Spot Landing

I was flying a Gentle Lady on Sunday. My daughter built it about twenty years ago. It is a veteran of many encounters with the earth and other objects. Once the bungee line caught on a Skywalker being flown by Andre, (may he rest in peace). The point is, this aircraft knows how to fly. It has forgotten more about the art than I'll ever know.

It was quite windy and as I was circling in some dodgy lift I lost sight of the aircraft. I though I would see it again after it had turned 180 degrees: but no, nothing visible. A few minutes later I heard the dread sound of an aircraft hitting something solid. 

I made a search of the surrounding area. After twenty minutes or so I called it a day and walked back towards the pits. At that point Howard called out asking me if I had lost an aeroplane. I replied yes, to which he suggested that I look on the clubhouse roof. 

I've always found Howard's suggestions useful and this one was no exception. There, on the roof was the Gentle Lady. It had landed, on it's own, perfectly, and without damage.

Flemming, Howard and Alex, Francois in the background.

Basil and Adrian.

Jomac Pilots at the Sungazer

A group shot of the good glider turnout, at the annual Sungazer Scale slope event.



26 pilots entered ,to fly their scale ships, which ranged in size from a 1mtr Fox
to the 6mtr Lak with 4-4.5mtr ASW'S 27/28/29 being very popular. The vast majority
being scratch built locally.



Ken's Slingsby Sky being readied for flight.



As usual, Ken seen chilling out, had a good selection of world class scale models.

Saterday being a great day weather wise , sunday was cold and really blew a little strong initially improving later.Monday the wind dropped off and swung to the south slope.


The LAK 19 which had its wings featured recently in the vacumn bagging "how to" was maidened,and proved to be a great flier and structurally sound, so once again proving this is a good way to build composte wings. The aspect ratio is a very high 35.6 to 1 and the flex was a lot less than expected.



Saterday evening we had a big get together around the braai and shared notes on the days flying event. This is not a club event and is great to see pilots from Durban, Gauteng and even Welkom attended.

Monday saw Jomac's Howard and friends arrive to check out the scene and hopefully next year more of these guys will enter this social event.
Cheers
Mike

Francois with his new Blaster 2 DLG.

Colin's pilot looking shell-shocked after an unfortunate mid-air event

Wing bagging final

Well with only a week to go before these wings take to the air , I can post the final steps in the completion of these foam cored , vacumn bagged wings.
The finishing and fitting out is very time consuming but worth getting right.



The exposed foam on the wing and control surface is sanded into a concave shape (Dremel sanding attachment) in the case of the wing a small groove it routed out to allow the aileron servo wiring to be run in . This wiring (heavy duty twisted) is then sealed with a thin strip of masking tape. I also fit a piece of ply into the control surface where the control horn bolts through.
I now make up a mix of epoxy and flox with a little cabosil and paint this into the hollow. Once cured it bonds the skins together and makes a hard surface for the silicon hindging.





In this photo the silicon bead is run in and scraped flat across the gap with a shaped stick, I use a blue sellotape masking tape that releases and does not leave a sticky residue on the painted surfaces.




In this photo the ailerons are shown top hindged and the flap bottom hindged and secured in position until the silicon cures.



The next job was to cut the servo bays , this was marked up and a little cut at a time as I did not wish to cut the carbon spars, fortunately all my measurements were spot on and the servo fits just before the carbon spars and shearweb, more luck than skill.
Hardwood blocks and screws hold the servo's in place,

So in just over 30 days this glider has been completed, currently I am setting up the flight modes and programming and will certainly post some pictures of its first flights at the Sungazer Slope event next weekend.
Cheers
Mike

Ken's Fox. He's getting it ready for the Sungazer Scale Weekend at Volksrust

I wonder what the pilots think of it.