A memory revived for me too on this thread. As a young boy in Fairbanks Alaska, my pals and I made super-crude "sort of U-C" planes from corrugated cardboard and wood scraps. Over one summer, we took them through three levels of complexity. The first were simply cardboard planforms roughly modeled after a favorite paper airplane design of ours, weighted and balanced to be flung in a constant circle on the end of a single string. The only control influence was having the string short enough so that oscillating one's arm had some effect on altitude. You could get sort of a dive or climb out of the deal, but that was about it. Thing was, that was plenty fascinating enough for a good while. Just the chance to stare at a 'flying' craft of my own creation, with utter concentration, while the rest of the world whizzed past in a blur, was enough motivation to fly session after session, even though the recovery was often long and queasy! Strangely, of the three levels of glider, in some ways, this simplest one was the best, because there was the most sense that the thing was finding it's own trim, and kind of 'flying itself'.
The next level of craft had the pilot holding a ten or twelve inch stick with a line at each end, tied off fore and aft on the aircraft planform (which was essentially a flying wing). The idea was to give some better control over pitch, which worked some. If you got too agressive and tried a loop, the lines would cross, and since we had only high friction string, even a single line crossing would usually lead to disaster. More crashes meant more repairs, and less motivation to keep flying. Interesting how those forces come into play in a kid's world. We could always go work on the tree fort, so at some point the cardboard planes lost out. The final level was actual elevator control with a central swing line to take the centripetal force, and two control lines off of each end of a control stick, turned through some kind of eyes on a central wood-stick fuselage, and controlling a broad elevator. This probably got the biggest laughs out of us, because the combination of poorly designed systems, and aerodynamic misunderstandings led to a flight profile in which, if you were lucky, you'd get the swing started, hold it level for a few circles with intense paranoia, try just one elevator movement, and immediately end in a furball of damaged airplane and tangled string. The funny thing was that if we'd had just a little more patience, materials, and engineering, we were actually pretty close to something that would have been serious fun. Instead, the 'full house' version was a constant disaster, and was quickly scrapped. I guess it's no wonder that I find such joy as an adult in radio control gliders. And, generally, I still seem to prefer the simple over the complex. Lift, Scobie in Seattle > -----Original Message----- > From: James C Deck [mailto:jcdeck@;attbi.com] > Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2002 7:16 PM > To: RCSE > Subject: [RCSE] CL-DSing: A memory revived > > > OK, when I was very young, model > airplane engines were beyond the > economic capabilities of some of us. > Enter whip-powered UC - the plane was > simply "whipped" (BTW, a no-no in UC) > and controlled. Some got quite good, > others quite dizzy, but all had fun. > All of the thrills of UC with none of > the noise - we flew in a jr. high gym. > No ARFs in those days. > Jim Deck > > RCSE-List facilities provided by Model > Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and > "unsubscribe" requests to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please > note that subscribe and unsubscribe > messages must be sent in text only > format with MIME turned off. > RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off.
