Bug HLG

On 4/7/2010 5:08 PM, Paul wrote: > Hi all, > > Looks like maybe this group is coming back to life. There are 7 new members and a lot of you have been kind enough to answer my questions. I know the Bug is an older design, but everyone seems to still love flying them. Maybe Carl(the designer?) can tell us about some of his newer designs. Would love to see what else he has come up with. > > Paul LaChance > Virginia Beach, VA > > Maybe so. I'm sure all the interest in small electrics (such as I've been building recently) can't hurt. I've built my fair share of foamies and a tail-dragging 40" scaled down Bridi Kaos that I call Urban Kaos. All up weight is right around 19oz with a double taper wing. I was playing with retracts after a hard landing bent a landing gear wire but I think I'm going to abandon that, they're just too flimsy. I've got a pair of the main gear from the Parkzone T-28 that I'll use on the next wing I build. I think I'll use barn door ailerons and split flaps instead of strip flaperons. While they do work, they don't work as well as I'd like. A thinner but longer, higher aspect wing will probably work well also. I've always liked the profile of the Kaos though. I digress. Several months I also got out my Gentle Lady kit that's been sitting in various closets for the better part of two decades. I built it over the winter and now I'm finally starting to cover it. I still need to get a full range receiver for it, I don't trust a park flyer receiver with a 2M bird. At least standard size servos are cheaper than micros, go figure. I got a pair of standard size Hitec HS-332HDs for $11 each for the Lady and a pair of HS-55s for which ever HLG gets finished first. I'll use a park flyer receiver for that one. I've seen somewhere that one pilot was using a couple of photo batteries in serial as a flight pack but I can't seem to find that now. Has anyone else heard of that? Seems to me this would be a fairly small pack and while not rechargable, relatively inexpensive and long lasting given the low demands of a sailplane.

Hello all, Looks like maybe this group is coming back to life. There are 7 new members and a lot of you have been kind enough to answer my questions. I know the Bug is an older design, but everyone seems to still love flying them. Maybe Carl(the designer?) can tell us about some of his newer designs. Would love to see what else he has come up with. One thing that will really help the Bug is to thin the airfoil to something closer to one of the Drela airfols. The first one I built used the 'standard' ribs. It flew quite nicely, but seemed to suffer a bit on the launch. I built a second Bug with airfoils thinned to about 7.5%. The launch was much better and the loss of hang time was minimal. The second Bug weighed 103 grams. Both were built with cross tails rather than the original V-tails. I also added a 0.5 mm x 3.0 mm carbon strip on the front of the trailing edge and capped the ribs with 1.5 mm x 0.11 mm carbon top and bottom. The half ribs are extra and are plain balsa. A picture of Bug #2 is attached. regards Porter [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi all, Looks like maybe this group is coming back to life. There are 7 new members and a lot of you have been kind enough to answer my questions. I know the Bug is an older design, but everyone seems to still love flying them. Maybe Carl(the designer?) can tell us about some of his newer designs. Would love to see what else he has come up with. Paul LaChance Virginia Beach, VA