Mini Sailer (oz10214)

About this Plan

Mini Sailer. Radio control slope soarer. Uses the Midwest foam wing.

Quote: "Slope soaring continues to gain in popularity as more modelers are finding out what really peaceful flying it is - no noise, graceful flight, always a nice view from the top of whatever hill you may choose, and no messy fuel exhaust to contend with. And many new ideas are being tried out as newcomers to the sport experiment with their design ideas.

One of the interesting things about slope soarers is that they do not have to have an extremely light wing loading, such as is the case with thermal soarers, More important is the ability to penetrate the wind without having to dive, and thus lose altitude at the same time.

When the R/C Bees of Santa Cruz held their recent pylon racing contest, I had planned originally to enter with my Slopemaster (oz1031) but a couple of weeks before the meet I went to Sunset Beach to practice, only to find that the wind was blowing about 25 miles per hour, The model could handle the wind, but just barely, and landings were very ticklish. It so happened that I had my little 'Bushman' half-A sport job in the back of the car, so I thought - the Bushman has good penetration I wonder how it would do in this wind if I removed the landing gear, took off the prop, and added a little rudder area?"

So I tried it. To my amazement and delight, it not only penetrated well, but climbed at the same time. And while I was flying it, Frank Finney happened by with his wind indicator, and we found that the wind had increased to about 30 miles and had gusts up to 35! Yet the model handled it well, and best of all, it wasn't too hard to land.

That did it. 1 went home and promptly designed a small slope soarer around the Midwest 44 in foam wing. When it was finished, my wife, Kay, looked at it and said - That's a little sailplane isn't it, compared to the others. You should call it the Mini-Sailer. And that's where the name came from.

The very first flight of the Mini-Sailer was in an elimination heat of the pylon races, since I didn't get down to the slope before the races had started. Although the model flew well, I didn't, and dumped it before the race ended! But it was apparent that it could hold its own, if I could only learn to fly it in time.

The next race, I dumped it again. Then, in the next heat, I began to get the hang of it, and placed second. By that time the trials were over for the day and fun soaring was permitted. Then I really found out how well the Mini-Sailer performed!

The wind was about fifteen miles an hour dead against the hill, and the lift wasn't as strong as it had been when I tried out the 'prototype', but the model gained about 150 feet above the top of the hill, or about 300 feet above the beach below, so I tried some maneuvers. The response was excellent. Spins, loops, inverted flight - even one long slow roll. Later, Dale Willoughby had a chance to try it out - and it was evident that if I knew how to fly a slope pylon race like he did, the MiniSailer could be a real threat.

During the flight tests, I tried flying it with the rudder only, and found that it can be soared with a rudder servo alone. Still later, Scott Christenson became intrigued with the design as a possibility for Galloping Ghost. I was doubtful, because of the big rudder flapping away. But he went ahead and built one, and we look it up to the local hill, and with the Rand Pak churning away, his MiniSailer climbed up and out into the breeze without a quiver - although you sure could see that big rudder flapping back and forth. But it proved the versatility of the design to handle all of the usual control systems.

One of the best features of the Mini-Sailer is its simplicity. You can build it in three nights! The wing is a standard Midwest 44 in foam wing. Building time - about five minutes to stick the brace along the trailing edge to keep the rubber bands from cutting into the foam.

The fuselage is a simple box, with doublers at the strategic points to help it survive rough landings. No tricks at all just look the plans over and follow them.

Select some good medium hard sheet 3/32 stock for the tail surfaces. The rudder and elevators can be made from medium stock. If you plan to use galloping ghost, narrow the elevators down to about 3/4 chord..."

Update 20/12/2023: Added zipfile with DXF and PDF drawings of airfoil profile shown on the plan, thanks to Charlie Fite.

Supplementary file notes

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