Renger's Sky Slash-II B/G plans?

[georgegassaway]

IIRC, Larry Renger’s “Sky Slash-II” B/G was a plain in Estes MRN?

I am looking for the plans, but do not have any idea which issue it might be in. Is there some index for contents of MRN’s?

Or, if I am not recalling correctly, where might plans for the original SkySlash-II be found, if at all?

I know, Estes kitted a version of it as the Falcon But I want to see what the original was like since it was tweaked somewhat (The Falcon tip chord looks awfully skinny, so it makes me wonder if the planform was changed to get the most out of a 3 x 10” sheet of balsa).

- George Gassaway

[DaveR]

Here ya go:

http://www.dars.org/jimz/eirp_12.htm

[georgegassaway]

Here ya go:

http://www.dars.org/jimz/eirp_12.htm
OK, thanks a lot.

EDIT - I have not worked out the exact sizing yet to convert the TIFF image to the correct scale for 1:1 on screen. But just by looking, it is as I had wondered. The original Sky Slash-II wings had a lot more chord at the tip than the Falcon did. And each wing used up one sheet of Estes' BFS-40. On the Falcon, with skinnier wings toward the tips, both fit onto one sheet of BFS-40.

- George Gassaway

[LeeR]

George,

JimZ plans can be tricky -- by that I mean the older plans stored as TIFs. On a Windows machine, you can do "Save Image", but that saves the GIF, which is going to give you a "thumbnail-sized image, and no scaling. Do a "Save Link", and that stores the page as a TIF. My default is to open TIFs in Microsoft Document Imaging (which I think is the Windows default for TIFs). It opens at 100%, full sized, ready to print. Irfanview, Photoshop, or other graphics programs will give you controls to play with the image, but the Windows freebie utility will get you a full-sized print just fine.

[georgegassaway]

I do Macs, not Windows. I could have tweaked it in Photoshop. But, since there are dimensions shown, I did a copy of the image and pasted it into some drawing software (MacDraw), and resized it until the 5” wingspan matched a 5” square. Of course the wing and stab are dimensioned fully so I did not need to do that for those but did need to do it for the fuselage and rudder. Actually if I were to build a mode, I would be drawing up templates in MacDraw, so that is why I needed to get the TIFF into something that could be manipulated to he correct size. If not for the dimensions to help me, I might have had to go as far as to use Photoshop to print it at the right size on paper, then measure the printouts to draw from.

I am not sure where this will lead me. Maybe a model, maybe not. I wanted to see how things might work out, and in this case whether the Sky Slash-II or Falcon. Definitely the Falcon’s wings are skinnier towards the tips, so one sheet of BFS-40 could be used in the kit. So if I do something, it might be the Sky Slash. Or, maybe the “Falcon Slash”, or “Sky Falcon”, if I wanted to use the original wings of the Sky Slash but maybe use that “T” fuselage of the Falcon.

Or, maybe it will end up as yet another project I considered but ended up doing something else.

- George Gassaway

[gpoehlein]

Do you have Illustrator, George? I find that, most of the time, Illustrator will open TIFF files at 1:1 scale. And, you can resize them very easily as well.

Greg

[Mark II]

AFAIK, all of the TIFs at JimZ's site are scanned at 300 dpi. So if you adjust the downloaded image's resoluton to that number, it should print out at the correct size. On your Mac, you can also convert the image to a PDF file practically by thought-control alone. (We Windoze users have to obtain an add-on to make such conversions -- and we still have to use a mouse. :rolleyes: )

MarkII

[mrhemi1971]

Has anybody looked at Semroc's Hawk? IIRC it is a slightly modified Sky Slash. Might be a good starting point.

[Bob Kaplow]

Where might plans for the original SkySlash-II be found, if at all?

I think Sky Slash II plans were in the old design booklets as well. That's probably where I first saw them.

But what ever happened to the ORIGINAL Sky Slash plans. The design Larry originally submitted, rather than what Estes turned them into before publication?

[o1d_dude]

Has anyone thought of contacting Larry Renger directly?

He's still on the Internet.

[shockwaveriderz]

Has anyone thought of contacting Larry Renger directly?

He's still on the Internet.


Yes, I contacted Larry several times over the past 5 years or so and had both telephone and email conversations about his early BG work.

In fact Mr. Renger has given me the rights to both his SkySlash I and Flamingo Bg designs. These of curse are the first front-engined BG and the first pop-Pod BG. Larry even created a "logo" for them. I would attach it for all to see, but it not trademarked nor copyrighted so I dare not show it publicly .

The only difference between the SS1 and SS2 was the engine ejection pin release activated pop-stab.

Larry provided me with contemporary drawing of the SS1 glider including his original pop pod. that he designed for the FlaminGo.

Of course, FalminGo is just a play on the word Flamingo, whereas, Larry was working and living in Florida in 1963-64 working on the Saturn F1 engine I beleive it was, and their were many Flamingo's outside his window view daily due to a small pond.

I've never published these materials provided by Larry (which include's photos of his small and lathe Bomarcs while at work at Estes, a pic of his proto-type Sky Dart (in color), photos of the FLaminGo (only ones known to exist), and several other gliders he designed "back in the day".


As for his original plans for the SS2, they were sent to Estes as part of the October 1962 MRN BG design contest which he won( Gordon Mandell came in 2nd place, and I also have some pics and diagrams of his early gliders), the oroignals long lost to history. Sometime abck in the 70's I think it was, most of the design contest entries were all trashed for whatever reasons. You can well imagine how much space it took to store 10+ years of letters and plans for model rocketeers back then, as Estes was running 3-4 contests a year through their MRN.

A lot of people forget completely that Gordon wrote TR-4 Rear Engined BG's and TR-7 Front-Engined BG's for Estes. Both of these Tr reports were based upon his NY State Science Fair and early NARAM R&D reports. Gordon also worked as an intern at Estes in the summer of 1965 I believe it was, before he entered MIT.



There was some controversy at first as to who did the first pop-pod, with both Gordon Mandell and G.Hary Stine both declaring they did it first. whats funny was that Godron published his design first, so he was given credit. His original pop-pod design was never used in glider other than his own Flamingo; while on the other hand, G. Harry's pop-pod design is the basis of the pop-pod we use today, ie then" xerclod" or piece X. Xerclod was coined by the MIT boys circa 1970.

Now you are probably wondering why I never published these designs or photos or kited his designs.... well lets just say I was waiting for the right time and place. I had hoped to wite the definitive history of early rocket boosted gliders, say 61-71 approximately, but I never put it all together into one artcile as there are two side articles: one on the history of pop-pods and one on the history of flew-wing BG's.

Attached is a diagram of the SS1 auto-satb setup; below is a G. Harry Stine "mod" to the SS1-2.

terry dean

hth

terry dean

[o1d_dude]

Thanks for the history lesson, Terry.

Just last night I printed out both TR-4 and TR-7 for comparison purposes to the "Technical Report" by Thomas E Beach available through EstesEducator.com (www.esteseducator.com/Pdf_files/2266.pdf) so I'm at least a bit familiar with Gordon Mandell.

Thank you also for the attachment showing the auto-stab modification to the SS. It's interesting to note the anhedral tail feathers (with 10 degrees of stab tilt for the left glide turn) as that's what's currently being used in the discus launch glider event in free flight circles. Turns out that anhedral was the key to getting these big birds to fly well. Funny how history repeats itself, innit?

I've got to wonder, however, how many of those original SS boost gliders were recovered what with them not having any sort of D/T arrangement. I used to build my catapult gliders (13" wingspan) five at a time because even with a fused D/T they never came home!

As we say in the Free Flight game, Thermals!