|
F86 "Sabre"Slope glider |
| Wingspan | 965mm (38") |
| Wing Loading | 24gm/dm 2 (8oz/sqft) |
| Flying Weight | 780gm (28 oz) |
| Battery | 4 x 220mAH NiCad (4.8V) |
| Receiver | Hitec HFS02 AM 40MHz |
| Servos | 2 x Hitec HS300 |
| Controls | Ailerons, Elevator |
| Construction | Polystyrene foam, corflute, packing tape. |
I built this glider from a kit in November 1999. Like many foamies, this one needed a lot of sanding and cutting to get it into shape. I covered the foam with Gibfoil tape, which gives a nice shiny aluminium finish.
This model has suffered a lot of abuse. Its first flight only lasted about 20 seconds before landing in the top of a large pine tree! It took me about 20 minutes to climb up and recover the plane. In another incident, an unexpected loss of wind caused it to land half way down a cliff, where it lay for a week until I found someone willing to absail some 80 Metres down the rock face in order to retrieve it.
The most common cause of damage was landing too fast and/or steeply, which tended to split the nose and break the wing roots. To prevent this I cut off the nose and replaced it with EPP material, which bounces back instead of compressing. Between the new EPP nose and main body I added a plywood bulkhead. I also embedded hardwood spars in the wings.
During one repair job, I decided to strip all tape off the body and re-cover it. However, I forgot to run a new length of fibreglass strapping tape down each fuselage side, so the body was not as strong as it should have been. Predictably, it wasn't long before I had a wingtip touch on landing. The resulting cartwheel caused the body to break into two large pieces! Due to modifications and fixing breakages, the plane is now about 70gms heavier than when first built, but the extra weight doesn't seem to have affected its flying characteristics.
I now have many hours of flying time on this model, and as my skills have improved so it is lasting longer between repairs. It is now getting so old that the original tape is becoming brittle and starting to peel off. Recently I had to replace the corflute ailerons, as they had warped so badly that trimming for level flight was impossible.
Another potential for damage is being hit by other foamies during combat, but this is acceptable because flying combat is much more exciting than flying alone, and it hones my aerobatics skills!
M.I.A.