Pike the Slope Soarer
Following the successful maiden flight at Leckhampton yesterday I thought I should take a couple of pictures of it whilst it is unscathed… Pike started out as an experiment to make half a wing using balsa covered foam to compare weights with the glass fibre wings. This showed a 50% reduction in weight for the equivalent wing area in glass fibre. I also wanted a thinner wing section to help with the speed range to the extent that the aileron servos are mounted to the wing core within the fuselage and using a torsion bars. To test the wing I built a crude balsa box fuselage with V tail and painted the whole lot in clear acrylic varnish.
The initial maiden was carried out at the field where it performed in a similar fashion to the Skua being a light wing loading (9.8oz /sq foot). for maiden at Leckhampton, Mel launched it and to my surprise it was easy to fly and more stable that the Skua which maybe due to the bigger wing span, 1.87m against 1.5m for the Skua. The only real problem was the crow braking which caused the nose to climb, more down aileron needed.
What next, slicker stronger wings, sleeker fuselage…
Looks really good Barry, will you be taking orders soon 😉
Scott, you are more than capable of building a similar model, anyway, you have not seen my daily rate!!!
You are welcome to have a closer look.