NCR Avatar: a new version, plus who still has one and/or is working on one ?

Anyone still flying or building or thinking about building a NCR Avatar? Dave Schafer still has and flies one here locally.

While filtering the contents of my garage, storage building and model storage bedroom for my various odds and ends of long stored rocket stuff, I rediscovered a few sets of damaged foam airframe parts for the good old NCR Avatar.

I flew one a fair amount circa 1994, but it died when being launched on a clone of the NCR Avatar Arrow booster for the Avatar, victim of a dual problem: a bonus delay on the G40 motor and a failure of the servo operated release that separates the glider from the Arrow. Ouch.

The Avatar kits often got their wingtips dinged and broken off during shipping and Matt Steele keep some of the blemmed airframes and gave me a few sets in the mid 1990s. Just the wings and the fuselages.

During some drying time on other projects I pulled out two of the airframes and started working on them. One has now gained 3 more inches of foam added to the wing trailing edge (and a few inches of span as well). This mod will bring the CP back a good bit and make it easier to balance with larger motors. It should glide a little better as well. It will be getting a 29mm motor mount for more motor options.

I have one. I flew it a few times, none successfully. I'd blame it on my lack of RC skills but I was never able to get it high enough off the ground for that to be an issue. I need to build an Arrow like booster so it will have a fighting chance at flying.

It can be tough for a rocket guy to get enough flight time to develop good skills while learning on an RC rocket glider.

The best idea is to learn to fly on something else before going to an RCRG. Lots of simple and cheap electric aircraft these days. Something like the Eflite/Parkzone Stryker would be excellent preparation for the Avatar.

It is possible to pick one of those (or something else used) up at a bargain price used, off of rcgroups.com, or ebay or even Craig's list. Build some skills and then sell it on, for a minor loss.

The Arrow is a good option to keep from needing to fly the Avatar during boost. I am thinking about reprising the Arrow in a smaller diameter airframe flying with less weight and a touch less drag for a higher boost on a G40 or similar and then an air start of a another motor in the Avatar.

With the weather not favorable for the spray painting needed on my other projects, I spent yesterday covering my modified Avatar with low temp heat shrink in a semi scale Space Shuttle scheme.

The additional 3.5" of wing cord added to the trailing edge gives the Avatar about 85-90 more square inches of wing area and also moves the CP back a good amount. This will help optimize this Avatar for certain 29mm F and G motors.

Never had the stock vertical tail to go with these blemmed Avatar parts, so did a new one of different design in 3/16 balsa.

Decided to move the servos out into the wing for more positive and direct control linkage to get rid of the need for elevon torque rods in the fuselage. There will be a small drag penalty for having the linkage outside the model, but this will be minimized with some custom vac formed linkage fairings.

First flight will be on an F14BJ, most likely. Ought to do decently on the AT G25 as well.

The modified Avatar is ready for the radio installation and the graphics!View attachment 250481

Looks sweet.


Richard

Tom,

That looks great!! Even better than stock as well! What motors you planning to fly this on?

AstronMike said:

Tom,

That looks great!! Even better than stock as well! What motors you planning to fly this on?

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Thanks from the kind words. Will look better after some more details and graphics are added.

Motor wise:8 Single use, F14BJ and F24BJ, even though those are my least favorite propellants. G25 reloads. I still have a few SU F25WL that I will likely try.

A G40 would be exciting, but it might reach and exceed, as we say in RC land, "the speed of foam"...

Debated glassing it, but wanted to keep it fairly light.

Taking a break from the Depron Boeing SST to do the last details on the modified Avatar (instead of the Hobgoblin): Servo installation, pushrods, control horns, rx and battery. Will tweak the CG with a buddy doing a hand launch glide test after work this week.

Three G25 reloads have arrived at my local dealer (pyrobob; buyrocketmotors.com) so all is looking good to do the first launch this weekend.

Launch pics in a week.

Tom, what is the rtf weight with a g25?

burkefj said:

Tom, what is the rtf weight with a g25?

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Still have to do the final weigh in, but the working estimate is about 30oz on the pad.

Ok, that will be pretty quick...on my larger foamies I'm running about 38 oz and that gets to about 500'...Should be fun.

burkefj said:

Ok, that will be pretty quick...on my larger foamies I'm running about 38 oz and that gets to about 500'...Should be fun.

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My rough estimate is about 800-900 feet.

I have a large number of G40 launches on the old Hobbylab F-14 at around 32 oz off the pad and expect a similar energetic boost.

When I changed the planform of the Avatar, adding the extra area at the trailing edge of the original wing, I added a couple of hard balsa spars to keep things stiff.

If this new planform version flies as well as I expect, I plan doing some version of this updated Avatar in 6mm Depron for 24mm RMS-RC and possibly publish some plans for both a built up fuse version and a profile version. It ought to be a good entry level project for an aspiring RC rocket glider pilot that has some basic experience.

Yeah, it's a simple delta with a box fuse would be easy to put together, sort of like a foam lady hawk...
Did you get to fly the X-15 yet?

Frank

burkefj said:

Yeah, it's a simple delta with a box fuse would be easy to put together, sort of like a foam lady hawk...
Did you get to fly the X-15 yet?

Frank

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No chance to launch the X-15 until the launch at Hearne on this coming Saturday, July 11.

It appears you get to launch in back of your house, on a very nice site. Color me jealous... No such luck here.

Bringing the X-15, the XB-70, the XF-108 and the modified Avatar, all to test fly there, time permitting.

The Avatar redux did not quite get done in time for the launch. Now have some time to finish it up at a slower pace as the next launch windows are late July and then August 39-30.