1960s Coupe d’hiver postal comp

[PeeTee]

Well on this side of the pond we have a couple of youngsters (sub 25ish) flying FF. In France and other European countries there seem to be more but we shall see. My son now 30ish used to fly coupe & CLG in his teens, perhaps to placate his 'old man'  but girls and work got in the way ! My apologies for taking this topic off course, now back to 1960s coupes !

Peter

[THB]

the nice Channel crossing plus driving to Chartres with French wine and food made late February/early March something to look forward to !

Peter - yes I recall reading about these adventures in AeroModeller - always sounded like heaps of fun.

Dave - yes just a single blade carved prop, but I made a mess of the first one so made a new one. The Google translation of the text also referred to something I didn't understand:

  "the (wing) trailing edge is reinforced with a thin glued-on aluminum foil"

I did a bit of research and turns out it was a thing back then to use something equating to heavy duty cooking foil as reinforcement. I've done the centre section - attached with contact adhesive and certainly seems to add strength to a very thin TE. The centre section foil strip only weighed 1g + about 1g of glue. So I'm going with it! Anyone else familiar with this technique??

Covering started of other bits

Tim

[dputt7]

I hope the weather is as good as todays when it's ready for test flights!

[billdennis747]

I've never come across that foil thing. I do remember a snippet in Aeromodeller that said the TE gives hardly any strength and so may as well be as small as possible.

[Mike Thomas]

I think you remember correctly Bill. But it's not so long ago, before the age of carbon fibre, that F1C wings for example, were entirely covered with aluminium foil. Special foil though, not kitchen foil. I'd have to reread the 60's Coupe rules again, but I suspect that if the original plan said aluminium foil on the trailing edge, then you put aluminium foil on the trailing edge, as Tim is doing. It's looking good, Tim. Mike.

[THB]

Covering done - couldn't resist the 'coffee coupe' theme. And I had some coffee-coloured tissue anyway. Sorting through the final bits and pieces with some support and encouragement from Mike. Hopefully will be able to start test flying soon...

[Spiros]

Such a beauty! congratulations!

[dputt7]

  Very nice, love the Beans.

[Anyun]

Yes, what a nicely done and aptly chosen decoration!

[Lastwoodsman]

Now I see the beans!       Nice model.   

Lastwoodsman
Richard

[OH-13-H]

wonderful!

[THB]

Thanks guys - yes I wasn't sure about the beans - to bean or not to bean, that was the question     
- hoping to get some trimming flights in over the next days - and test the brew     
Tim

[THB]

Made it out to a local parklands together with dputt7 to test our 60s coupes. Dave got some good flights in with his Drobek. The Coffee Coupe seemed pretty good off the board. Glide a little steep, and a right/left pattern. A rudder tab and some side thrust adjusting produced some sketchy interim flights, but ended up getting a pretty comfortable right pattern that shows promise.

Question: What angle stab do others use in the D/T position? I haven't done one for ages and made a guess at about 50deg from fuselage top to stab underside (literally a stab in the dark! - it was about midnight last night trying to get it finished for testing this morning). The result was a very swoopy D/T descent... would like something a bit more docile!

Anyway, short video of one of the later flights (without D/T) on about 200-230 turns here: https://youtu.be/_btE_yE7Suw

[Jmk89]

DT angle is always a bit of a suck it and see exercise for me. I start at 45 degrees and if it comes down with one swoop and then flat, then I leave it. If there's no swoop then I increase the angle and if there's more than one I decrease it until I only get one swoop. But the DT angle is always the last thing I do after trimming so long as what I've got running brings it down, it isn't a major issue for me

Btw she looks like a keeper

[Mike Thomas]

Tim, that's looking good. Was there any lift about? If not, since you were only on half turns (10 strands?), I reckon 2 minutes is a foregone conclusion. As for t/plane angle for D.T., 45 degrees usually works. The single blade prop obviously works well.  Mike.