Satan (oz1821)

About this Plan

Satan. A/2 glider. Aeromodeller January 1959.

Quote: "An easy-to-build high performance A/2. Satan, by W Pullen.

THE PROTOTYPE of 'Satan' was built in 1955 and flown in the A/2 Eliminators of that year, but although it reached the Finals for that year's team selection at Odiham, its first real success came in the All Britain Rally at Radlett in the same season, where it took first place in the Open Glider Event with three maximums.

A Mark II version was built in 1956 with a longer fuselage to give a larger tail moment arm. This improved the towing characteristics, together with the nose weight staggered along the nose rather than in one localised position. This idea, which was brought back by Geoff Lefever (a fellow club member) from the 1955 World Championships in Germany, purported to give a smaller moment of inertia around the CG. In other words, the effect is to produce an undulating action when flying in a semi-stalled position, rather than an actual stall developing. Anyway the idea seemed to work well. The Mark II version as such went through the Al2 Eliminators of 1957 into the A/2 Finals at Hemswell.

A final Mark III version, design the same but some slight structural alterations, was built by Bill Pullen's fiancee in late 1957 with a view to flying in this year's Women's Cup. Her first model, by the way, and her first contest. Apart from her towing inexperience and some contest nerves, the model went up on the line as straight as a die (one of its typical characteristics) and logged up a total of 6:06 mins out of 9 possible. One bad tow-up put her out of the running for first place, and she had to be satisfied with a third, Bronze medal and all in her first contest! But this does show in some way the relative straightforwardness of construction and simplicity itself to trim and fly and remember these Nordics take quite a lot of battering, and they last! On the construction, good qualoty wood is essential, particularly for the fuselage sides and the wing spars.

Cut the ply fuselage centre from 3/16 in ans cut aout ballast holes, wing slot, and dowel holes. Cut the 1/2 in sheet sides to shape, cement one side only first, pour in molten lead into ply cavioties, when cool cement remaining 1/2 in side. Leave to harden... "

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