Stéphane “pgts” Combet of France has maidened his very cool SnowflaK project – an all-wood aerobatics glider that combines the classic looks of the Lunak with all-wood construction, Stéphane’s 2PES (two point exponential system) elevator control, multiple GoPro mounting positions and even a movable CG (whoohoo!). He has been working on the plane for some time, and it’s wonderful to see it take flight. It flies beautifully and looks like it’s going to be an excellent aerobatics and VTPR machine. Congratulations Stéphane!!
Rhys Porter has done it again! This time he’s created a really cool all-wood ultrabatics glider he calls the Velocity BL. It has a 2m wingspan and uses a heavily modified Quark fuselage along with a wing of Rhys’s design. The plane also incorporates a stabilizer capable of significant deflection, allowing some nice flip action both upright and inverted.
Shane “PlayinInThePark” Spoor’s exciting Fluid scratchbuilt design has flown its maiden, and it looks great! The Fluid, a “shovelbat” in the style of the Aero-Glide, uses full composite construction, an all-moving elevator and rudder capable of 180º rotation via a Twincam -derived pulley-pushrod solution (originally seen on the Slopium), along with a wingeron AND flaperon setup – pretty cool! It’s going to be really cool to watch this design get dialed in. Congrats on a job very well done, Shane!!
Paige Anderson of Future Slope Designs has created the new version of the Flow, which he is calling the Flow 2.0. It is one of the first commercially-available “shovelbats” in the style of the Aero-Glide collaboration between Michael Richter and myself. First video of the Flow 2.0 above – looks really fun! Read more on the FSD Facebook Page. Nice work Paige!
This is the first video I’ve seen of the new Flip by Topmodelcz. The Flip is an evolution of the Kulbutin, sharing the same fuselage but a longer 2m wingspan as well as a lighter weight, built-up rudder and elevator. Pretty neat to finally see one flying!
Leadfeather, a prolific designer and builder of all kinds of aircraft, has taken an interest in ultrabatics in a big way. After building a very light Le Fish, he’s turned to a new project, a BD-5J built ultrabat-style!! Very, very cool indeed. Check his build thread on RCGroups for more details. Really looking forward to seeing this one fly on the slope!
Quad-rod spar system using 4 of 1.5mm carbon spars. Very light, stiff and strong system. Easy to do.
1.7mil New Stuff laminating film on fuse and tail feathers, 5 mil on wing; will switch to 3mil for future wings.
Check out this cool test he performed to find the fuselage CG for best knife edge! Something I’ve thought about doing for years – neat to see someone actually do it
Now this looks very, very cool! François Cahour, one of the absolute godfathers of R/C glider aerobatics, has written a new book on the subject, Voltige Planeur RC that is available from Amazon. François has been flying glider aerobatics since the mid-1970s and his contributions to the sport are boundless; I can’t wait to see what he has written and will be ordering immediately. The book is written in French and 147 pages – having read a shorter article he has written on the subject, I anticipate his book will be excellent!
The book’s description:
The first flight training book about R/C glider aerobatics. Following his monthly column in the magazine RCPilot, there are presented here more than 40 aerobatic figures. Divided into 3 parts for a logical progression: basic figures simple and compound, inverted and snap figures, and lastly, the exceptional figures.
The general method involves the description of each figure, the main defects to avoid and basic tips to achieve it. A perspective drawing of the figure with representations of the stick movements show the position of sticks in each phase of the embodiment of figure. All figures are achievable by the author’s glider, some details of which are shown here. Are also addressed are some of the technical details of the author’s glider that allow the achievement of the exceptional figures.
Stéphane “pgts” Combet is hard at work on another very cool project. This one is named SNOWFLAK and it is his take on an all-wood semi-scale Lunak designed for hardcore aerobatics. It is meant to have “oldschool aerobatic glider style, VTPR spirit, Ultrabatic spirit, nice onboard vids” (there’s a built-in provision for a GoPro). Should be a super cool project – he’s already well along, should fly later this Spring. Cool!
Dawson Henderson and I have been collaborating on a wiki project meant to help support all the Le Fish builders out there – LeFish.org – home of Le Fishipedia
It’s meant to be a one-stop shop where new builders can learn about Le Fish, get guidance on what style/weight of build will best suit them, etc. Basically we’re trying to help people avoid having to wade through thousands of pages of forum posts to find this important info. It’s still a work in progress… it always will be
The above plane was scratchbuilt by Hans Van Kemp of South Africa based off of preliminary drawings of James Hammond’s new Aresti aerobatics glider design (to be released later this year from Sloperacer.co.uk). This past weekend, it was flown to a 1st place Expert class finish by Louis Genade in the 5th annual Two Ocean Slope Soarers Aerobatics Contest… not shabby at all!
The construction of Han’s scratchbuilt Aresti is of foam core wings with carbon skins and foam core tail with light weight aramid skins. The fuselage is foam core with glass skin.
Here are the specs (specs & build info courtesy Christo le Roux, TOSS Chairman):
A big congratulations to Hans and Louis on this very successful collaboration! And I’m sure James is proud to know that one of his designs has proven a success even before official release!!
