psk560

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A friend of mine built this awesome and unique rc plane. It's called the "spaceship". He can't remember the magazine he got it from but it is surely an interesting discussion in aerodynamics. Check out the video of it flying at: www.psk560.com

Craig

Technito20

Wow...Hard to believe that it would fly. Is that a O.S. 40 or 46 LA? That thing must be extremely light weight for it's size. And what is it made out of? I'm pretty sure it's not balsa.

Mike James

Cute...

The B-29 video on that site kills me. Not for scale purists, but hey... Looks like a lot of fun. The suprise rocket boost on the X-1 was cool too. I'm glad someone hosts videos such as these, so we can all see them.

psk560

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Believe it or not the "Space ship" wieghs around 2 lbs. It is powered by an LA OS 25. It is made up entirely of stick balsa. WOW.

Craig

Technito20

Oh man. 2 pound, all balsa plane. With a 25. That's interesting. How does it handle the wind? It looks like the wind can easily take advantage of it.

psk560

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The wind was straight down the runway today light and variable. I'm sure it would do great upwind but the downwind side could be interesting with the much smaller airspeed. LOL.

Craig

Tall Paul

That's a verrrrrrrry old Roy L. Clough design from "Air Trails".

rmh

yeh - I tried gliders made from the ends cut from foam wing cores
Some were 2" wide and a 12" chord- Just stuck pieces of balsa in rear for a "fin"
The design is completely stable -tho they wobble a bit like a Flash Gordon rocket--
And for purists --no the L/D is not all that good.

Gremlin Castle

My Feedback: (14)

Not only does it fly it was designed as a free flight. I built one as a youngster back in the mid fiftys.

With the new miniture servos and programming it could be a very interesting flyer.

The free flight version was just a low speed crash when the engine quit.

micsrcfn

Hi psk560,

That plane was in RCM, @ the late '80's to early '90's. I thought about building it myself. But... Oh well!


Mic

Jim Thomerson

There is a long Roy L. Clough thread in the Vintage forum. A prolific designer of interesting airplanes.

Jim

BMatthews

I think it was Skip Ruff that was "responsible" for the larger RC conversion and the article. If you compare the one in this video to the originals I see that the side wings and dorsal fin are not there. The dorsal fin was said to act like dihedral and would probably have controlled the Dutch roll you can see in the video. Also the flat side strake "wings" would provide at least a bit of lift.

Dsegal

You are correct, it was Ruff who did the "Martian Spaceship". Part 1 of his construction article was in the August 1991 issue of Model Builder magazine.

DesignMan

I have had the pleasure of watching Skip fly his Spaceship. He had built one, and then when MB wanted the article, he had to build a second one! Skip also published a beautiful twin rotor Gyrocopter. The sexy lady on the cover is his charming wife, Deb.

Really nice people. Skip is a fireman working for Taft, California.

boberos

After seeing the video by psk560, I am amazed.
It appears to fly like a flying wing, & stable right down to stall speed, perhaps below. Can anyone explain the aerodynamics?

BTW, Bill Northrop still has plans for this one.

Gotta dig ot my M.B. mags.
Bob G

baco

PLANS..............PLEASE WHERE CAN I FOUND PLANS OF THIS FLYING THING !
HELP.................!
DANIEL

50+AirYears

Check with the Bill Northrup plans service. He has the rights to the old Model Builder plans. Also has a number of others. No web site, though.

Bill Northrup's Plans Service
2019 Doral Court,
Henderson, NV 89074
Phone 702 896 2162 ( 10-4 PT mon-fri)
Fax 702 897 7775

dieFluggeister

I aint no rocket sci-in-tist but if I had to guess, I would say it flies the same way a symetrical airfoil gets lift. A positive angle of attack should create lift. I would imagine the vanes down the length are key in keeping the air from spilling off the sides.

Too weird. Makes ya rethink what a plane has to look like.

Ben Lanterman

Not really, there are a lot of very interesting things that will fly, dog houses, witches, circles and the like. But they are really inefficient so will never make it in the big time usage. But aren't they a heck of a lot of fun to mess with. I personally wouldn't have had the vision that Roy had when he built this one. Thank goodness for visionaries.

50+AirYears

Roy Clough not only was but still is a visionary. His original article had drawings of a number of the preliminary designs he built before he got one to fly decent. A series of plan articles in MAN over the last few years proves he hasn't lost it.

psk560

My Feedback: (12)

I uploaded another video of this one flying if you are interested.

Craig

Dsegal

You can see a page from the original magazine article at http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_29...tm.htm#2918986

dicknadine

thanks for the tip of Bill Northrup Plans. I am on the hunt for 100% of Roy Clough designs. built quite a few, 6, of them already and need more. AMA is exhausted. I was in contact with Roy just prior to his passing on to the big Sky. dick

mesae

The wind by itself doesn't affect the airspeed. The groundspeed, yes, but not the airspeed.

rainedave

My Feedback: (1)

The construction article was spread over two issues of Model Builder magazine - August and September 1991. I have both issues sitting in front of me right now. It's correct that Bill Northrop should have the plans.

As others have said, it is Rough Clough's 1954 "Anti-Grav" Martian Spaceship redesigned for R/C by Skip Ruff. It's a 53 year old design!

Plans are MB #8911 Martian Spaceship.

David