Upscale Astron Spaceplane

[sandman]

George Gassaway came up with this idea in TRF.

I did some drawings in CAD and thought you guys might be interested in doing an upscale version in either BT-56 (or BT-55 would work, BT-60 and B7-70.

No! not to be a kit, just a design idea.

Maybe with mini R/C gear and maybe a D12-P or an E9-P. This way you don't have to deal with an ejected motor or motor pod and the R/C gear could balance out the spent motor.

Buzz, are you out there??? ;)

[sandman]

Here's a BT-80 version.

I just wish I had at least some talent with R/C but unfortunately all I can do is "improve" a models ability to crash when I work the controls, so this would be for someone...anyone else. :o

[ghrocketman]

I may have to check into one of these.
I flew R/C sport pattern, sport pylon, and many other R/C aircraft types from about 1979 through about 2005 and was a volunteer instructor pilot at our club for several of those years. Many beginners showed up at the field with planes that many instructors turned down. If it had any chance of flying I'd attempt to test fly it for them.
Looking at getting out some of my micro R/C gear again to fly in my back yard....this might fit the bill well.

[sandman]

I may have to check into one of these.
I flew R/C sport pattern, sport pylon, and many other R/C aircraft types from about 1979 through about 2005 and was a volunteer instructor pilot at our club for several of those years. Many beginners showed up at the field with planes that many instructors turned down. If it had any chance of flying I'd attempt to test fly it for them.
Looking at getting out some of my micro R/C gear again to fly in my back yard....this might fit the bill well.

Be my guest and let us know how it turns out.

I have no intension of building a model that I know I'll crash.

I guess I could build it and let somebody else fly it.

My only experience with R/C was with a Goldberg Gentle Lady. Three of them! and they all ended there flying careers badly at my hands.

The worse was trying to launch from a bungee.

A perfect figure "9". :(

Think about it. :rolleyes:

[tbzep]

George said something about being able to fly it on a C motor for small field school demonstrations. We've got a tiny little place too. I think I'll let George feel it out and maybe give it a shot if it works for demos. In fact, we just did our school launch this morning. It would have been nice to fly something like that. :cool:

[Mark II]

Gordy,

The link to your BT-60 drawing brings up the BT-56 drawing.

I really like the idea. What would those beasts be flown on (motors)?

Mark

[Eagle3]

Great idea Gordo, but I need to finish and fly the Coaster Centauri first, ;)

[dwmzmm]

When he puts his mind to it, Gassaway knows how to make almost anything fly. I've
seen him do it.

[sandman]

Gordy,

The link to your BT-60 drawing brings up the BT-56 drawing.

I really like the idea. What would those beasts be flown on (motors)?

Mark


I fixed it. That was an oops. Printing error.

I was thinking 24mm motors on alll except the the BT-56. that could fly on an 18mm C. I like the idea of just using the "P" plugged motors and just not have to deal with a power pod. Just R/C control.

[sandman]

Great idea Gordo, but I need to finish and fly the Coaster Centauri first, ;)

Now i thought for sure you would have finished that one by now.

[Mark II]

I fixed it. That was an oops. Printing error.

I was thinking 24mm motors on alll except the the BT-56. that could fly on an 18mm C. I like the idea of just using the "P" plugged motors and just not have to deal with a power pod. Just R/C control.
The BT-56 could probably fly safely the old-school way (ejecting the motor); maybe the BT-60 could too. I like the sizes of all of them - they are big but not ungainly. When I first saw the Space Plane in my first Estes catalog, I thought it was much bigger than it actually was. My first impression was that it was about the size of the BT-56 or BT-60 upscale, so they look "normal" to me (sort of).

I'm not too familiar with big rear-engine R/C rocket gliders. One of the few that I do know of is (was) the HobbyLab SR-71. Here are a couple of links to videos of that bird in flight. Seeing these has really whetted my appetite for large R/C rocket gliders, like the Space Planes you drew! When you watch these, imagine that the glider is one of those big Space Planes. :D

http://uscoopers.org/rockets/movies/blackbird1.wmv
http://uscoopers.org/rockets/movies/blackbird2.wmv

I want to fly a glider like that!

Mark

[Mark II]

Here's another one (big rear-engine rocket glider). Has anyone ever heard of this company or flown this R/C RG? Click on the video link - it's great.

http://www.randrmodelaircraft.com/Delta%20Star.htm

Mark

[ghrocketman]

Sandman,
You managed to buy the farm with THREE Goldberg Gentle Lady's ???

I think you were right in giving up R/C at least without a competent instructor as that aircraft is by far one of the EASIEST to learn to fly R/C !
I totally understand your "figure 9" with a "bungee" or "hi-start"...I always hated those things and told students that wanted to learn with a glider to get a power pod with a Cox Tee Dee .049/.051/.09 installed & forget the bungee which to say the least is a major nuisance on a flying field with an active runway.

After several disasters with a Cox Cessna 210 Centurion R/C foamie ARF supposed "trainer" without a throttle that flew about 60mph, I taught myself to fly R/C back in the late 70's / early 80's with a Craft-Air 2-channel Piece O' Cake motor-glider with a TD .049 and a Craft-Air Low-Wing 4-channel Scout .15 with an OS .25 FSR R/C.

[tbzep]

I learned on a Sig Fazer fun fly in what amounted to about 15 minutes of flight spread over a couple of weekends in a pasture. When I took my Fazer to the club, they all got behind their trucks. I had told them about how I learned to fly, plus, I had never landed or taken off "normally" because the pasture had waist high grass. We hand tossed the Fazer into the air, and did "carrier landings" in the high grass. After flying the circuit a few times with some rolls and a few loops, I landed the little Fazer. The members instantly voted me into the club. :p

I finally flew a trainer a year later when the club's instructor didn't feel too good and a new guy was there to learn. I thought my Fazer was easier to fly than the trainer. :rolleyes:

[ghrocketman]

One instructor at our club still to this day insists that the perfect second R/C airplane is a .60 sized "pattern" airplane as they generally have no bad habits and go exactly where they are told to go in a quick predictable fashion.
I find these type of aircraft much EASIER to fly than typical trainer aircraft.
Trainers, which almost always have about 3 times the needed dihederal, respond very slowly to aileron control inputs so "ham-fisted" overcontrolling beginners supposedly do not get into trouble....thats fine until they move onto anything that has any sort of reasonable responsiveness.
R/C Trainers are about as much fun to fly as a full-scale DC-3 cargo plane.....BOOOORRRRRRIINNGGG !

[sandman]

OK, I will admit there is one R/C plane I can fly and that's the Air Hog twin engine bipllane! :D

I work on school auditoriums and the weather inside an auditorium is always great for flying. ;)

[Phred]

I am right there with ya Sandman!! I modified mine by removing the bottom wings: flies faster, but needs a teensy bit of noseweight.

Ph

[georgegassaway]

I see there’s a thread here on my scaled up Space Plane.

Here is a link to the first one, in May:

http://tinyurl.com/5v6zhr

And then you can follow a link there for the update for the second model in June,

I fudged the scaling a bit. For 2X, the body tube diameter would need to be about 1.5”, or so, that does not exist.

A BT-60 was larger and heavier than I wanted, and I did not want to use either the long “Red Max” blow-molded nose or get a custom one from BMS.

BT-55, the two tiny servos would not QUITE fit right. They are small enough to fit bottom-to-bottom sideways in the tube, and I squeezed the tube into an oval to get them to fit where there were holes in the sides for the output shafts to stick out, but BT-55 was just too tight of a fit, which would leave the tube in an oval.

Quest 35mm tubing, which is a sort of loose fit over BT-55, was juuuust right for the servos. And the blow-molded 35mm nose was a close enough match too.

So, while I made the model mostly as 2X, the diameter is smaller than 2X. OK, so call it a “sport scale” model then.

A couple of people had suggested I should add the other parts from the originals, like the elevon stops. Well, the original had the elevon stops, and the roll tabs on the rudder, not for looks, but for flight functions that were necessarily to make it fly successfully. The servos perform the duties of the elevons stops, elastic cord, and the roll tabs (I do have to make the 2X roll on boost, because it is too fast for me to try to control the boost).

OK, the other model in June was another 2X scale up. But a 2X of the 2X. So, it’s a 4X. 36” span. It boosts on an F13 or G12 reload, and boosts slow enough that it is easily controlled on boost, so it does not roll on boost unless I want it to. At 22.3 ounces glide mass, it is a bit heavier than I wanted, but it’s still light enough to fly well as a sport model. Again I fudged the diameter, by using a BT-80, at 2.6”. Had I used a 3” tube for 4X , with a Big Daddy nose, the model would have weighed a whole lot more, boosting a lot lower and not gliding as well.

- George Gassaway

[barone]

I see there’s a thread here on my scaled up Space Plane.

Here is a link to the first one, in May:

http://tinyurl.com/5v6zhr

And then you can follow a link there for the update for the second model in June,

I fudged the scaling a bit. For 2X, the body tube diameter would need to be about 1.5”, or so, that does not exist.

A BT-60 was larger and heavier than I wanted, and I did not want to use either the long “Red Max” blow-molded nose or get a custom one from BMS.

BT-55, the two tiny servos would not QUITE fit right. They are small enough to fit bottom-to-bottom sideways in the tube, and I squeezed the tube into an oval to get them to fit where there were holes in the sides for the output shafts to stick out, but BT-55 was just too tight of a fit, which would leave the tube in an oval.

Quest 35mm tubing, which is a sort of loose fit over BT-55, was juuuust right for the servos. And the blow-molded 35mm nose was a close enough match too.

So, while I made the model mostly as 2X, the diameter is smaller than 2X. OK, so call it a “sport scale” model then.

A couple of people had suggested I should add the other parts from the originals, like the elevon stops. Well, the original had the elevon stops, and the roll tabs on the rudder, not for looks, but for flight functions that were necessarily to make it fly successfully. The servos perform the duties of the elevons stops, elastic cord, and the roll tabs (I do have to make the 2X roll on boost, because it is too fast for me to try to control the boost).

OK, the other model in June was another 2X scale up. But a 2X of the 2X. So, it’s a 4X. 36” span. It boosts on an F13 or G12 reload, and boosts slow enough that it is easily controlled on boost, so it does not roll on boost unless I want it to. At 22.3 ounces glide mass, it is a bit heavier than I wanted, but it’s still light enough to fly well as a sport model. Again I fudged the diameter, by using a BT-80, at 2.6”. Had I used a 3” tube for 4X , with a Big Daddy nose, the model would have weighed a whole lot more, boosting a lot lower and not gliding as well.

- George Gassaway
George! Welcome!

[dwmzmm]

George! Welcome!

Same from me; you'll find this forum just as "user friendly" for old timers as the others.... ;)