Zugvogel IIIa

[mlachow]

Glue canopy to the frame with E6000 thinned with xylol. Then wait......



Actually I did something useful while waiting. Put a new battery in the sailplane carrier (van). Over 6 years isn't too bad.

[mlachow]

It was warm enough today to do some painting. I need another day for the rudder....

[mlachow]

Some painting done. I should be able to do hinging tomorrow.

Tips

Crazy Rudder mask

Fuse stripes.

[mlachow]

Things are getting closer to flying shape....

[N4088K]

Looks good, I have never been good at coming up with trim schemes.

[mlachow]

It is sort of like the real D-8356. I did not find any pictures to really get the tip stripes and I messed up the fin layout a little on spacing. And fuse numbers should have been a little bigger. But those were older photos, I think D-8356 is being recovered. There are a few other III's that have interesting color schemes. I picked this one partly because I was trying Oratex and it was mostly white with enough red to help with visibility. I also expect it to be more of a morning and evening flyer in the fleet so I am not worried about visibility at higher altitudes for a smaller 4m model. The best place for finding some interesting colors is to search facebook. You can search for the sailplane name and if you find one interesting photo with a number on it, search for the number.

[mlachow]

First flights this evening. There is no nose weight in this sailplane. There is a Hacker A40L in there and the climb is pretty good with a 14-8 prop and 5 cells. There isn't enough clearance for self powered take off so I used my winch to get the model off the ground, release, then start the motor. There is a nice area of recently harvested sod so it is a nice flat takeoff area. Winds were 9-10mph with higher gusts. I did forget to set the brake properly so the glide wasn't the best It should be fine for early morning and evening flights. First pass on landing compensation and motor to elevator trim on power were tested out.

[mlachow]

The first aerotows were at SkyHigh in Muncy PA. Uneventful tow and release. After that there was plenty of power from the A40L for a very rapid climb at full power. I put in a few early day flights Thursday and Friday. Friday was before the ceiling was very high but there was plenty of low, light lift. A smaller model like this that is fairly light worked out nicely. So now I have something that assembles quickly for early flights or evening flights. The ailerons aren't the most effective, it's a decent aspect ratio and they are not the largest. They also stop well short of the tip. The rudder response is great. You can fly the thing on rudder/elevator. I have a little spoileron mix at the extreme of the landing stick travel just in case I need more than just spoilers to get things down.

[mlachow]

The second tow in this video at 0:22 is the first aerotow on the model. There is a little clip of it in flight later in the video 1:41 to 1:46.

https://vimeo.com/715378937

[mlachow]

Tow release and Hacker A40-10L 14 pole glider with 5S battery. Way more power than it needs.