Upscale BSG Colonial Viper RC Rocket glider

[aerostadt]

Jim Wilkerson got some nice photos of the launch

I got some pictures from Jim that I just simply love!

 

[aerostadt]

I flew my large BSG Colonial Viper again last Saturday(03/19/2022) on an AeroTech SU G40 at Frank Hunt Field with UROC in about 13 mph winds. My wife caught some pictures. Shortly or almost immediately after burn-out the Viper turned towards the ground. I think I can see this in the 3rd photo. Usually, I keep hands-off of the R/C on the way up and let the model coast up to apogee, but in this case I immediately had to take over the controls. There was no damage except the front nose cone foam disk was knocked out similar to a year ago (Post #45). There is dirt inside the nose cone, so the disk could have been knocked out upon landing. Winds were blowing pretty good that day. I had the large Aurora Clipper with me, but I decided not to fly it.

 

[burkefj]

Glad it worked out ok, but I'll still re-iterate you must always drive it on the way up and not be a victim Even if you aren't doing anything to the sticks, you need to always be engaged....

 

[aerostadt]

Flew the large Colonial Viper twice on Saturday, both times on G40 motors. Good flights with no damage.

 

[aerostadt]

It was a beautiful day in Utah with no wind. My wife caught a few seconds of the take-off on her cell phone.

 

[burkefj]

Here is a nice slow mo liftoff of my original big viper from today flying on a G-40

 

[aerostadt]

I launched the large Colonial Viper again last Saturday on a G40. As I recall I think the Viper wanted to arc over early, so I had to give a little bit of correction to keep it going straight up. As soon as the upward movement was over, I flipped the D-switch (flap) from "0" (boost) to my glide setting "1". The Viper started to deviate a little after turning on the first flap setting. I intervened with the stick, but then I was stuck for most of the remaining flight trying to control with the stick, which I am not very good at. I am now wondering if instead of using the stick if I should try using the trim control first. It was a beautiful day. Using the Club rails on the HPR rack is convenient. The downside for me is that I don't make much progress on glide path bringing it back to me, so I have a little bit of a walk. I did better on Orbital Transport.

 

[burkefj]

You can't fly with the trims in glide it needs large control movements to have enough authority to control it

 

[burkefj]

I re-checked my CG location with the G-40 motors and apparently I moved it back incrementally about an inch or more from my original scaled location I used in my smaller kit version and have been flying it like this for a while.

With this in mind, I went back to see if the 29mm H-13 would require too much nose weight and it turned out even though the long H-13 hits the spar and can't go further into the motor mount, and it sticks out 2" to the rear instead of being flush, it only required 1 1/4 ounces of nose weight for a total liftoff weight of just over 37 ounces, I'm hoping to fly this weekend and see if it is too sluggish off the rail at this weight or not, should be fun!

It won't have that nice white lightning G-40 turbo flame but should go quite a bit higher...

 

[burkefj]

H-13 flight was perfect, in fact was able to remove a quarter ounce and still be stable, 37 oz rtf, a bit of wind blew it back a bit off the rail, I pointed it into the wind, then a hands off climb at about 15 degrees from vertical, nice glide about a minute and a half.

 

[burkefj]

I flew the Viper three more times this morning on my last G-40 motors. There were some people there at the RC club watching that were quite interested it really does look good on that motor and puts it right at the 400 ft altitude limit for the club. With the motor mounted in the middle of the main body tube it requires a little bit of down trim for boost so I took it home and decided to cut out the motor mount and remount a new phenolic motor tube slightly higher which allows the longer H-13 to slide all the way in and sit above the wing inside, and not hit the soar and stick back 2" This also allowed me to remove a little bit of the nose weight that was needed for the H-13 because it's sitting further forward now, and remove all of the down trim. I'll fly it tomorrow with my son there to video the full flight.

 

[burkefj]

 

[Huxter]

That was a beautiful glide! The camara person deserves a cold refreshing beverage - very good video! It was actually quite peaceful with the birds chirping in the background!

And yeah - talk about long burn!

 

[burkefj]

Removed another quarter ounce and it flew great today, almost 2 minutes of glide. I tried pulling another quarter ounce off but it got really pitchy so put it back, so it's right at 36.5 oz ready to fly with the H-13 installed, I was able to move the CG back from my original location about an inch and an eighth.