Foam hand kids glider converted to 0.049 CL

Never designed a cl model before so would like to know if the cg for cl models is the same as "free flight"?
The one sold by lidl glides well with about 5g added weight resulting in a cg 30mm from the leading edge.
Is that where the bellcrank (the goldberg 1/2A one) should be mounted?
And then have the leadout guide the same spacing as the bellcrank ?
I am wondering if the long strip "spar" can be replaced with glassfibre tape and then the whole wing/fuse with thin clear packing tape.
(like the "ZAGI" used to be)

Might get a third one and just "give it a go" like the natives here like to say

cmulder wrote:Never designed a cl model before so would like to know if the cg for cl models is the same as "free flight"?
The one sold by lidl glides well with about 5g added weight resulting in a cg 30mm from the leading edge.
Is that where the bellcrank (the goldberg 1/2A one) should be mounted?
And then have the leadout guide the same spacing as the bellcrank ?
I am wondering if the long strip "spar" can be replaced with glassfibre tape and then the whole wing/fuse with thin clear packing tape.
(like the "ZAGI" used to be)

Might get a third one and just "give it a go" like the natives here like to say

Control line planes are normally a bit more nose heavy than RC or FF. Maybe 20% of the chord. The leadouts can be fairly close together, maybe 10mm or so, any closer they could maybe bind with each other. Not so important to have them too far apart as when doing stunts the back one will bank out more than the other direction banking in. (bad) Start about half way back to allow for the line drag. Where the bellcrank is mounted is not as important as the leadout guide, but halfway in the chord is fine, mostly just so it will not bind or bend the leadouts too far. My flea fright one was very tail heavy and did not fly well. I put a bolt in the front for nose weight and then it seemed like it needed more dihedral. May be better to be control line. Never tried the cheaper white foam one, not sure if I have one, may have to search. I have some of the bigger ones, and had considered electric. I like the option of aborting the landings, and we have a height limit here of 400 ft. For the strip stiffening the wing, IDK if the fiberglass tape would make a lot of strength difference because the wing is pretty thin. I thought maybe the birch edge banding strips for shelves might be something to try. It is the iron on type. Of course you could try it with nothing and see if it is needed. What is the worst that could happen? Lose a bit of glue or $7?

These can be found with a little online searching for next to nothing on price.

Here's a site:  Foamy Glider

The foam is not the typical expanded styrene, but the more flexible material.

As promised, here's more shots of the plane.  













As I recall, nose was cut off square 95mm from the tip.  Engine has no offset.  
Note the two pegs on the rear of the engine mount in the drawing.  These slot into corresponding holes in the fuse and everything is glued with 5 minute Epoxy.  Rudder has a little offset as pictured.

Landing gear is just sandwiched between two pieces of ply and glued into a slot cut in the lower half of the fuse.  Andrew tells me that this thing has smacked the ground very hard on a few occasions and has come out completely unscathed.  I had a theory that the gear would snag the grass and break the fuse in half- That hasn't happened.

The effect of Nitro on the foam hasn't been tested as Andrew uses no Nitro.  Otherwise, fuel has so far had no ill effects on the foam.

Note wing and stab have ply bracing. Bellcrank mount appears recessed into the wing and Andrew says it's located one third way back from the leading edge.

Elevators are joined with a piece of bent wire and hinged on stadard type Du-Bro hinges. Not a ply tail skid has been added. Note that excess material from the removed nose has been carved to neatly fill the upper stabiliser slot.  Apparently a small amount of lead has been added to the tail.  If the same dimensions were used, maybe a 5cc Babe Bee tank would balance just right rather than Andrew's 8cc one.

Many at Andrew's club were sceptical and gave him a hard time when he first tried to explain the concept.  His maiden flight shut them up.
It is very light, very stable, very aerobatic, very cheap and very durable.  What more could you ask for??
His comment was also that because balsa is getting harder to source, this isn't a bad alternative.

Here's a challenge guys. Who'll be the first on CEF to complete and demonstrate their own version?

Rod.

I think it's about time to give this project some more consideration.
About as far as I got was to purchase the glider. No progress beyond that I'm afraid.

Cool Rod we need another project ! I got one I am trying to work on off and on will put it out here when I get a little more done , been taking a few pics .

Oldenginerod wrote:I think it's about time to give this project some more consideration.
About as far as I got was to purchase the glider.  No progress beyond that I'm afraid.  

Same here Rod. This picture had a certain appeal to me. I gotta try one like that!! But it got overcome by other events.

This thread reminded me of a glider that I bought ($5.99) at my local Ocean State Job Lot store. These G.I. Joe (Hasbro) gliders were probably part of a buyout from bigger-name retail stores.



The wingspan is 19" on these.. yet the design/shape/mold-marks look very similar to the 15" version. Maybe just scaled-up a click or two..



The LED's are a cool option.. but I think they'd have to be removed due to the necessary shortening of the nose.





Given the swept L/E.. I calculate the wings' area to be around 64 to 65 sq. in.



The stabilizer's area is approx. 17 to 18 sq. in. as-is. I'm wondering if a stabilator (rather than an elevator..) might be something to try on this one. 

Interesting thread to repurpose the foam plane into a Cox powered powered machine….. Would certainly be tuff!…. The kicker may be if the foam would stand up the fuels with nitro we commonly use here….. I used a white styrofoam wing from a Hobby Lobby toy glider on a Cox powered glider that was coated with spar varnish and is holding  up well….Also, After the wing was coated it got quite a bit stiffer….. Maybe it would work on this other type of foam as well?….

rdw777 wrote:Interesting thread to repurpose the foam plane into a Cox powered powered machine….. Would certainly be tuff!…. The kicker may be if the foam would stand up the fuels with nitro we commonly use here….. I used a white styrofoam wing from a Hobby Lobby toy glider on a Cox powered glider that was coated with spar varnish and is holding  up well….Also, After the wing was coated it got quite a bit stiffer….. Maybe it would work on this other type of foam as well?….

I think that this "EPO" airframe may be "stable" as far as nitromethane is concerned. I've wanted to try flying an "RTP" model here at home... but there's not much real-estate to work with. A durable airframe would lend itself well to that venture I think.

It would be interesting to try to trim the model to fly level via sensing its pitch.. and correcting through elevator inputs.. as a pilot would; through the use of the stick.

I am surprised that spar varnish didn't eat the foam up

cmulder wrote:

From the lidl glider group on facebook.

No mention on how much LSD was was involved during design.

Really creative even if it's weird to see two fuselages folding on each other I bet it works all just fine I have already used an air hog model that I converted rc wit a wasp nitro engine

This conversion is an intriguing idea, but I had never seen one of the gliders. Then I just stumbled onto a display of them at Ace Hardware, of all places. There were 2 sizes, I bought one of the larger ones. Wingspan is 19". I'm guessing the area is about 50-60 sq. in.
So, I started thinking about how to make one fly CL. Andrew has already proven it will work with an .049, how about an .020. Instead of cutting off the nose, why don't we run with the glider concept, and make a powered glider with a pylon mounted engine? So after a bit of thrashing & bashing about, this is where I ended up. I used the 3-bladed prop because it offered the smallest diameter, therefore the shortest possible pylon.



The pylon is balsa, covered with Monokote. I dabbed on some blue paint spots to sort of match the foam.


The glider had 2 stabilizer slots, presumably the upper one is to make it fly loops. I didn't like the look of the extra slot, so I cut it out and glued the fin back on.



With the engine mounted so far back, it was very tail heavy. I added some .44 cal. nose weight, it took 1-1/4 oz.


The final weight came to 4.2 oz.

Duane, a very nice Pee Wee conversion of this off-the-shelf glider, to include your custom pylon that except for the slightly darker orange, looks like it was produced by the company. Also love the single wheel landing gear that looks very glider like. The 3 blade prop adds a touch of class.

Actually, this configuration would probably make a decent free-flight model.

Beautiful work on the pod. It's amazing how well the Monokote did on those compound curves. Even more amazing that you were able to pull it off.

Really nice job on motorizing the plane and keeping the glider flavor….Looks like it would be a good flyer in that configuration