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APRIL
2008 US Subscriptions: $1.50 per copy,
$12 per year All include Alamo Escadrille membership. Send your check to: Windy Sock/Alamo Escadrille |
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. . . Cover . . . |
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This Month's Sponsor ...
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COMING SOON! GIZMO PRECISION
RUBBER STRIPPER
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 This is a bare bones shot of Mike Midkiff's Zero, now available as a "short" kit from Ozark Model Aviation.. There is sort of a double rib construction where the wing meets the fuselage. The photo helps define it; keep it handy if you buy the kit. |
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 Florent Baecke's "sorta scale" model of Burt Rutan's "Proteus". Florent's plan for it appeared in February 2001 Windy Sock. Florent has made a few hand-wound flights with it and reports it is stable. He doesn't push his models for duration, so we will leave it to others to develop its full potential. All this does remind us, though, that Burt Rutan is emerging as the 21st century's equivalent of the Wright brothers. The exploits of his designs were well known in the 20th century but now he is working to pioneer space flight in the 21st. His present project, "Space Ship Two," is the first space ship expressly designed for the tourist trade. It will carry six paying passengers 361,000 feet up and go into orbit long enough for the passengers to experience floating around for a few minutes and enjoying the view from ‘way up. According to Popular Mechanics magazine, the flight will last 2.5 hours, although the passengers will enjoy the float for only five minutes. The ticket will cost $200,000. As of now, about 200 people have paid for reservations with deposits totaling 30 million dollars, and 80 of these adventurous souls have completed the training program. |
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This Month's Sponsors ...
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 We are delighted to see this Grumman Skyrocket, built by Joshua Finn from the Megow plan in October 2001 Windy Sock.. It's supposed to be a Dime Scaler, but Joshua has refined it far ahead of the class.. He says, "Mine is built to the 15" span shown on the plan. I increased the dihedral to 1-1/4" to get proper stability. It won't fly with much less than this unless you use contra-rotating props. The props are carved 4" balsa jobs turned by (one) 12" loop of .07" (each). The construction is radically lightened, with the stab being airfoiled and geodetic and most of the formers laminated from 1/32"x1/65" strips. The basic frame is 1/32" square. Weight is 10.4 grams, probably a gram or two being silver paint and ballast....Flight times are in the 30-35 seconds range, and it looks absolutely amazing in the air......this model is not stable with the CG aft of 32% chord. It requires a 1/16" shim under the stab trailing edge to make it fly with this setting.....Don't expect it to glide. Mine has the glide path of a shot duck." Joshua later reported that in adapting the model to indoor flying, he went to contra-rotating props in order to stabilize the tighter turns required in the limited space.. After doing this, he found stability improved enough to make possible removal of the ballast (presumably in the nose) so that the model now glides "surprisingly well." Close examination of the bones picture shows the laminated formers (encircled). No longer eligible for Dime Scale competition, the model enlarged to, say, 24", would be a serious threat in FAC Rubber Scale.. Good luck, Joshua! 
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The Windy
Sock is the newsletter of the Alamo Escadrille,
Flying Aces Club Squadron #26, San Antonio, TX. It is the First and Only complete FAC Newsletter online. |
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