Maxout
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- May 28, 2015
- Messages
- 118
- Reaction score
- 25
[FONT=&]Several members here have purchased Switchblade XP kits from me over the past three years, and I really appreciate the business they sent my way, but I ended up dissatisfied with the product and ultimately discontinued it last summer. Nobody ever complained to me about it, but I flew my own XP quite a bit and finally decided it was too marginal on power. Alas, as soon as I marked it out of stock, people started asking me when it would be back. Whelp, guess I can't drop the product without coming up with a replacement!
The solution was to begin developing an alternative which would glide at least as well, but a little more robust, and launch higher. Time for an 18mm pod. I also opted to use a wire trigger instead of the kevlar hold-down lines. It's just a tidier option and involves fewer of those tiny wire bits people were struggling to even see, let alone install. The result is a much larger model which surprisingly actually launches very authoritatively on A engines, though the flight times are a little limited. B engines put it satisfyingly high, and Cs, well, be looking up before you press the launch button. A bonus is that I can actually add a little paint to this model and it'll still clear the pad on an A8-3. Piston launches on As are definitely capable of competitive performance against non-RC rocket gliders.
After three months of development efforts, the Swingshot has finally passed all the developmental milestones and the build video is finished. You can now enjoy a nice flight video, and you can purchase one if you wish to join me in the R/C rocket craze. It's not an aerobatic model like the Carbonette, but it makes up for this in being one of the easiest to fly R/C models ever. The acceptable power range is about as wide as you could ever hope for. You can fly this one off of a very small field and not worry about getting it stuck in trees.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&]Flight demo:[/FONT]
[video=youtube;eJi58me4eIM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJi58me4eIM&t=11s[/video]
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[FONT=&]Build video:[/FONT]
[video=youtube;fobGx8gYfeg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fobGx8gYfeg&t=4s[/video]
The solution was to begin developing an alternative which would glide at least as well, but a little more robust, and launch higher. Time for an 18mm pod. I also opted to use a wire trigger instead of the kevlar hold-down lines. It's just a tidier option and involves fewer of those tiny wire bits people were struggling to even see, let alone install. The result is a much larger model which surprisingly actually launches very authoritatively on A engines, though the flight times are a little limited. B engines put it satisfyingly high, and Cs, well, be looking up before you press the launch button. A bonus is that I can actually add a little paint to this model and it'll still clear the pad on an A8-3. Piston launches on As are definitely capable of competitive performance against non-RC rocket gliders.
After three months of development efforts, the Swingshot has finally passed all the developmental milestones and the build video is finished. You can now enjoy a nice flight video, and you can purchase one if you wish to join me in the R/C rocket craze. It's not an aerobatic model like the Carbonette, but it makes up for this in being one of the easiest to fly R/C models ever. The acceptable power range is about as wide as you could ever hope for. You can fly this one off of a very small field and not worry about getting it stuck in trees.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Flight demo:[/FONT]
[video=youtube;eJi58me4eIM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJi58me4eIM&t=11s[/video]
[FONT=&]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Build video:[/FONT]
[video=youtube;fobGx8gYfeg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fobGx8gYfeg&t=4s[/video]