No love for FT Simple Soarer?

sprzout

Knower of useless information
Mentor
So, in the process of seeing @FoamyDM making his Bird of Time (and I'm planning to make one; I just need to get some CF tubing for the shaft or a CF arrow shaft), I decided I wanted to try a glider. I saw that Josh Bixler had made the FT Simple Soarer, and I decided I'd print it out and make it up.

The printable plans are a little screwy (I had to print them out, cut them, and then move them around to get them to fit on a couple boards of DTFB), but once I did so, it was easy enough to cut out. I'm still in the process of building it, and the wing seems really solid, but I have to wonder why I haven't seen other people trying to build them...Is it just that people here want power instead of gliding?
 

Tronglodon

Junior Member
I made one forever ago before I really had any idea what I was doing. I never put a motor in it, just threw it around. The fuselage seemed flimsy and gave up pretty quick. The wing however is ridiculously strong and has lived in three garages across two states over five years. For a laugh I put it on my Simple Cub and it flew pretty well.

IMG_20190504_123752_921.jpg


I'm thinking of building a Simple Soarer again at FF next week with lights for night flying. It seems like it would be a good plane to lazily power up then glide around with in the dark.
 

sprzout

Knower of useless information
Mentor
I'm going to use it for some slope soaring at one of the local beaches here in San Diego; we've got a couple of cliff areas that are probably about 10-15' above the water, and I figure I'll give it a go there. I'm going to just maiden it in a local park first, get it trimmed out a bit for gliding, before I throw it off of a cliff for slope soaring, so that if it goes down on the beach I don't have to do the long walk of shame. :)

I know what you mean about the fuse; I was looking at how to strengthen it while building, but it doesn't seem to be much that I can do for long term that wouldn't add weight.
 

Arcfyre

Elite member
The SS was my first ever FT speed build airplane, and although the fuselage is long gone, the wing is still laying around somewhere. The SS was my first successful FT design and gave me the confidence to scratch build some of the more advanced stuff.

I have a modified SS that I fly when the weather is right, I stretched out the wing some and it floats forever. Check it out here.
 

mayan

Legendary member
I have a Soarer laying around don’t like how it handles to much but I might have the wrong location to fly it in which is why it flys like it does.
 

Arcfyre

Elite member
I have a Soarer laying around don’t like how it handles to much but I might have the wrong location to fly it in which is why it flys like it does.

It needs a significant amount of down thrust angle to fly properly, otherwise even with minimal throttle it will pitch up hard.
 

daxian

Elite member
have built and flown 3 !! it was my first simple swappable build ,built before i realised the uk foam was much heavier than dollar tree ...it did not do well !! lawn darted a lot ,when i did get it flying ...it took to the trees ...stayed there for over a month lol...managed to save the wing and esc and motor .
built another fuselage and tried again ,with much the same result...so came number three which i modded a little .
was never happy with the swappable pod on the fuselage or the weight of the wing in uk foam, so got some of HK's foam which was more a depron type,made some different and lighter wings and experimented with a tiny trainer style pod.
so was born glider 3.....one of my most flown craft to date !
 

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sprzout

Knower of useless information
Mentor
It needs a significant amount of down thrust angle to fly properly, otherwise even with minimal throttle it will pitch up hard.

I remember Josh saying in the build video that you need at least 4 degrees of down thrust angle...I'm guessing you'd just have to maybe introduce that in the motor mount or into the power pod itself...Something to look at when I get to that step. Wouldn't take much to modify that when I print up my mounting plate (one of the niceties of having a 3D printer) or by cutting the power pod appropriately to give it the required down angle.
 

FoamyDM

Building Fool-Flying Noob
Moderator
I've built and flown and busted 2. It took 1 yr to fly the first one. I have love it since. I will build another.
I think I love soaring.
 

Whistlinginthedark

Junior Member
I didn't like the power pod as it didn't leave enough room for everything and the plane was tail heavy if built according to the plan/video.
As a simple slope soarer though, I loved it!! I built two and made a flat wing with ailerons also. Such an easy and fun plane in light to moderate slope winds.
 

mayan

Legendary member
@sprzout thinking of your thread I took mine out to the field the last time I went and had a blast. Hooked it up with a 3S 2200mah battery, and had so much fun flying it. I don’t know why I couldn’t get it to balance with a smaller battery, which was weird because on the plans they recommend to use a 3S 800mah battery.

Anyhow I don’t like flying 3 channels that much but this was very very calming that day, so will need to do it again some time soon. Maybe next time I’ll try to connect a camera to the wing tip for some air to ground footage.

Here is the plane before maiden and a short video I filmed with my other hand while controlling the plane with my other one.

093A0D13-1FFB-47D6-B1F8-39F6E764D921.jpeg


 

basslord1124

Master member
I had pondered the SS at one time, but I remember reading a lot of comments about it being tail heavy plus I wanted something a tad bigger. So I steered away from it. I've mainly pursued the Galaxy foamboard glider which I am hoping to get flown this year.
 

Whistlinginthedark

Junior Member
The tail heaviness is an issue. I decided to build another one this past weekend to address that in a "simple" way. I extended the nose 2 inches which was very effective. There were some "brisk" winds at the slope where I flew it and those extra two inches gave me enough room to fit everything in nicely, hit the CG, and still have enough room for a little ballast. Very Fun!
I'm making a modified power pod as well that should give room for everything and not be tail heavy.
 

mayan

Legendary member
The tail heaviness is an issue. I decided to build another one this past weekend to address that in a "simple" way. I extended the nose 2 inches which was very effective. There were some "brisk" winds at the slope where I flew it and those extra two inches gave me enough room to fit everything in nicely, hit the CG, and still have enough room for a little ballast. Very Fun!
I'm making a modified power pod as well that should give room for everything and not be tail heavy.
Post about it I'd love to try those out. The tail heavy issue is a killer for this model.
 

sprzout

Knower of useless information
Mentor
As soon as my BEC comes in, I'm going to give it a shot. Mine seems to be ok with a 1000 mah 2S battery in the power pod, so who knows? Maybe I'll be ok. Worst that happens is I nose it in to the ground and have to rebuild it, or pull the electronics out and throw it into something else. :) I'm looking forward to at least trying it with some gentle tosses, see how it works out. :)
 

Sheriff

Active member
Bonjour,

A few years ago, I built a small CG-4 Waco to introduce my children to RC (see profil picture). Lately, I decided to reboot the design using the Simple-Soarer's wing. Starting from Flitetest's tried-and-tested design seems the way to go since the wing is THE most important part of most flying things.

To keep the model as scale as possible, I will skip the polyhedral bends and only have 4° of total dihedral. The wingtips are more rounded also.

Do you guys have simple design ideas for a detachable wing strut that would firmly hold the wing in place, but still 'un-snap' in a crash instead of breaking or tearing holes in the wings or fuselage ?

Merci
Guillaume Rinfret
 

Piotrsko

Master member
Rubber bands to hold wing on fuselage in traditional manner of simple soarer, non structural skewers just poking through wing and fuselage for looks. Should come apart easy during crash.
 

Sheriff

Active member
Thanks Piotrsko,
That is an excellent plan. Simple, safe, and even if I break a strut or lose it in flight, it's super-easy to replace.

You win this first round. :)

Raising the bar and trying to avoid the eye soard of the rubber bands on top of the wing and skewers throught the fuselage: Lets say my struts are joint together at the base by a No-64 rubber band that runs under the fuselage. How could I fix the other end of the struts underneath the wing to hold the wing but still disengage on impact?

There might be no elegant/simple way to make this work (I can't find one..)
 

Piotrsko

Master member
Then Colored rubber bands the same color as airplane. As I said in another thread, You'll never see it from Bakersfield. Some times art has to suffer for expediency.

Velcro for when it is sitting on ground to hold wing on but not the really grippy stuff unless you are to the point where you ALWAYS bring the same plane home exactly the way you left home.


Hmmm might have given myself an idea. Do they make 10 pound Velcro?
 

SlingShot

Maneuvering With Purpose
As soon as my BEC comes in, I'm going to give it a shot. Mine seems to be ok with a 1000 mah 2S battery in the power pod, so who knows? Maybe I'll be ok. Worst that happens is I nose it in to the ground and have to rebuild it, or pull the electronics out and throw it into something else. :) I'm looking forward to at least trying it with some gentle tosses, see how it works out. :)

What motor do you have? Mine has plenty of power on 2S. I put a 1300 on top of the fuse and can fly "forever".