Minivec over Little Mountain from John Scahill on Vimeo.
John “Big Gas” Scahill somehow managed to talk his lovely wife into filming his Minivec on a recent outing to Little Mountain. She was a real trooper and did a very nice job of catching some smooth flying by John. Big thanks to her for the effort, because there’s not a whole lot of Minivec footage out there yet!
Very pleased to announce that James Hammond, designer of the Vector III and Minivec, has been kind enough to write up an article about his philosophy and approach to designing gliders for slope aerobatics. It’s a quite cool look inside a designer’s head, not to be missed! Read it here: Slope aerobatics and other aerial gyrations
My RCRCM Mini Vector has arrived from SoaringUSA, and it looks great! Everything arrived well-labeled and neatly packaged (to say nothing of SoaringUSA’s legendary packaging – 1st class all the way!).
The color scheme is striking and should look fantastic in the air. Mine is the glass version, and the wing layup is strong (similar to a Wasabi) and the fuse layup, while lightweight, seems durable, similar to the weight of the Wasabi or maybe just slightly heavier.
I’m planning to build this one out with Hitec HS-65HB for ailerons, rudder and elevator, and Hitec HS-65MG for flaps. Haven’t decided on a receiver yet, but am planning to try out an A123Racing 2S 6.6v receiver pack from RCLipos. This will drive maximum performance from the servos while providing a fast recharge rate and very long useful cycle life.
RCRCM MiniVector - photo from the Sloperacer Blog
The Minivec from RCRCM is starting to show up on doorsteps and it looks like Zim and Adam from the Sloperacer blog have one of the first. You can read all about it and see more photos in their post, The MiniVector has arrived!.
This is pretty old news now, but certainly deserves mention here. The long awaited Vector III is finally a reality and in ready availability from RCRCM. The plane is 2.4m span and uses an SD8020 symmetrical airfoil and appears to have very nice flight performance. There’s also a 1.7m version called the Minivec available soon.
Here’s a build thread on RCGroups: Moulded Vector III Slope Aerobatic
Wing span = 2365mm
Length = 1350mm
Wing aerofoil= SD8020
Tail aerofoil = SD8020
Weight = 1400g
Controls = Elevator, Rudder, Ailerons, Flaps/Flaperons
Construction = Glass, carbon, balsa sandwich in an epoxy matrix
Span: 1.69m
Length: 1.0m
Wing Aerofoils: JH8-10-sym
Tail Aerofoil: JH8-10-sym