Gio Condor (oz14553)

About this Plan

Gio Condor. Radio control tailless glider model. Wingspan 150 cm.

Note the 'original' drawing here is the CAD zip download (in dwg format). That's the file that Giuseppe sent us, and that is his design, his work. The PDF file you see here is really just a taster, a PDF file in this slot for Oz users who don't have a CAD viewer.

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Quote: "Hi Mary, Outerzone publish and I send. The name was that of a character of an old advertising TV video, somewhat as a joke in Italian. Ciao"

Quote (google translated from the Italian): "One day my friend Marco Berti told me: "My wife ordered me to free up the cellar, I have a few old magazines, if you're interested, come and get them, otherwise I'll throw them away". Just imagine: in my cellar I jealously keep the first foreign magazines bought in the alas distant 1960, together with all the others bought in the following years. Throwing away a model aircraft magazine is a capital sin that I can't afford! Within a few minutes I fill the trunk of the car and look forward to weeks and weeks of quiet and healthy reading.

In a 1990 'Model Builder' I find a model that I like, consequently I put the magazine aside, sure that sooner or later it will come in handy. The model is a Hand Launch Glider, or HLG if you prefer, and is intended for hand launch competitions, a category that was taking its first steps at that time. The project is by Keith Shaw, a fairly well-known aeromodeller overseas, who I remember for his flowing beard, but above all for a reproduction of a Horten flying wing propelled by two electric fans.

The Black Hawk (oz13704), as the model is called, is a beautiful tailless or 'schwanzlose' as the Germans say, that is, made up of a wing, fuselage and vertical fin. Sometimes the tailless is confused with the flying wing (or nurflugel), which is actually a slightly different thing, since the latter does not have a fuselage and, sometimes, not even a fin. I had already been meditating for a long time on the possibility of building a HLG, attracted not so much by the desire to compete, but rather by the great simplicity of the models and by the possibility of flying with the minimum of preparation and commitment.

When these models appeared, they made me rather skeptical: hand launching seemed to me to offer rather scarce possibilities of hooking thermals given the low altitude that can be reached. Then taking into account the arthrosis demined by my age, not venerable, as I hear some friends maliciously affirm, but which is starting to be of some respect, I considered the possibility of getting myself some strain or some ailment that was anything but negligible. But the inexhaustible friend Marco, always ready to show the news on the market, perhaps facilitated by the fact that he is the owner of 'Fulcro Service', had shown me that, with a simple rubber band catapult, the achievable heights offer greater possibilities ability to catch thermals, showing me that it spirals from 20 meters above sea level until it almost disappears from view, even on our 'Campo Gaudio'".

Always Marco, when we go on a slope, he usually takes out these models in the evening, when by now the condition is marginal and he manages to fly for a few tens of minutes when the others, myself included, are disassembling their models. Well, sometimes it's envious! I had been toying with the idea of doing an HLG for a long time now, I just needed a little push.

The strange, but nice shape of the Blackhawk was all that was needed, added to its traditional structure. Redesigning and building it was a matter of about 10 days and the shortness of this period was already a pleasant first thing. For the flight test I had to wait a long time between one perturbation and another in this bad winter. Finally, St Stephen's day presents itself with a little sun, but the air is cold and there is also wind, about 10-15 km/h. Wow, to try some gliding and some modest launch the conditions are certainly not prohibitive. I put the already assembled model, the radio and myself in the car (have you noticed how little stuff?), and I set off for the field.

The gliding tests show me that the model is in order, so I risk a few launches. The wind tends to modify the trajectory until it becomes vertical, the lack of knowledge of the model and too high excursions of the moving parts create some control difficulties in the throw-in, but the speed with which the model stabilizes, after putting down the muzzle up to 90 degrees, allow me not to cause damage. Of course a 10-15 second glide from 10 meters above sea level cannot be said to be flying. It makes me think that if in our flat plain there was a minimum difference in altitude the model, with such a low wing loading, would perhaps be able to exploit the dynamics that the modest wind that blows, so rare too, could create.

But, if you think about it better, there is a slope. A few tens of meters from our runway, the Po flows placidly. Between the top of the bank and the surface of the water, the difference in height is about 7-8 meters. Unfortunately, in the flood periods, the difference in height is greatly reduced, sometimes even to zero, and in these cases our 'Campo Gaudio' becomes 'Laguna Blu' where...."

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Supplementary file notes

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CAD file

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