Two Much IV (oz14358)

About this Plan

Two Much. Radio control 2metre high performance sailplane.

Quote: "The 2-Meter class of R/C sailplanes is a very popular event at all of the contests I have attended for the last several years and it has gained in popularity for several good reasons. They are smaller and, therefore, easier to transport. 2-Meter kits are less expensive and require less time to build, therefore, they are a logical choice for a beginning R/C glider flier. This article is presented to provide the sailplane modeler with a design that is easy to fly and yet gives performance that will satisfy those with serious competition in mind.

This model 'Two Much' began before I became seriously competition minded, although I had flown in one sailplane contest. I had been flying power models for some time, and was getting tired of just more loops, rolls; touch and go landings, and just trying to keep the model in sight. With a fast forty or sixty size model, one does not have time to relax and really enjoy just plain flying (pardon the pun), not to mention the fact that the greasy kid stuff was getting expensive. In any case I had been flying a Wanderer 99 (oz6201) which is an excellent choice for a first sailplane. It is a good trainer and thermals with the best of them, but it did not have spoilers and did not have the pizzaz I wanted and thought a competition sailplane should have.

I was attending the Roanoke Valley RC Club annual auction in 1981 when a Hobie Hawk fuselage was offered for sale. I could see this as the beginning of something really snazzy with good performance and I paid nine dollars for it. Before I took to the drawing board, I called some old friends of mine in Hampton, Virginia, for some technical advice. Woody Blanchard is a retired NASA Aeronautical Engineer and Bob Champine was a NASA Test Pilot. Both are long time modelers and very serious glider competitors. Their collective advice was to use the Hobie fuselage in a 2-Meter design, because they felt it was a little too short to give me the longitudinal stability I desired. Woody sent me the ordinates of the Eppler 193 airfoil, since that was the hot section at that time, and Two Much I started taking shape.

Other advice which has, proven very good and has become one of my design philosophies is to build strong and not be too nit-picky about weight. Competition models take a real beating over a seasonof flying, and the extra strength will pay, off in fewer nights of rebuilding. Also, since a few ounces of model weight increases the flying speed, the Reynolds Number (a measure of the: effect of size and speed) increases, 04• sinkrate. performance suffers little as a result. A real plus due to the extra speed is penetration performance in the wind and the ability to cover more ground searching for thermals.

Two Much I flew pretty good but suffered from a lack of stability. It also tended to pitch down when the spoilers were extended. l had made a rather high aspect ratio stab and long spoilers. The inboard area of the spoilers affected about half of the stab span...."

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Scan by MarkD, cleanup by Circlip.

Supplementary file notes

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