I recently acquired a Weston Hype 3D. It was brand new but with no box. I am not into 3D as such. No-one seemed to want it so I took it on as a general "muck about" plane and it would be a shame for it to go to the bin which it was destined to be. After doing some research for a manual or some kind of guide it appears that there is not much on the "Tube" for these things although there were a few items for the Mini Hype but scarcely anything for the 60+ inch version. I found a manual but it was for a later version as the one I was looking at did not have a battery hatch or EP conversion mount. Neither were any control wire guide tubes installed as per the manual. Oh No! What have I commited too?
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- Written by: Phillip Ford
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SIG Somethin’ EXTRA . 51 ½ inch span, SC52 2 stroke, 4 channels + flaps, finished with Oracover and Sola film. The box says ‘The design can be set up to fly as sedately as a trainer or switch to high rates and roll so quickly you can’t count them, perform violent snap rolls, enter upright or inverted spins with instant recovery confidence and while you’re at it, lay it on it’s side and knife edge into the next county’.
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- Written by: Andrew McWhirter
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The Ranger 1600 from Hobbyking is another plane from the milk bottle stables, ie; plastic fuselage and very similar stabiliser and tail fin to the Phoenix glider range. The big difference though is the plug in wings so no screw driver required. The Ranger is designed for much easier hand launching and virtually a mid-wing type plane. This model is very similar to the Bixler series except it now has a virtually indestructable fuselage! The front nose has a flat area with a small aperture for a camera if using it as FPV. It is quite capable of powered flight or used for slope soaring, your choice. The plane comes with pre-wired servo connections, 30 amp ESC and a unbranded 2212 1400Kv brushless outrunner and designed to run on 3 cell Lipos in the 1600 to 2200 maH range. These batteries will balance the model perfectly.
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- Written by: Phillip Ford
- Category: Projects
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After many years of procrastinating I'm finally building a Phase 5. Designed in 1978 this model is often considered to be Chris Foss's (CF) best slope model. It was never available as a kit so the only way to get one is to build it yourself. CF is still selling the plans if you fancy one.
The Phase 5 plan calls for a built up wing but I'm deviating from the plan and making one from foam with a balsa skin. A snow day today meant I could make a start. CF does not specify what sections are used for the root or the tip so a bit of guesswork and internet trawling resulted in the semi-symmetrical E374 for the root, modified a little to make it thinner. The tip is fully symmetrical and is between NACA 0010 and 0011. It's actually 10.67% thick so maybe it's NACA 0010.67?
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- Written by: Mike Seale
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If you have read the previous article on the Wots Wot you will have read that this was the electric version. The basic model comes without any mounting kit. You select the which kit you wish to use, i.e.; electric or glow. In the previous article I built my Wots Wot for electric using a SK3 5045, 660 kV motor. The plane flew very nicely but I needed a that size motor for another project, and as much as I hate to "cannibalise" working models the motor had to come out. not wanting a machine that does not fly I decided that a biplane such as this really needs a nice four stroke glow. The following article describes the conversion back to glow, the opposite to what many do nowadays.
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- Written by: Phillip Ford
- Category: Projects
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