Spooky

I found these sheets of sexy, black foam-board selling for $8.50 each (and that's local dollarettes!). I couldn't resist, so I brought 'em home!

Using a steel meter-rule, a couple G-clamps and a brand new #11 blade, I cut the shapes scaled down slightly from the Pibros recommendations to make best use of the sheets I had. I made no attempt to soak/peel off the cardboard. If it's heavy, it's heavy, and if it wouldn't fly, then I'd chuck it out.

Note spooky profile on Elevons and fin! Used a dinner-plate....

Hmm. Spooky. Not a bad name!

Glass-reinforced straping-tape joins the two top-surfaces to the base of the wing. When folded, this tape will form the Leading Edge.

(Question: Why cut off the triangular upper skin in the first place, if it is going to be taped back on? Why not just score the inner surface and then fold the corners back?)

To ease the folding of the LE, I creased the inside of the join by running the handle of my knife back and forth over it several times while applying pressure to crush the foam.

A small triangle of foam-board was glued to the center-section of the wing with Super-77.

Now a large triangle of foam-board was glued on top of the small one. These two triangles replace four triangles in the original Pibros. But I didn't want to make the wing that thick, since my final wing-area was destined to be smaller than the Pibros.

The inner triangles were pressed flat to give the wing it's basic shape. Super-77 and strapping tape helped hold the form together.

The entire inner surface of the wing was liberally sprayed with Super-77 and the top surface triangles were folded over to create the leading edge, but first...

...the top triangles were relieved where they met at the center-line to make a slot for the fin. This was done by eye. The slot was left deliberately tight; the fin almost needs no fastening. Almost.

The elevons were thinned a little at the rear, and chamfered at the hinge-line. A razor-plane did the job easily, but dulled the blade quickly!

The elevons were hinged into place with tape. Plenty freedom of movement was allowed for. The ugly tape will be covered later with sexy stealth-black....

The fin is shown here temporarily installed for a trial fit.

With the cardboard layer cut away, the foam can be easily gouged out with a finger-nail or other pointy-bit. Servos, Rx and battery pack are deliberately snug in their wells. A flat battery-pack would probably have been a better fit, but I used what I had.

Also, some lead in the nose proved necessary (not shown in this picture). It might have been more useful to use an AA flat-pack instead of AAA sized cells. I can get 1,800mAh NiMh AA cells, and that would have given me essentially unlimited flight-time on the Rx pack. But the 600mAh cells give very long discharge times with only two HS-55's to worry about, so I don't suppose it matters.....

And here is the finished aircraft, awaiting a test-pilot. (Who, me? Whom, I? I think not...)

Wingspan: 30". Weight: unknown, but heavy. Maybe 12 oz.? Rx: FMA X5. Servos: Hited/RCD HS-55. Battery: Home-made four 600mAh NiMh AAA.

My test-pilot came along to the cliff and after a couple test-glides instructed me to stick some lead in the nose. I stuck in a couple ounces, and the test-glides continued

Next the elevons were adjusted to give a good bit of reflex, because it wouldn't stay level without a constant input of up. Not surprising; Deltas need reflex as a matter of course.

The controls were found to be very sensitive, so I programmed the ATV to reduce the travel to only 40% on each throw.

And over the edge! To my surprise, she flew very well! In fact, the only real problem was...

...aircraft in stealthy-black are actually darned hard to see! Zoom-out this un-retouched photo and you will realise it's hard to spot when low over a darkish background.

But it's a handsome profile, I think, and I will reject all suggestions to add white or red orientation-marks. That would spoil the basic-black, which makes this aircraft so attractive.

There is one other problem, which stems from the Delta configuration. Because of how a Delta presents itself in the air, it is very easy to mistake a wingtip for the nose, and mis-read the aircraft's attitude.

Look at this picture, with Ragged Point lighthouse in the background. (Zoom it out, dummy!) Is it going left and away, with the nose up? Or is it crossing to the right with the nose down slightly? If you have a second, it's easy to see it's coming towards you, with the left wing slightly low. But if you don't have a second...

She is slippery, smooth, fast, rolls quite well, seems willing to fly inverted (I didn't try that too much). I couldn't get a loop out of her, but then if I was a better pilot, perhaps I could manage it!

The white specs on the trailing edge are the control horns. Pity you can't get them in black, eh? Wonder if you could spray them? You can even see the control arm on the starboard HS-55 in this shot, as well as the antenna plainly streaming out behind.

Getting my hands on some larger (40" wide) foamboard sheets, I immediately decided on a larger version of "Spooky". Construction followed the exact same plan as described above with only a few exceptions. Before beginning construction I carefully soaked and rubbed off the paper/cardboard layer from the inside of the sheets. The inner layers had the paper removed from both sides, but the top and bottom skins were left with the paper on the outside for sleekness and strength.

Pictured here at The Cliff in the company of other slopers, She looks sleek!

And here she is, in flight!

You are looking at a $24 aeroplane, people, and that's Bajan dollarettes too! (The original "Spooky" cost $17.) In the air, flying, and looking very sexy too. When litle kids stroll past they all get excited about the "stealth bat"!

It isn't the best flyer in the world. As with all Deltas, it's hard to get enough weight forward to make her balance right. I ended up adding lots of lead, which brought the aircraft into balance but made it heavier than I would have liked.

But if you keep an eye on her, she flies well enouh. She doesn't like to roll. She will happily roll over on her back... and refuse to roll upright again (!!) without some serious persuading.

Pictured aflight on a grey afternoon, she will climb and hussle along the cliff face from one side to another, as well as make forays down into "the basin".

Just don't take your eyes off her for a second!

She is stealthy, and she will disappear in a flash! Even when you find her, maybe streaking past, low, over the ocean, the tricorn delta shape makes it hard to orient. You'll spend a split second trying to figure out which pointy-bit is the front, and in that split second.....

:-)