One of our club members, Mark Drela (an Aero/Astro professor at MIT by day), has been working away on how to get to the next level of HLG and 2m sailplane performance. After lots of thinking, building of prototypes, endless explanation to those of us who don't have an aero/astro degree, and letting any and all takers try out his prototypes at our sailplane field, the Apogee HLG and Allegro 2m were born. Part of Mark's background is in indoor HLG, where he has set records and "changed the game" in more ways than one. The Apogee HLG is a smaller than normal HLG with airfoils that Mark designed specifically for the HLG environment. Most other designs on the market are using "recooked" airfoils that were really designed for other environments, or airfoils that are heavily optimized for either launch or cruise - and pay a heavy penalty in the other direction. Mark's new airfoils were custom designed to not trade cruise performance while allowing extremely low drag for "ballistic hand launch" modes. Flying the Apogee is a quite different experience. It is so light, and has so little drag, that "throwing the plane" isn't quite the right term. It feels like mostly, you're throwing your arm. The Apogee launches very high, with very little effort, and is incredibly maneuverable even low to the ground. The Allegro was designed to break the mold (as it were) on 2 meter designs. The Allegro wing is designed to be very light, and still be "winch-proof", and so far no one's been able to disprove the claim. (Stress-to-failure test results on the spar system are on line on the Allegro 2m page). Mark also designed a new series of airfoils for the Allegro. The Allegro covers ground like one of the open class ships, but is so light that it can circle like an oversized hand launch. Watching Mark launch the Allegro is "kinda amusing"... Pedal to the metal all the way up, and then a ballistic vertical zoom off the top that seems to go up forever. So, you're thinking, "ok, Joel's lost it, he's now pitching commercial products"... Wrongo! Here's the incredible part... Like the Terminator, web-published last year, both the Apogee HLG and the Allegro 2m are on-line at our web site, with plans, construction notes, airfoil coordinate files and even airfoil polars and other supporting technical documentation. Come on down and take a look, please let us know what you think, and best of luck with your own Apogee HLG or Allegro 2m! Best regards, Joel Foner Webmaster - Charles River Radio Controllers http://www.charlesriverrc.org/ IRCHA #1458 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------- PGP DH Public Key Fingerprint 838A 0167 24AD 760B 4BB2 0560 2675 F9E9 5E8F 418C ----------------------------- RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
