Indoor Contests: January 8 in Glastonbury, CT & January 15 in Georgetown MA
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Lessons from the Glastonbury Gym
Do you remember when we used to fly free flight rubber models in the MIT Dupont Gym in Cambridge MA? Perhaps you flew there with us.
One of the top flyers there, Jim D., built a couple of flying scale models from the popular Golden Age Reproductions kits and plans. One was the 25″ wingspan Scientific Curtiss Robin and the other was the Megow 20″ span Caudron C460 Racer. They were fabulous flyers with flight times of 80sec to 2min duration indoors.
Being an engineer, Jim documented the key specifications for his models – weights, wing area, motor dimensions, etc. He also charted the empirical results from a number of flights on each model in the Glastonbury high school gym. Yes, this is the same gym we’ll be flying in on January 8, 2023!
In his analysis (click link below), Jim compares the performance of the two models and draws some insightful conclusions. He comments on high wing vs. low wing configuration, the effects of drag and wing undercamber among other things.
There’s lots of great information in this brief analysis for both experienced and newer modelers. If you can replicate Jim’s specifications, you’ll be very competitive in indoor meets like the ones coming up in January 2023. Good luck skyster!