Upscale Aurora Clipper rc rg for G12 motors

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Here is a video from yesterday at the tri cities in washington on the Sod farm. My highest flight yet to 1400' with a 4 minute plus glide recovery which is pretty good for a non airfoiled wing.

I suggested to Frank that he fly the model over and join the RC sailplane contest that was going on east of us yesterday….but he didn’t. :)

This was just lovely to watch fly.
 
I flew my Aurora Clipper for my first time on Thursday morning of LDRS-39 with an H13. I don't think that Frank was there at that time. Later on Thursday Frank flew his Aurora Clipper. I got my AC started OK and then did a slope to reduce altitude, but got stuck into flying in circles at low altitude. I was able to land unharmed and asked Frank to fly my AC on Friday morning. These are the only pictures I have from Thursday morning.
 

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On Friday morning Frank flew my Aurora Clipper on another H13. The pictures below are from Jim Wilkerson/Tahoma Photography. My AC was not responding well after sloping to the southwest. Frank was able to regain control and bring the glider back safe and sound to our feet. Afterwards we talked about things that I should look at. Possible issues are as follows: the length of the screws that go into elevon horn plates, the strength of the push-pull wires, transmitter range check, etc. I wonder if the transmitter might have problems.
 

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I think wing flex under load and lack of adequate space in the elevon sides to the wing, along with potential pushrod flex due to small diameter wire are the most likely causes.....

Frank


On Friday morning Frank flew my Aurora Clipper on another H13. The pictures below are from Jim Wilkerson/Tahoma Photography. My AC was not responding well after sloping to the southwest. Frank was able to regain control and bring the glider back safe and sound to our feet. Afterwards we talked about things that I should look at. Possible issues are as follows: the length of the screws that go into elevon horn plates, the strength of the push-pull wires, transmitter range check, etc. I wonder if the transmitter might have problems.
 
I bought the LDRS-39 video from Braden at rocketvlogs, which has been offered here on TRF. The video is terrific! The first You Tube clip (made from rocketvlogs LDRS-39) video is from Frank's first Aurora Clipper clipper flight. The second video is Frank helping me out on my Aurora Clipper flight the next morning.

 

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Cool, make sure you trim both inboard and outboard ends of the elevons to leave about 1/8" gap just to make sure that is not a problem, and I'd still suggest swapping out the receiver and potentially battery plug as well just to make sure that is not a problem, those are cheap insurance to avoid losing the entire model. I also highly recommend getting longer screws and backing the horns in the foam, I would never fly something that big again without solid clamped control horn mounting.


I have gone back and replaced the 1.2 mm push rods with 1.5 mm push rods on the Aurora Clipper. I have also replaced the push rods on the Orion Star Liner.
 
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Here is an openrocket sim showing the mass balancing I used for the design, in this one I redesigned it to use bt-80 tubing and pnc-80K nose cone which cuts the rtf weight to 27 ounces, giving you 5 oz margin to the max vertical safe liftoff weight of 32 oz rtf for this model for any heavy handedness in construction or choice of materials.
 

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Do you serve meals on that flight burkefj?

Has anybody ever tried to make a flying model of this?
1643391434392.png
 
Do you serve meals on that flight burkefj?

One guy on rcgroups made one with a big clear fin and an edf fan but I never saw it fly well enough to call it a success. You would really need a clear vertical stab for both rocket or glide.

I designed my Orion Starliner rocket glider around that wing shape...as an homage...

WP_20171016_16_34_09_Pro-1-1.jpg





Has anybody ever tried to make a flying model of this?
View attachment 501990
 
Here is my reworked BT-80 version that weighs 28 oz rtf with the Virgin Orbit decals stickershock made me, looks really nice and should give enough margin from the 32 oz max vertical liftoff that you could use laminated 6mm, 9mm single thickness or laminated 5.5mm Model Plane Foam and still have a good flying model. I'm going to offer a short kit with all hardware, tubes, cones and spars, adjustable clevises, rail buttons, velcro, blenderm and wood supports, all you need to supply is the foam sheet, we'll see if anyone is interested. The price of shipping is just too much now for large size wing pieces, I checked and it was going to be $59 usps shipping for an 18" by 6" by 36" box, the short kit is only $17.50....

273219305_1020845185218791_2343953397852603054_n.jpg
 
Another flight of my H-13 powered Aurora Clipper kit with some onboard Estes Astrocam video looking over the port wing. I killed the audio in glide for both onboard and ground video due to excessive background noise. I pulled a loop right before burnout but pulled a little too long and wound up vertical with no airspeed.

 
Obviously, you decided to put the astrocam aiming to the side. If the cam is looking backwards, you seeing something on ascent, but maybe nothing later. If the cam is aimed forward, definitely nothing is seen on ascent and maybe nothing on the glide either.
 
Correct, I might do a flight later with it mounted on the tail so you can see the whole front of the airplane that might be interesting but I'll have to see if I can rotate my video in my editor.
Obviously, you decided to put the astrocam aiming to the side. If the cam is looking backwards, you seeing something on ascent, but maybe nothing later. If the cam is aimed forward, definitely nothing is seen on ascent and maybe nothing on the glide either.
 
Tom its on the website now you can just purchase it directly there

Thanks! Ordered tonight.

The devil is talking to me about possibly using your short kit and getting creative with a different set of flying surfaces, but not 100% sure yet…:)
 
The 9mm wing foam set from rcdepron for $35 delivered should give you enough to do anything reasonable.

Thanks! Ordered tonight.

The devil is talking to me about possibly using your short kit and getting creative with a different set of flying surfaces, but not 100% sure yet…:)
 
Cool, the new 9mm is superb. Very flat, consistent on both sides with minimal texture, slightly more flexible but still pretty stuff, cuts nice and clean.

I weighed my original stuff and it was just about 1 oz/sq foot weight, the new stuff is 1.09 oz/sq foot not very significant for this model.

Frank


\
I still have a few sheets of 9mm hanging around.
 
Another H-13 flight today with astrocam video. I put the camera further forward so you don't see the wing in the video. It was a pain, the video when I downloaded it said corrupted and my video editor wouldn't read it, but my sony software would play it so I saved it as an mp4 from avi and then could load it into the other video editing software which works with mixed formats better...

 
Three more H-13 flights today at Goldendale Washington, perfect weather, two with onboard video, Mount Hood and Adams visible as is the flight line and the pilot:)

 
Frank, the semi kit arrived in great shape! Thanks for the usual lightning fast service.

I now have a plan for something similar to your Orion Clipper. Similar overall shape, but a fun scale variant of another aircraft.

I might have to get some of the newer 9mm material after your report. Sounds great.
 
Cool, hopefully the spars I cut will be close enough for the lengths you need.

Frank, the semi kit arrived in great shape! Thanks for the usual lightning fast service.

I now have a plan for something similar to your Orion Clipper. Similar overall shape, but a fun scale variant of another aircraft.

I might have to get some of the newer 9mm material after your report. Sounds great.
 
Those spars will work. The basic planform for the aircraft I am doing is amazingly close to yours.

Would be cool if you to came up with 3 or so designs that would work with the semi kit, with only the Depron being different.
 
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