RE: Mig 27 Foam Drone,, Carl Goldberg
The FQM117-B Story
I’ve noticed some new posts on some of the threads discussing the FQM117-B or Mig-27 target drones lately. Apparently there are some of the original RS Systems and more recently the Carl Goldberg Models targets available for sale on Ebay as well as other places. In the interest of preserving some of the history of these unique model airplanes (at least four of the major players are now gone) I present this account of the development and production of the first of what the Army designated as FQM-117-B or the RS Mig. What follows is a short history of the first RS MIG-27 airplane No.1 (pictures attached) of which there was only 1 prototype built and over a period of a few days in the Spring of 1983 evolved into what became the FQM-117-B of which RS produced approximately 45K copies between 1983 and 1986.
In the early 80’s RS Systems was the main provider of small expendable aerial targets used for air defense training to the U.S. Army and Marine Corps. The target of choice was a .61 powered flying wing ironically designated as the FQM-117-A (Stealth Fighter) do a Google for more details. The Army was interested in procuring a new target that was more realistic, hence the FQM-117-B was born.
Like anything built to an Army spec everything is a compromise. The basic contract requirements were; had to be 1/9th scale, had to be assembled in the field in 10 minutes or less, hand launched and had to be able to carry a 5 pound payload. Of course there were many other specifications for the radio and field support equipment but that’s another story.
The first and only prototype was built (by myself, Jeff Hickam and Kirk Wicker) nearly to scale with the biggest change being about a 40% increase in wing area (try hand launching an 8 lb .61 powered model with an extra 5 lb dead weight on it sometime). Much later in the program we did some testing to see exactly how much extra weight the airplane could carry and still be hand launch; if memory serves me it was an all up weight of about 18 lbs, what fun! Airplane no.1 also had a flying stab which used a couple of K&B .61 crank bearings (big end) for a pivot and a single servo for actuation.
The all flying stab (pivot was at 40% of root chord) looked cool but it had terrible low speed performance so we went to a conventional stab/elevator arrangement after the first couple of flights. This change later caused some very strange flight characteristics that Steve Stricker and I eventually solved after many wing location and stab incidence changes hence the very crooked wing shown in the head-on picture.
The C.G. of the airframe is near perfect when about ½ a tank of fuel is left. With a full tank the airplane is nose heavy and with an empty tank it is tail heavy. Like I said, it was a compromise. For the RS Mig the C.G. is just about right when it is located at the front edge of the R.S. name plate molded into the bottom of the fuselage.
Some Factoids:
Proto 1 Design&Construction - Me, Steve Stricker, Jeff Hickam, Kirk Wicker (from when I made the drawing to first test flight I believe was about 4 days)
Proto 1 Weight – About 6 ½ lbs (almost no wood was used, it was all hot wired 1 lb EPS)
First Flight Test – Me launching, Kirk Wicker flying. (I think it was on the second flight that the nose broke off the first time, we new we had some trouble) The fix for this problem was to put 3 foot long aluminium 1/8"x1/2" beams in the fuselage. During qualification testing the engine mount area kept bending, the Gov. wasn't happy. Bob McDaniels (sadly gone) of McDaniel's RC came up with the solution. We replaced the flat aluminium with L-beams. What fun, we took 8 or 10 of the hand made Migs we had left and cut them in half on a giant bandsaw and glued the new L-beams in place. No more bent noses. The top beam also provided a handy place to drill and tap holes for mounting the wing.
Subsequent Flight Tests – Steve Stricker and “Bic” Green with me launching and repairing/modifying. Originally when we went to the fixed stab/elevator the airplane went from flying great to practically unflyable. At any speed, when put into a dive the airplane would tuck or diverge into an ever increasing death dive. Uncorrected it would crash itself in a matter of seconds. We eventually fixed the problem by adding about 4 degrees of negative (TE up) incidence in the stab.
No. Article 1’s Built – I think it was 15, these were the hand made examples that we took to contract qualification at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville AL. Steve Stricker an I flew hundreds of flights over a 30 day period during the summer of 1983. The most difficult of which was carrying a 5 lb payload. The same airframe had to be launched and recovered without repair 20 times. They made us land on a very rough gravel road. The average temp was always over 90 and most days the humidity was near 100%. The Redstone Arsenal is the location of the early space program and is basiclly built on a swamp. The first thing they said to us when we started test flying there was "don't wander into the woods" because 3 of the 4 most poisonous snakes in North America inhabit the area.
Wood Patterns for Molding – Ed Mitchell R.I.P., One of the most skilled modelers I’ve ever known carved the solid Mahogany plugs for the mold. I laminated the blanks and did the rough carving of the wing. Ed did all the really hard parts (fuselage with all the coarouts being the hardest). Ed was a middle school shop teacher. During his summer break he spent 6 weeks carving the plugs. (Anybody know where these are? A true work of art.)
Army Cost – A box of 3 airframes, 1- engine, hardware, glue, receiver with 3 servos was about $600.00 dollars. What a bargain!
Overall Contract Cost – Approx. $6M. We were making about $6/hr at the time. What can I say we were young and stupid.
Total # Made – Approx 45k for the Army contract, another 5K to the Navy/Marines and 5K for the commercial hobby market.
Molded By – Tuscarora Plastics, Herndon VA.- Was the biggest most complex EPS mold they had made up to that time. When we first approached them the response was, “you want to do what!”. The use of multiple colored EPS beads, insertion of aluminum spars, plastics ailerons and Mylar hinges was way beyond anything they had ever done before.
Mold Cook Time – Took about 3 ½-4 minutes to fuse the EPS beads together. When they came out of the mold the airframes weighed about 10 lbs which included 4 lbs of water.
Most Number of Flights – has to go to Art Pesch – he flew for RS and Goldberg.
Heaviest Ever Flown - ??? AAI Corp. Ron Stahl, Myer Gutman, Steve Stricker – was used as a intermediate trainer for the Navy/Pioneer UAV program. We use to put about a gallon of fuel in tanks under the wing. Average weight had to be over 20 lbs with trike landing gear and extra radio equipment.
Most Flights on Single Airframe - ??? Got to be in the thousands someplace.
Longest Flight – My personal best is a little over an hour on 16 oz of fuel.
Coolest Mig Ever – Goes to Robert Hayes and Richard Peters (Both RS employees in the late 80’s) – it was two Migs joined together like a F-82. Powered by twin SuperTiger 1.4? cu.in. two-stroke. It was “AWSOME”.
Altitude Record – has to be Migs flown at 29 Palms CA, 5000 ft ASL.
Shortest Flight – To many to count. A good gunner on a towed Vulcan can vaporize one of these in seconds.
Most Bullet Holes Ever – One Mig that came back from a shoot at Camp LeJeune NC, I counted 32 separate hits. We took wooden dowels and stuck them through the holes. Alas the photos have vanished. Mostly 5.62mm M-16 rounds, but there were some .50 cal hits too. It was still flyable.[/size]