THE HISTORY OF V.A.R.M.S The Annual Diary 1990 - 2009

63
27 - 28 January 2001 - Camperdown Fly-In - Camperdown
Peoples and their Models:
Glen Salisbury F4U Corsair/Macchi MB-326/Spitfire/Skeeter HLG/Canberra/PC-9
Max McCulloch F-86 Sabre/Airbus/Spitfire/60" Pylon Racer
Mark Withers P-51D/KA-1/Sabre
Mark Doyle Combat Wing/ASW???
Colin Karn Combat Wing
David Downs Mungo flying Wing/U-2(Foam)
David Rowlings Macchi(foam)
Kevin ????? (All Sabre
David ????? from F-18
Kent ???? Canberra) Fox
Colin Collyer Schweizer 1-26
Greg Voak Tragi/Zagi Combat Wing(Dynamic Soaring on Mt. Leura)
Ross Bathie Ventus
Colin Smith Ricochet
Tom Wickers Decathalon 1:1 scale
A demonstration of Dynamic Soaring (DS) was provided by Greg Voak off Mt Leura using a Zagi
Combat Wing, very impressive. DS is the not so subtle and sometimes hair-raising art of slope
soaring from the leeward side of a hill or ridge.
April 2001 - 54th (2000/01) Nationals held at Busselton W.A. - Nil report yet.
10 May 2001 - At the General Meeting Colin Collyer initiated yet another "club" project to be taken
on by those members desiring to each scratch-build their own scale model in a group, - the subject
is to be a Schweizer 1-26.
At this juncture an article is repeated that first appeared in Aspectivity 295 of November 1997,
and is worth a re-run, again because of Colin Collyer and the Schweizer 1-26.
This article, written by Dave Thornburg (of Old Buzzard Soaring Book fame), appeared in R/C
Model Builder in February 1980 and I thought it deserved another run and may be of interest to
some of you. My thanks to Colin Collyer for sending it to me. (Editor - Alan Connelly)
It might look tough, but scratch building a "scale" model is really no great trick, says our
author. Here are four scale designs to help you out of the polyhedral rut.
Whatever happened to scale sailplanes? Back in the late '60's and early 70's, when R/C
soaring was just beginning to blossom here in the U.S., scale and near scale models dominated the
flying fields. Sport fliers and serious competitors alike spent their weekends with the Graupner
"Cirrus", the Astro Flight "ASW-17", Soarcraft's Kestrel 19" and the Fliteglas "Phoebus". Even
Mark Smith's "Windward" and "Windfree" designed especially for competition, had the torpedo
fuselages and long lean wings of the typical full-scale sailplane.
Then along came a couple of "new" ideas, both of them borrowed from free flight. The first
was lighter wing loadings. The Europeans, who dictated early designs, were flying mostly slope
and windy-weather thermal. Our conditions were milder and our terrain flatter, so American
designs began to evolve towards lightness. Balsa, spruce and plywood replaced heavier and more
expensive glass and plastic fuselages. Wide-chord wings replaced narrow ones, often on the same
fuselage. Light airplanes not only stayed up longer than heavy ones, they hit the ground a lot softer
at the end of each flight. Under many conditions, the wooden fuselages even proved stronger than
fiberglass. For Americans, lightness was here to stay.
The second new idea was polyhedral. Kit designers such as Lee Renaud (Olympic 99), Ed
Slobod (Pierce Arrow), and Tom Williams (Windrifter) changed the whole face of soaring by
adding free flight dihedral to their wingtips. What is this? Everyone asked. Real sailplanes don't
got these funny-looking wings; why put them on models? But the new designs TURNED when you
hit rudder control ... turned instantly, and held a tight circle at a high bank angle without "sliding
down a wing" the way V-dihedral ships often did. Polyhedral ships could ride smaller, tighter
thermals; they could be turned and banked closer to the ground without fear of snagging a wingtip.