| I had seen messages from Astron Mike about his flying saucers on RMR, but I couldn't quite visualize what he was describing with text. Then, he offered a tri-pack of his saucers for a reasonable price and, since I love boost gliders, I decided to try them out. I placed my order with Mike during the week before Christmas and my order appeared within the week - arriving on Monday. Unfortunately, the Post Awful was not kind to the package. The saucers were pretty much OK, although the 13.0" one had some crimps in the ArtCor material, but several of the body tubes were crushed. Fortunately, I had some spare BT-20 available to replace the damaged tubing. The kit consists of three saucer wings (7-1/2", 10-1/2" and 13" diameters) with balsa body-tube stand-offs, three booster body tubes (one BT-5 for the 7-1/2" saucer and two BT-20 for the 10-1/2" and 13" saucers) and two payload sections (one BT-5 and one BT-20 for the two larger saucers). The payload sections are pre-built and use an expended motor for the joiner with a piece of kevlar line attached so that it comes out the center of the casing for attaching a streamer for recovery. Mike does not include engine hooks with this kit. He recommends friction fitting the motor with masking tape, but I prefer more positive retention and added retaining hooks. The dihedral of the saucer wings had gotten pretty well flattened out and when I re-creased the wing center, the body-tube stand-off popped off. They had been glued with yellow glue to masking tape attached to the ArtCor and the glue did not hold to the masking tape. I e-mailed Mike and he told me he had attached them that way to try to save us (the buyer) some construction time. Since the joint did not hold, he advised me to attach the stand-off with some epoxy, which seems to have made a much better connection. Mike included some metal (chrome?) tape with the kit which I used for attaching the rudder and weighting the nose of the body tube. One of the other early purchaser's reported some charring of the saucer wings on launch, so I bought a roll of the metal tape at the hardware store and I'm using a strip down the centerline to protect the saucer surface. Remember to adjust the balance and re-test the glide AFTER you have completed building the saucer. ;-) So far, i've got the 7-1/2" and the 10-1/2" saucers adjusted and ready for initial launch. See the launch reports for how they fly. I have only one other minor nit to pick, which I found on my first launch. The streamer got pushed up into the motor-casing joiner at the base of the payload section and could not deploy. I'll mix some tissue and glue to fill this in so it won't happen again. | ||
| Built: | December, 1997 |
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| Launches: |
21 February, 1998 - test launch (gliders) 8 February, 1998 - test launch |
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| Repairs: | February, 1998 |
Per the last minor nit mentioned above, I've filled-in the back of the engine casing tubing coupler with wadding to prevent the streamer getting caught. |
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| Last Updated: | 27 February, 1998 |
| Author: | Alan Rognlie |
| Email: | arrognli@execpc.com |
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© Copyright 1997, 1998 unless otherwise noted, all images are copyright © 1997, 1998 by Jeanne Rognlie - all rights reserved |
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