Hi,

Sometime ago I bought a Dynaflite Skeeter kit off eBay at a very low price. However, since then i have built another 1.5m very light floater from West Wings (the Orion), so I don't really have much need for it's capabilities.

Now I am considering modifying the wing to take out the polyhedral and make either a flat wing or a dihedral wing with ailerons. Obviously the wing servos would have to be very small. But seeing as I can get 4.5g servos from here http://www.bidproduct.com/part/Prod...t_SERVOS_1.html for $4, that's fine.

I could just sell it, but it would seem like fun to modify it to be a light weight slope aerobat of some sort. I guess the wing would also need strengthening.

Any help or advice would be much appreciated.

How does the kit build, btw? the parts are not well formed (Dyna-crunch??). Esp the fuselage formers.

Dyna crunched pretty well described it. While not necessarily a bad kit, its crude. I have a friend that did exactly what you described, ( flat wing sloper) and it flew pretty fast. He carefully vacuum bagged carbon onto the D box of the wing. Seemed like a lot of work for a plane that was no faster than a one-design racer and more fragile to boot, however. His plane ate it on a missed landing, but the wing survived.

My thinking ( I have the kit too, so people in glass houses, etc,etc) was to make a speed 400 electric out of it. The fuse could easily be widened to allow more room for the battery and speed controller. It doesnt core thermals too well, but isnt bad in light, more general lift, so perhaps being able to fly up to where the thermals have spread out would work better than down low.

slopemeno, thanks for your reply - yeah i was surprised how crude it was. especially as the aformentioned "West Wings Orion" (an english kit) has the best die cutting I've yet seen. And is really cheap.....

Anyway, I do have a couple of slope aerobats (http://www.phoenixmp.com/models/bedlam.htm) but i just fancy a bit of a project. I wouldn't go to the carbon extreme like that. Keeping the weight down would not be top priority anyway, as more often than not there is a strong wind at the site. Good idea about the speed 400, but where i fly from only pure sailplanes are allowed (http://www.smsa.co.uk/).

I guess it's a bit of a waste of time. however, i'd like to put the kit to some use. On the subject of the orion, it's an amazing kit - really strong, i crashed it i don't know how many times. Nose first into the ground. flipping over, spinning. I did once manage to snap the wing, but even that took about 1 hour to repair....

Where do you fly from?

I'm from San Francisco, CA, but fly at a place called Tick Point, which is about 15 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County. Its about a 500 foot bluff facing west over the Pacific Ocean. We get winds in the spring that will get up to about 40 mph, and its a very steep face, so you can fly 60" 70 ounce planes and really tear around. The only down side is the landing area is about the size of a tennis court, so landing is an issue. The nice part s the road is only about 50 feet from the LZ so you can bring a whole carload of planes if you want.

If you get the DVD "Lift Ticket" the guy who catchs the Higgins F-20 inverted is doing it at Tick Pt.

sounds really nice. my flying site is a hill on an otherwise fairly flat landscape. Lift can be a bit variable, but i had a 45 minute flight on about my 3rd ever flight a while back. (on the trusty orion). there are two slopes - one with a landing zone similar to the size you mention. the other has better lift but there is no landing zone as such. you have to land on the slope or literally at your feet. last time i was out there were sheep all over the landing zone. me and another guy wanted to land because we were flying our floaters and the wind got up. he had to do a couple of loops over the sheep with his 100" model to clear them away. by that time it was about 20mph + and my little floater was going backwards so i ended up ditching into the slope of the face (un damaged AGAIN!).

not exactly skeeter flying weather that day! at least there is car park (lot) about 20 ft away from the edge (yes cars do get hit...)

We call it "road-sloping" over here. Its nice when you pack in stuff like a charging battery.

Have you ever seen the videos from the site in Wales? I cant remember the name offhand but theres a video of a Carbon Banana flying there thats unreal.

I'll post a couple of pics tonight when I get home.

yeah i've seen a couple - i leave about 2 hours drive from the site i think you are talking about (the Wrecker etc). I intend to get over there at some point (when i'm more competent!).

photos would be good

I gotta learn to resize pics...

The wind was ripping out of the south today, so a different spot:

Another pic. It was so much wind that launching stuff under 50 ounces was problematic. My Higgins plane (the pointy one) was in its element however. I was able to dive it from 500 feet so many times it got kinda boring.