Letters to the Editor
There’s lots in the mailbag this month, some of which is really ‘meta’.
Needs Glider Transition Training Material for Spektrum NX-Series
My name is Bob Mandeville and I’m a new reader. I just discovered your site yesterday but please don’t take that as a ‘slight’ to your publication. I surfed across it because I was starting to indulge in my recent decision to explore RC soaring. AAMOF, I immediately passed this along to a friend who is in a similar situation. Within the last 24 hours, he’s already ahead of me in reading your back issues!
My reason for writing is to ask for a bit of assistance. For background, I’m a fairly accomplished power-plane pilot (20+ years) but an absolute neophyte when it comes to anything more than simple sailplanes like a Bixler. In order to test the waters of ‘real’ sailplane soaring, Santa put a FMS ASW-17 2.5M under the Christmas tree and I am anxious to fly it. Granted, it’s not an elegant machine but it’s a good stepping stone towards flying more sophisticated soarers. I’m starting it’s build-up soon.
My friend and I have recently gotten new Spektrum NX-series transmitters. We were both exploring the menus soon found that programming a sailplane is not the same as programming for power. We understand basic concepts like Crow, Camber and Reflex but we don’t understand how or why to program these setups in transmitters whose menus are so convoluted. I began to wonder how many others like us might be out there as well?
Can you tell me if anything been written for programming the NX-series or other transmitters for sailplanes for someone with our (admittedly low) level of expertise? What I am hoping to find is some kind of guidance, hopefully in your publication, that would not only show the ‘how-to’ but also the ‘why’ for the programming. If this isn’t available yet, perhaps this might spark an article or series of articles for those of us who are somewhat clueless wannabe glider guiders who wish to up their game and step into a new realm of RC flight.
For the record, my intent was not to find a Camber for Dummies article out there, but rather to find something for us ‘power’ pilots who are reasonably educated in the ways of RC transmitter programming, but who are expanding into a new area and looking for guidance from someone who has been there, and not having to make (wrong) guesses on our own.
Thanks, in anticipation, for RCSD readers help with this!
Best Regards,
Bob Mandeville
Brockton, MA
Bob — while nobody here in the home office is aware of any such material, we’re hoping that your letter might turn something up or, better yet, prompt a reader to become an RCSD contributor and write one. It sounds like a really valuable resource! — Ed.
Source Material for ‘Glider Mail’ Still Available
Enjoyed reading the latest issue and also seeing the article Glider Mail. For those readers who are interested, my book is still available from various Amazon sources, as well as the American Air Mail Society. Cost is about $12. And this is what the cover looks like. Again thanks for the extra publicity!
Simine Short
Simine —thank you for writing in and we’re only too happy to pass this information along to readers. We should also add that Simine is editor of the Bungee Cord which is the excellent quarterly publication of the Vintage Sailplane Association which we have linked in the Resources section below.— Ed.
More Boss-T Love
When I was just a lad, I wanted to fly a big RC glider but I only had a two-channel radio. So when I saw a kit for a 120" span plane called Boss-T that could be flown (so it said on the box) with just two channels I had to have it!
Many years later (the Boss-T having long gone to the great building board in the sky) I made contact with Don Burt and asked if he still had any copies of the plan. He did, and I ended up with an old dyeline print — Don even dated it so it would qualify for vintage comps.
When Terry mentioned the Boss-T in RCSD, I told him I used to have one of those — and still had the plan. Unfortunately the dyeline printing was not just fading (as all dyeline printing does), the paper itself was falling apart after 50 years. It was a big plan so when I laid it out on the table, it would overhang both sides and where it had been folded, it started coming apart simply under its own weight.
Any idea of redrawing the lines with ink was hastily forgotten and all the pieces were glued to some spare sheets of foam-board. They were then scanned and pasted together, you can see the finished result is a mosaic of hundreds of individual images. Hopefully this can be redrawn and we may yet see more of these big lightweight (35oz) floaters in the air.
Best Regards,
Steve Kerry
Kingston upon Hull, UK
Steve — thanks so much for sharing this story of how the plan came to be in the article. Also, it provides me with another opportunity to publicly thank you for your efforts in this regard. — Ed.
Curation is ©2022 The NEW RC Soaring Digest Staff
Resources
- Vintage Sailplane Association — from their website: “The purpose of the Vintage Sailplane Association (VSA) is to promote the acquisition, restoration and flying of vintage sailplanes by its members, and to assist the National Soaring Museum in the preservation of soaring history and the promotion of vintage sailplane activity.”
- American Air Mail Society — from the website: “ Here you can find 47 different categories that have appeared as Sections in the American Air Mail Catalogue from the 1st Edition in 1935 through the 7th Edition with the latest volume published in 2017…”
- Glider Mail — as it appeared in the April, 2022 issue of the New RC Soaring Digest.
- Don Burt’s Groundbreaking Boss-T — also as it appeared in the April, 2022 issue of the New RCSD.
Send your letter via email to NewRCSoaringDigest@gmail.com with the subject ‘Letter to the Editor’. We are not obliged to publish any letter we receive and we reserve the right to edit your letter as we see fit to make it suitable for publication. We do not publish letters where the real identity of the author cannot be clearly established.
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