Bill Diedrich

Has anyone ever converted a control liner to R/C and if so how did it fly.
I know most of these designs have narrow fuselages and are short coupled.

Thinking of taking the plans from an old classic and increasing the girth and length
and using the inner part of the flaps for flaps as per C/L and the outer portion of the
flap for ailerons.

Bill D.

sensei

I did it with a Ringmaster, it was a great flying R/C airplane. You should go for it.

Bob

aspeed

The Nobler was available either way. It was popular in the 1960's because c/l kits were cheaper than r/c kits. They just added dihedral, and less power with the balance back a bit. I don't think that dihedral is needed now with the better radios. I think now it would be cheaper to go r/c to c/l with some of the cheap ARF's out there. Go for it though, I would expect good results.

Bill Diedrich

The Aries designed by Bill Werwage is an "I-Beam" wing construction, will have to modify
the wing construction to suit R/C or could just go with a foam wing cut to same profile.

JohnBuckner

My Feedback: (1)

I have done a number of conversions the other way around but that is even easier in some cases. While yes top flite maybe twenty years ago did an RC version of a Nobeler but it did not much look like one and came out looking just like another sport aerobat, lost all of its charm at least in my book. I don,t believe it was a commercial success both times it was released.

Now one very big caution that you need to be careful of, if you choose any number of classic stunt airplanes that featured a longer left wing than the right and many did then that could become a big problem for your conversion.

John

Bill Diedrich

Now one very big caution that you need to be careful of, if you choose any number of classic stunt airplanes that featured a longer left wing than the right and many did then that could become a big problem for your conversion.

John[/QUOTE]

I totally agree with you on the R/C Nobler that Top Flite had out on the market. Yes this is one of those that have a shorter right wing than the left, but I am going to totally re-design this ship by lengthening the fuselage and increasing the overall girth. I plan to re-design it for 60 size engines
so I will also be increasing the wingspan accordingly by approximately 20 to 25%. I am also considering doing this on as detachable wing halves via carbon tube set up.

John you have been around for quite sometime, what do you think of keeping the "I-Beam"
wing construction but sheeting it similar to the way pattern ships were done back in the mid
60's early 70's on built up wings?



Bill D.

JohnBuckner

My Feedback: (1)

Hey Bill, Ya you could probably get away with sheeting although that sag between the ribs over the entire wing is also some of the charm of those stunt ships.

Since you seem to want to do an extensive job here there is one area above all that I believe would make all the difference in the world and where I believe Top Flite screwed up on their stunt ship conversion. And that is the skinny fuselages. With the electronics that are avalible today, i.e. much smaller servo's and so on, I think if you put some effort into you could use a very skinny fuse or close to it.

That humongous fat fuselage is what I believe destroyed the beauty of the old RC Nobeler. Of course when that RC ship was first produced they did not have some of the components available to use now. With a thin fuse I think a lot of the charm and beauty of those old ships could be saved and you could get away with other things that are not as obvious such as the sheeting.

Take a look at the photo of that Ares you posted the moment arms of that airplane could work as an RC ship and by keeping the skiny fuse it could be stretched out without loosing that look. I truly think that a skinny fuse while more work of course could retain the stunt ship look and work well in RC.

Just some thoughts

John

j.duncker

My Feedback: (2)

Fairly east to do. I have built and flown a Nobler, Aldrich Peacemaker and my own design combat wing. The last needed a perspex fin before I could get it to fly reliably.

All were a bit pitch sensitive but maybe that was my set up.

CafeenMan

The only thing I was going to add was what John Buckner said about one wing being longer than the other in a lot of CL designs. I also think it would be funny if you put lead-outs in the wing just to mess with people at the field.

JohnBuckner

My Feedback: (1)

[QUOTE=CafeenMan; it would be funny if you put lead-outs in the wing just to mess with people at the field. [/QUOTE]

Brilliant

Bill Diedrich

How about that and the offset wings, that would really get them going..

Do't know how it would fly though....

j.duncker

My Feedback: (2)

Had leadouts on my Peacemaker but equal length wings.

52larry52

My Feedback: (1)

How about a couple inches of broken frayed line attached to the lead-outs too!

CafeenMan

It would fly. There are full scale examples of planes with unequal wings. But I think the trim would be speed-sensitive. I doubt he could get it to fly with the wing levels throughout the throttle range. He could cheat and use a gyro. Personally, I wouldn't do it, but I might do the lead-outs depending on how important the gag was vs. extra drag on one side of plane.

CafeenMan

That's funny... now it looks like a fly-away. Had that happen several times when I was a kid flying 1/2A CL planes with dacron lines.

Bill Diedrich

All jokes aside, the plans are to just lengthen the fuselage a few inches and keep the "skinny fuselage" as is,
with equal length wings, no lead-outs....

BTW "CafeenMan" aka PJ, thanks for such a wonderful site that you have built in AirfieldModels.com I visit it
regularly.............

CafeenMan

OK, well obviously you're a hard sell. So this is what I'm going to do. You put those lead-outs on your plane and I will personally send you a shiny, genuine American quarter. I Promise!

JohnBuckner

My Feedback: (1)

[QUOTE=Bill Diedrich; and keep the "skinny fuselage" as is,

[/QUOTE]


Bingo, that is the key to preserving the character of the original stunt ship.

John

HighPlains

My Feedback: (1)

I built a CL combat airplane called the Guillotine into RC with two channel control. Those old 35 sized models had thick wings so easy to hide the RC gear. Finding a place for the tank is a bit harder, and since it didn't have the drag of the lines, the power was dropped down to a .19 engine. So I added strip ailerons to the existing wing and a short pod to push the engine out a bit more for tank room and to get the CG. Twin vertical stabilizers were added to the existing booms that held the elevator. It flew very well, but was lost when I forgot to change the battery in the dry cell transmitter after about 70 flights. Broke college kid.

If you know someone with a good collection of RCM's from way back (March 1968), you can find a picture of a Sterling Ringmaster with the brand new Orbit with the PS-4 servos. Rather than change the moments of the fuselage, he reduced the size of the wing and it looks pretty good. The wing span was reduced from 42 inch to 35 1/2 and the chord was reduced a corresponding amount with strip ailerons added.

aspeed

I was thinking back to that magazine article from 1968 with my first response. I believe he added a bit of dihedral. I was looking for the magazine, but couldn't find it. I also read another article where a bunch of guys had a control line stunter that was converted to rc, and they flew it on lines, and then let go of the line. Of course the audience would gasp. There had to be another length of line on the other wingtip to balance it out.

049flyer

My Feedback: (18)

I converted a profile Ringmaster to RC, powered with an OS 25LA. Flew great but was WAY too pitch sensitive. Big elevator and short tail moment makes for exciting flying! It was a snap rolling, spinning demon!! Put it in a spin and it took 5 full turns to come out if it came out at all. On the next one I lengthened the tail about 2 inches. That one flew much better.

Bill Diedrich

Here's a question I've asked a few of the guys I fly with, and that is should I
add some dihedral to the wings, say about 1/2" under each outermost wing
rib? Now take into consideration that this is going to be an "I-Beam" constructed
wing "ala" control line style, as per the kit. Or should I build it per kit instructions
with the exception of the longer fuselage sides, and equal wing lengths?

Bill D.

CafeenMan

There are several things to consider about dihedral.

1) Do you want a faithful radio control replica of a CL model? If so then don't add dihedral. The flight characteristics may not be as good as they could have been but it won't be out of control and it's up to you whether it's worth it.

2) Do you want the model to self-correct? If so then generous dihedral is called for.

3) Almost all planes need dihedral (or anhedral) to correct roll-coupling. You won't know what you need or how much until you fly it unfortunately.

If it were me and it were a low wing plane I would add a small bit of dihedral because I think straight wings on low wing planes look weird.

That plane looks great with a straight wing so that's how I would build it.

Bill Diedrich

This is a mid winged plane, so I guess no dihedral will be fine as in my Sig Something Extra,
also my BH Angel sport plane has no dihedral.

Bill D.

Bill Diedrich

Just recieved the drawings from Randy Smith @ Aero Products for the "Super Ares", it looks like it is
more adaptable to R/C conversion, being a little larger, than the Ares, so I'll be doing a bit of drafting
to make the modifications to the plans for the conversion. Will be doing the build in a different thread
and will link it to this one.