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Originally Posted by Ez2cDave
I'm glad that George posted his B/G hooks . . . I actually thought that he had invented them in the late 1980's, rather than the early 1990's. 27 years and nothing better has been invented.
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Well, actually, something better has been invented. One drawback to the Apogee universal hook, and true of any "Xerclod" glider hook, is that the glider can pry off due to wind, usually on the pad.
When I started flying 2-channel R/C B/G's in summer 1980, I used very long pop-pods, and the pods sometime pried off during boost when I made an elecator correction. I came up with what I called "L" hooks, a pair of interlocking hooks that could not pry off, at all. The hook had to move backawards aobut 1/4" or so to become detached. But those were made out of plywood, a bit of a hassle ot build, and some other issues, so I only did those for some early 1980's R/C B/G's. before I moved on to R/C R/G's. The drawings below do not show the 1980 plywood design, but the 1990's and onwards cast version.
But once I got into casting parts for scale models like Little Joe-II, I looked at casting other kinds of parts. The Apogee universal hook was the first cast hook I did. And it worked pretty well. But had the same sort of prying issue.
And in 1996, I was working up some B pwoered gliders for the world championships, to use 10mm B2 motors. I wanted to do a hook design that was lighter, smaller, and would not pry off. So I dusted off the 1980 "L Hook" idea, and made some prototypes. They worked well, and I shared them with US team members who wanted ot use them. Thru the years, I've sold them on and off. Currnetly not for sale, as the RTV molds are torn (only last a few dozen castings).
Also, I did an R&D report for my team , about the L Hooks and Spooler Pop-Pods, which combined solve all sorts of problems with pop-pods for B/G's. Here's a link on my website aobut the R&D report, various photos and drawings, and a link to a PDF of the actual report:
http://georgesrockets.com/GRP/RandD/Spooler.htm
Some photos:
Pod portion at top, without one of the side halves (I cast three parts, a left and right half for the pod, and the glider hook itself)
Photo of several in various stages:
Being used with an actual glider and pod.
A flock of B/G's of various sizes, with spooler pods using L Hooks. The pod at top was a BT-55 Spooler Pod with a very large cast L Hook set, for staged D12 power on a "trainer" R/C B/G. Except for the BT-55 pod, all the pods in that photo that had hooks, would fit any of the gliders in any combination due to the same hook design cast from the same master parts set.
