R/C RBG Pages |
Doug Malewicki at NARAM-12 | From Pulse to Digital 1960's & 70's (Malewicki, Renger, and the MIT Rocket Society) | Larry Renger with SkyDancer |
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Coaster's "Centauri DynaSoar" Plans - Early R/C attempts, but not successful From the days of the first successful Free Flight Boost Gliders, some rocketeers thought of, and a few tried, to build a radio controlled model. One dating from 1962 was the Coaster Corporation's plans for their "Centauri DynaSoar" Boost Glider. It was not a kit, but a set of plans. It was meant as a Free Flight B/G, powered by an F. There were some references to flying it by R/C, but curiously no reports of one ever flying successfully with R/C. Perhaps one of the things that supported this over the years was an advertisement in American Modeler Magazine, from August 1962. The upper right side of the ad said "You Can Radio Control This One!". Well, maybe somebody could have, but it seems nobody at Coaster ever did. The actual plans do NOT show how to convert it for R/C. Also contributing to this was the "antenna" seen in the ad's photo of the model. But that was not an antenna, it was a music wire skid, to keep the balsa nose cone from being gouged on landing. There are no confirmed reports of anyone ever getting this to fly successfully with R/C. Indeed, no reports of it flying successfully Free-Flight either, but maybe it did as Free-Flight. There is a discussion thread on Ye Olde Rocketry Forum (YORF) about this plan, which was the source for much of what you see here. If anyone would like to take a shot at it, free-flight or R/C, I suggest you check out that thread. Buzz Nau scanned the plans, provided by Jack Komorowski, which were posted at this link.
In 2008, Carl McLawhorn of Semroc produced a set of parts for those who wanted to try to get this old bird to actually fly. Buzz Nau started building one to fly on R/C, first as a piggybacked model, but it has not flown as yet. Don Fent built a Free-Flight version, and tried it on an F25. Unfortunately it pitched quickly on its back and crashed. There are several theories on what happened, one theory being that it went unstable. Here is a link to a video of that flight. Again, for more info I suggest checking the thread at YORF. |
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MIT Rocket Society - Early to late 1970's Various members of the M.I.T. Rocket Society were quite intrigued by the challenge of making R/C Rocket Boost Gliders which would not only fly successfully, but to fly well. Among those members whose work was later published in the "Pulse R/C" journal, were "Guppy" Youngren, Bob Parks, Geoff Landis, and Chris Flanagan. With 2-channel R/C gear being so heavy at the time, they focused on the "Pulse" type of rudder-only gear such as Doug Malewicki used. They made clones of the Albin super-regenerative receiver, then later Guppy Youngren developed a "Micro-Albin" receiver weighing 4.5 grams, and a more reliable Micro-Superhet (Superhetrogenerative) receiver weighing 9 grams. They worked up their own homemade magnetic actuators. It was possible to have a Pulse R/C system onboard that weighed under 10 grams, though that was with a very tiny weak actuator and sometimes finicky receiver. Bob Parks commented in e-mail recently:
At NARAM-17, in 1975, Guppy Youngren set an FAI World Record (and NAR Record) with a C Boost Glide (S4C) flight that thermalled for 708 seconds. November 1975, Chris Flanagan filed an FAI record of 2717 seconds for Eagle (D/E) Boost Glide S4(D/E), by "slope soaring" back and forth across a slope (wind coming up and over the slope causing continual lift as long as the wind blew the right way). Who had the first successful R/C Rocket Glider? I do now know for sure, but by 1975 Chris Flanagan, Geoff Landis and Guppy Youngren had been testing some out. At NARAM-17, Guppy Youngren won C Rocket Glide with a slide wing (Lumb Duck design) model. It flew for 240 seconds (scoring was best flight, not total then), taking first place. This was the first R/C model to take a place at a NARAM Glider event, and first to win ANY event at a NARAM (Doug Malewicki had taken the first R/C place of any kind by his Second Place in Spot Landing at NARAM-12, before the rules changed). Around 1977, the MIT Rocket Society compiled their work, including how-to articles and plans for a multitude of R/C B/G's and R/G's, in a "Pulse R/C" edition of their Journal. It was revised a few more times after that, up to 1979. It did not end with rudder only Pulse. Digital R/C with servos was starting to get smaller and lighter. By 1976, Cannon R/C had come out with a micro flight pack that was a "brick", essentially two servos and one receiver all mounted together. This was small and light enough to start making 2-channel R/C more practical. A 2-channel model named "Bogling" was flown many times at NARAM-18 in 1976, and plans for it were included in the "Pulse R/C" journal. And the final plan included in the Pulse R/C journal was "Legel Eagle", which Guppy flew to make the U.S. Team at the 1977 flyoffs at NARAM-19. It was a much more refined model, using a built up wing skinned with 1/32" balsa. When flown on two staged AVI D6.1 engines, it weighed just under the FAI S4D/E (NAR code named "Eagle") maximum weight limit, so that was where it's name came from. And then there was the Flagship at the 1978 WSMC....... (Link to be added when Flagship page is completed) | Bob Parks with Flop-Wing R/C B/G in 1971
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Someof the plans pages from the MIT Journal Pulse R/C Edition, plusphotos from pages of the NAR'sModel RocketeerMagazine
Guppy's 1975 C B/G FAI Record Setter
Guppy's FAI record C B/G at NARAM-17
Flanagan's "Stars & Stripes" C B/G
Landis' "Tiger Shark" C B/G
Geoff Landis won C B/G at MARS 1975
Guppy's C R/G winner at NARAM-17
Flanagans's "Henry" Slide Pod C R/G
Guppy's "Bogling" E & F B/G - pt 1
Guppy's "Bogling" E & F B/G - pt 2
Guppy's "Legel Eagle" B/G - pt 1
Guppy's "Legel Eagle" B/G - pt 2
Early 2-Channel R/C R/G's - Comments by Bob Parks
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Flagship at the 1978 WSMC.......(Link to be added when Flagship page is completed)