Tow release and Hacker A40-10L 14 pole glider with 5S battery. Way more power than it needs.
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Zugvogel IIIa
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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.
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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.
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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.
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It was warm enough today to do some painting. I need another day for the rudder....
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I pulled the airframe out of the workshop and assembled it outside for the first time.
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Checking the fit of the pilot and the panel. I just cut some balsa to the panel size to see how things fit before making the actual panel. The model is 4.2 scale but the 1:4 pilot still seems to fit OK.
The tow release servo sits below the pilot.
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The canopy is an interesting cutting project. It is a really big canopy intended for a much larger skylark.
As you can see it is a bit oversized.
After a few stages of cutting this is what I ended up with.
I think I cut it a little too far back It might have been a little better a little more forward in the canopy I was cutting from. It looks OK.
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I'm going to try something different for covering. Oratex. It is mostly white so I will cover everything with oratex white and then do the red trim with paint. I got out my IR thermometer and checked my covering iron calibration. The dial is off by about 40 degrees. For some fun I tried something challenging, putting some covering on the center section cover. Multiple curves and concave curves. I was able to get a piece on there nicely at the low temperature stretching and getting it to follow the curves and even wrap around the thin ply edge. No cutting slits like on common plastic films.
There is a magnet to hold the canopy and wing fairing. I found some square magnets. They are a lot easier to cut some indentations with a chisel for gluing.
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Sometimes things are just simple and easy. The wing tips are pretty simple on this one. Just a block and the bottom surface angles up to the top. I still have to make some skids for the tips.
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