onepointfivems

Hi, In the late 70's early 80's, I remember this guy who had a nitro free flight semi scale plane that self steered into the wind. The rudder was constantly in motion like a fish swimming upstream. The plane flew into the wind gaining extreme altitude but never got out of sight because it was almost directly overhead. He started his flying session with it and let it go while he prepped his RC plane. I don't remember it coming back down! I always thought that was the coolest thing but never found any information on how it worked. Anybody familiar with this type of self steering rudder that steers into the wind? I believe when it ran out of fuel the rudder kicked to one side and it glided down in a circle.

onepointfivems

Anybody? Any old timers who even remember free flight nitro? There are self steering rudder systems on antique sailboats but I've never seen anything on airplanes.

j.duncker

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Your man might have been using a magnet [ compass ] steering system. That would give a flight like the one described.

I don't think anyone uses them for power on a regular basis but there is a small but dedicated bunch magnet steered glider guys around. It is even a official class FAI 1E

DStone

He might have had a pendulum in the fuselage with a torque rod running back to the rudder. As the plane banked in one direction, the torque rod would give rudder in the opposite direction and level the plane.