My scratch PSS Russian M-17 appeared in Model Builder but the magazine went bottom up before I could get the construction article, the plans drawn and another prototype built. It also appeared in Sean Walbank's column in England. The original remains a hangar queen, hogging its JR341's for a flying time sometime. It has only had a starring afternoon in the air pending the finishing of the above project. When the full scale bird went public in the Japanese magazine Koku Fan, December 1990, I just had to build one--I have six sets of cut wing cores on hand presently! I took the six inch square three view and enlarged it to a 1.5M wing to develop it as a RCHLG. Mid course it became a sloper--built up sheeted wings--necessitating a second prototype built with foam core wings! The M-17 has a swept back wing with anhedral and a widening chord into the root for the center third of the span ! Of course it is a jet powered--Russian U-2--glider, and beautiful!! Check out QFI's 13, 15, &18! My wings are SD 7037, center 1/3 of wing and SD 6060 on out to the tips. Initially I built five different 12 inch HLGs from 1/16 balsa to test wing planforms. I am posting about anhedral, BUT let me tell you that one wing was OUTSTANDING compared to the rest--but the experts tell me there IS no difference!!?? The wing planform that had a flat mid third section with raised tips (1/3 @) literally JUMP-climbed from launch with the same amount of energy put into it as the other models; no comparison!!!!! This is the old Blaine Rawdon "Mirage" design--one of the experts :-) ! I stress these five HLGs were made as exactly as possible accept for the wing angles. Dihedral, polyhedral, gull, flat and full scale like anhedral (at this point I was looking for a RCHLG thermal wing I liked). The question for the experts at this point is, "What did the anhedral wing sample do!!??" Well, from launch it appeared to be do fine, but as the power of the launch died it tucked severely!! These first experiments were accomplished in a thirty foot living room length flight. I took them outside in a park--also had fun launching them at night from a multistory apartment :-) --where I could give the launch the benefit of my RCHLG conditioned arm! The anhedral sample could now make a full circle from launch :-) before falling in the grass inverted!! Well, time to experiment by cutting some elevator into the horizontal stabilizer. Up elevator gave me consistent long flights now. This project has had to be laid aside over the years, BUT I have always waited the opportunity to build up a true PSS M-17 sloper with anhedral and a wing to elevator incidence that would at neutral elevator overcome the tucking tendency. Tomorrow . . . The "Mirage: planform outside!!?? The same exceptional performance compared to the others--I am NOT persuaded by the experts that my simple limited "scientific" experiment results were a fluke. How long was it before the Monarch guys, Don and the other Joe, finally took RCHLG into a new age with thin airfoils and unorthodox elevators and flaperons :-) !!?? "Why not thin airfoils?" had been my question from the beginning of my RCHLG career; i am a real admirer of the D&J team for their commitment to innovation and excellence!! Paul Clark, SKY PILOT ONE, Osaka, Japan (AMA # 53 777 1) http://www3.osk.3web.ne.jp/~pclark/skypilot/ SKY PILOT'S HANGAR--RCHLG AFICIONADO RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
