal activity near to earth to where you can climb out and fly a long time. This model taught me about seeing the air so to speak by watching it move in and out of thermals. It also taught me lightweight building techniques that would help me later as we move on here. Great ship.

Ok, I plead the fifth. I didn't buy, build or fly the Golf glider here. It was given to me by a close friend, I'm telling the truth lol. This was developed by a quirky guy on our local slope who had no money but he had a great imagination. And believe it or not this comic like ship actually flew very good. And that golf ball up front did the job of taking the brunt of a nose hit. Notice the long thin wing? They are Formica sheeted! Well that feature really helped it fly pretty clean. Roll rate was incredible with its wingeron design. Tuff little ugly bird.

This is my design called the Foiler 60" MoM racer. It has an RG14 airfoil that rips the sky. Composite fuselage and Obechi skinned wing. This little ship had some challenges packing all the gear inside but it worked our well. Really fast yet little tip stall and it landed fairly slow. Has a slip on nosecone which is cool. A lot of fun to fly.

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The GRYPHON is an iconic flying wing that dates back to the 70's. Its a plane I always wanted when I saw one doing amazingly smooth aerobatics back in the 90's. Its now 2007 and I find a short kit with templates on eBay. I buy it and within 6 months she's built. I cant put into words just how great this model fly's, she just pushes all my buttons so much so, the owner of the design Mr. Bob Martin of Bob Martin RC Models whom we raced motocross together back in the 70's, was so impressed of my build, I now have the copyright on this design. I offer laser cut kits of this model for others to enjoy a piece of RC history.

Video of bench flight
Video of the build
Video of maiden flight

In 2008, I found what I was itching for. I saw a glider called the Sonic being flown in France by a fantastic pilot who was performing what I learned was VTPR aerobatics. What is VTPR, tell me more. This is a very close to the ground aerobatic flying style, just the opposite of what I had been flying all prior years. So I decided to build this 68" ship of all foam construction to learn VTPR basics and save cracking it up because VTPR will bite the pilot and glider very quickly. The decision was the right one because this little ship taught me a lot toward my next quest into serious and maximum fun flying aerobatics.

Video of maiden flight
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Video with weird cloud

After Le Fish, I had an idea of taking one of my Gigolo's and converting the crunchie into a VTPR machine. The wing was extended 18" to 72", the nose moment extended 4" and tail feathers were enlarged 30%. And I made the vertical fin and rudder 3" taller. Full span aileron chord grew to 1-1/2". Some fine tuning of all flight controls including snap-flaps and a good amount of expo mix really made this package transform into a much more smooth flying aerobatic plan-form. For me wood construction gliders are a delight to build and fly. They carry a certain spirit of the hobby in my mind that foam just misses the mark.

Video very fun maiden flight
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So, the two previous glider models instilled much awareness to moving another step closer to extra light durability having great maneuverability in an aerobatic, low and slow glider, ala purpose build VTPR modeling. And I wanted to design something out of wood and EPS foam cores that is inexpensive, easy to build and super fun to fly. The Zeppelin 1.7 was birthed from many known elements into a 100% VTPR  glider that also can fly bigger air aerobatics with ease. A two piece design was very important for transport as well.

Video of maiden flight
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Now by this time, it was decided in 2009 to go for it. And what I mean is, lets build a world class dedicated 2.5 meter VTPR ship that can deliver incredible aerobatic figures low and slow. That video I mentioned earlier on the Le Fish above was of the Sonic 2.5 meter glider you see here. These gliders are unobtanium with the glass fuselage sourced from Airtech in France. After 18 months and collaboration with Michel and Guillaume Leroyer (greatest VTPR pilot in my book!), the Sonic got built, flown and remains in my hanger until the end of my days. This is a very special glider to me.

Video of maiden flight
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After the Sonic project, me being inquisitive striving to design something in a 2.5 meter plan-form, and for the love of crunchy builds, I designed and flew my Vol-Lent 2.5 meter design with great success. The first thing you will notice is the carbon fiber girder tail boom. The purpose for that is for indestructibility and light weight. I utilized the Sonic wing in double taper melding with a PSP type Excalibur like fuse shape, and EPS foam tail feathers for a package that is very easy and predictable to fly.

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And now something new, the VeLectro 2.8 meter MVG park aerobatic glider. Double taper foam board wing construction, symmetrical airfoil mounted on an AVA fuse pod and carbon fiber boom. It is powered by a  ART-1800 out-runner motor with 14 x 6 CAM folding prop. The glider has been maidened and flew great, Unfortunately the video was not acceptable for public viewing. Stay tuned for a nice video presentation of this highly maneuverable big ship.

 

 

 

 

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