The Ultimate Sport Plane?
#54
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Here is the web site. http://www.btemodels.com/venture.html The designer is Bruce Tharpe, he designed the Four Star 40 for Sig Mfg.
Bruce B.
Bruce B.
#60
Senior Member
I love trainers. If I wasn't so impressed with the pulse my choice would be the GP avistar trainer with the semi-symectrical airfoil. What a fun plane yet still behaves as a trainer should but would roll and stall and snap/spin like a sport plane should. Very hard to find in a trainer.
#61
Senior Member
Stiks in all their forms and Four Stars would have to be in the pantheon of all time great RC sport planes. So would Super Sportsters. Really enjoy my Four Star 60 (OS 91 FS) and GP Big Stik 40 (OS 46 AX).
#62
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After flying sport for over 40 years, I have build a lot of them, flown a ton of them, and have to say that the one plane that is in front is the Great Planes .60 size Super Sportster. It needs to be built as light as possible without sacrificing strength and power it with a .70 to .80 size four stroke, in other words not a heavy engine.
There are many that are similar, such as the Bruce Tharpe Venture 60, the Sig Four-Star 60, and the Goldberg Tiger 60. Those planes have longer wingspans, 70" or more, which is super for transitioning from a trainer to a low wing, but the longer wings limit the sport pattern abilities. Plenty of pilots remove a bay or two off of those long wings to make them fly like a Sportster. The Super Sportster only has a 61" wing, the wing is thick, fully symmetrical, the wing transitions at every speed, will not stall, and touch-n-goes and greased landings are really fun to do. The thick wing also works well with a 4-stroke which slows the plane down so you can enjoy super slow, controlled flight. Tower Hobbies still offers the kit. It is a bit of a builders kit in that it requires sanding and old school techniques to shape it, but it is so worth it.
Try one and it will always be in your hangar, no matter what else you fly. I feel like every flyer, no matter how advanced, needs a Sunday Flyer to fall back and just relax and shoot touch-n-goes as the sun goes down and the wind dies down.
Thanks for reading. FPhillips
There are many that are similar, such as the Bruce Tharpe Venture 60, the Sig Four-Star 60, and the Goldberg Tiger 60. Those planes have longer wingspans, 70" or more, which is super for transitioning from a trainer to a low wing, but the longer wings limit the sport pattern abilities. Plenty of pilots remove a bay or two off of those long wings to make them fly like a Sportster. The Super Sportster only has a 61" wing, the wing is thick, fully symmetrical, the wing transitions at every speed, will not stall, and touch-n-goes and greased landings are really fun to do. The thick wing also works well with a 4-stroke which slows the plane down so you can enjoy super slow, controlled flight. Tower Hobbies still offers the kit. It is a bit of a builders kit in that it requires sanding and old school techniques to shape it, but it is so worth it.
Try one and it will always be in your hangar, no matter what else you fly. I feel like every flyer, no matter how advanced, needs a Sunday Flyer to fall back and just relax and shoot touch-n-goes as the sun goes down and the wind dies down.
Thanks for reading. FPhillips
#65
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What I am referring to is to do all I can to lighten up the plane during the construction stages, such as sanding the whole airframe a good bit where the wood is non-structural, like taking extra weight out of the nose block. Since the stab is solid, thick balsa, I have used lightening holes in the stab. Another technique that I have used is to put lightening holes down the bottom and sides in the long rung of planking. Sportsters tend to be tail heavy because the wood is all solid, as compared to more modern laser cut or skeletal designs. When I lightened up the airframe, don't use too much epoxy, a 60 tp 80 size engine is lighter than a heavier .90 and up size, and the performance is still solid with adequate vertical. Lighter wing loading naturally fly better and more agile and I find that little or no nose weight is needed to balance it.
Sorry I did not clarify my statement the first time. Good question.
Thanks for asking.
Sorry I did not clarify my statement the first time. Good question.
Thanks for asking.
#67
Ounces... How about pounds, it is possible to lose pounds with this technique, this little 52" airplane weighs right at 3 lbs. with a OS.32 on the nose and the battery pack mounted in the tail under a removable hatch, this airplane design has always came in at between 5 and 5.5 lbs. so anything is possible with the effort.
Bob
Bob
#68
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So I can save pounds by "sanding the whole airframe a good bit", "taking extra weight out of the nose block", cutting "lightening holes in the stab", putting "lightening holes down the bottom and sides in the long rung of planking", not using "too much epoxy.".......No way this will save you pounds....Oh I forgot, put A LIGHTER ENGINE ON IT - that might help. But "saving pounds" is an exaggeration.
Kurt
Kurt
#69
So I can save pounds by "sanding the whole airframe a good bit", "taking extra weight out of the nose block", cutting "lightening holes in the stab", putting "lightening holes down the bottom and sides in the long rung of planking", not using "too much epoxy.".......No way this will save you pounds....Oh I forgot, put A LIGHTER ENGINE ON IT - that might help. But "saving pounds" is an exaggeration.
Kurt
Kurt
I guess it is just easier to sit on the sidelines and express your "expert" opinion as illustrated above without ever making any real effort to find out for yourselves like F Phillips has done. Then you ask your uneducated question like how much weight can you save by doing these things you do while building because you obviously have never done them yourself or you would have your answers; then when somebody gives you honest, educated positive feedback answer from experience mind you of the real possibilities... POOF the armchair expert appears and comes out with a negative uneducated feedback argument statement by printing "No way this will save you pounds.... "saving pounds" is an exaggeration.
I guess you are now going to tell us that you "honestly" really knew the answer to your question all along and you were only trying to see if anybody else really knew.
Bob
Last edited by sensei; 09-10-2014 at 04:13 AM.
#74
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For guys like you Kurt, your right, saving pounds would be an exaggeration. It's always the same arguments from you armchair builders and flyers, you come in here and talk the talk but you have never shown anything that you can actually walk the walk.
I guess it is just easier to sit on the sidelines and express your "expert" opinion as illustrated above without ever making any real effort to find out for yourselves like F Phillips has done. Then you ask your uneducated question like how much weight can you save by doing these things you do while building because you obviously have never done them yourself or you would have your answers; then when somebody gives you honest, educated positive feedback answer from experience mind you of the real possibilities... POOF the armchair expert appears and comes out with a negative uneducated feedback argument statement by printing "No way this will save you pounds.... "saving pounds" is an exaggeration.
I guess you are now going to tell us that you "honestly" really knew the answer to your question all along and you were only trying to see if anybody else really knew.
Bob
I guess it is just easier to sit on the sidelines and express your "expert" opinion as illustrated above without ever making any real effort to find out for yourselves like F Phillips has done. Then you ask your uneducated question like how much weight can you save by doing these things you do while building because you obviously have never done them yourself or you would have your answers; then when somebody gives you honest, educated positive feedback answer from experience mind you of the real possibilities... POOF the armchair expert appears and comes out with a negative uneducated feedback argument statement by printing "No way this will save you pounds.... "saving pounds" is an exaggeration.
I guess you are now going to tell us that you "honestly" really knew the answer to your question all along and you were only trying to see if anybody else really knew.
Bob
...but back to our discussion...If you reduced a plane's overall weight from 5.5 lbs down to 3.0 lbs, and assuming your radio/engine/etc weights an estimated 1 1/2 pounds, then you reduced your airframe weight from 4 lbs down to 1.5 lbs. Either the 5.5 lb weight is an exaggeration or your 3 lb weigh is an exaggeration.
Mustangman177's weight reduction is much more reasonable.
Next, thank you for allowing me to repost the video of us armchair builders flying some of the planes we built (yes, some have ARFs, but we let them fly with us on special occasions). I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I did making it!
Kurt
http://youtu.be/IXh-lUcX8Pw