All posts by Darcy

Bill Kuhl Squirrel

August 21, 2012Gallery, SightingBill Kuhl, WinonaDarcy

Here’s a nice floaty Squirrel sighting from Bill Khul.

He lost his prop hub during the flight. If he sends pictures I’ll post them here.

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Field Trip

August 20, 2012Experimental, OutreachKingston, Lloyd ShalesDarcy

100_9858-600 — Lloyd eyeballs a Squirrel built by Darcy.

Today I am in Kingston visiting Lloyd Shales (designer of Minnow and Sparrow).

We’re going to be doing some experimenting and some discussion on model airplane design and fabrication.

Stay tuned for a report, pictures and video.

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A walk in the park.

August 19, 2012ExperimentalCatapult, Lloyd Shales, SparrowDarcy

I had a great day flying a Sparrow (catapult glider)!

The one I made from a kit flies great.

Here’s a bit of video and pictures from my walk.

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How to improve packaging?

August 19, 2012ExperimentalDarcy

Over the past couple of years I’ve been working on ways of improving the efficiency of packaging the Squirrel kits I’ve been making.

At the moment, one of the hardest parts is getting the kits into the bags.

I’d be curious if anybody has any ideas how to improve that process.

Last week I happened across a new method of preparing the tissue which is only about 1/4 the time of the old process. Here’s what the tissue looks like coming out of the new process.

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Catapult Glider

August 19, 2012ExperimentalCatapult, Hammer Down, SparrowDarcy

As it turns out Wild Wing is a pretty good place for a model plane meetup. I went there for a drink after flying catapult gliders.

I also tested the Sparrow I built yesterday. In a nutshell, it flew great. I needed the entire ballast. It worked better launching it banked right. Got some amazing flights.

The other Sparrow, Lloyd Shales gave me flew great too. The tail boom/handle broke off. Interestingly I discovered an alternate way to launch it. I made a splint to help repair the fuselage and it was thicker and acted as a handle. So I used that to pull it back on the catapult. Seemed to be easier except the tailplane would often brush releasing hand and was getting a bit of wear.

I brought out the Hammer Down Catapult Glider by Bill Khul as well. The plans are at his ScienceGuy site. It worked great as a hand launch glider. It seemed to pitch up quite a bit during a catapult launch and seemed to unhook from the catapult early so it wasn’t getting a full push. I will have a look at that.