Phil Morrell

Hi Piers, My RES Eagle needed an extra 20 gm of nose weight to achieve the correct C of G. I have used Emax md11 metal gear servos and a 50 gm AAA size envelope square flight pack. Get the servos as far forward as you can leaving yourself enough room for the Rx and battery. I had to use extra long 22swg piano wire snakes for the pushrods, gliders distribution in Newark stock them at 1.6 m long and are ideal for the RES Eagle. I tried to get the tail end as light as possible by sourcing low density balsa and also adding lightening holes to the elevators .I used thin gauge aluminium tube from the mounting poles of my garden solar lights to cut the holes, they cut a clean 25 mm hole without having to sharpen them. Cheers Phil

Thanks Buster, I must start using the other RES Eagle thread and thanks to you too Ton, you have produced a really good designed lightweight glider. We now have 2 complete in our club and a further 3 in build. Looking forward to seeing how it performs in our summer evening comps. Cheers Phil

Hi All and Happy New Year, pleased to report that I have now flown my RES Eagle at our annual club New Year's Day meeting. I am very pleased with the performance. It took me a couple of launches before I could get the Eagle up to the top of the bungee. The first launch had too little elevator resulting in a low fast trajectory with the model pinging off the line early. I pulled too much elevator on the second launch resulting in looping off the bungee. Third time lucky with the elevator trim set with a small amount of uptrim and the Eagle tracked straight to the top of bungee launch with very little elevator input. Once off the line the Eagle flew nice and steady. I managed a further four flights reaching the top of the bungee on each occasion. I found it a bit sensitive to elevator but ok once I got used to it. Conditions were overcast with a 5 mph breeze so there were no thermals about. Flight times were between 2.5 to 3 minutes, very happy with these times considering the conditions. Another club mate also maidened his Eagle which also performed well. A great morning's flying and now looking forward to the spring when I can try the Eagle in better air. I have included a number of photos from the day captured by my club mate Stewart Bennett

Hi Buster, Thanks for your latest posting. My Eagle is now finished and ready for it's first flight. I have now added the tip dihedral and in addition bound the small carbon tappered joiner to the spars with some fine Kevlar thread. Finished weight is a little higher than Ton's prototype at 570 gm. I am still happy with this weight as in comparison it is 200gm lighter than my trusty 2m Gentle Lady that always performs well in our club comps. Please keep me posted on your build and flights once you have finished. We now have 5 Eagles in build in our club, I will keep you posted on our builds

Hi Buster Prop and Steve, bungee launching is fairly straight forward. Just a few key points: try not to over stretch the bungee, measure the load with a spring balance if you can. In our club comps we always measure the pull load when we set up the bungess. With open 100" gliders we aim for around 15 to 18 lb but reduce a couple of pounds for 2m models such as Gentle Ladies, a simple spring balance used for fishing will do the trick. For an RES model such as the Eagle don't go over 10lb or you risk breaking the wing. Don't pull up too much elevator on the launch, best to just let it go without any elevator input at first at just concentrate on keeping it tracking straight, once you have gained more experience and know the model better only then start to pull more elevator. I always find that it is best to let the glider fly off the bungee at the top straight and level, pinging and stretching the bungee is great for gaining that little extra height but if you get it wrong you end up with the model stalling and loosing a considerable amount of height. Like most things practice makes perfect, take it easy at first and then you will soon get the hang of it and wonder what all the fuss was about. A number of my fellow club members have recently ordered Eagle kits and found the carbon supplied for the outer wing panels was 4mm not 6mm. SMC have responded very quick in sending out replacement 6mm spars. They must have now alerted their kit supplier hence the delay but I am sure you will get your Eagle soon. Not flown mine yet as I am waiting for our new 4kg RES club bungees to arrive. I may leave the first flight until spring next year but if we get some reasonable weather before then I may give it a go. Once I get it flying I will post any flying shots and let you know how it flies

Hi Andy, it's on the heavy side compared to your prototype at 1.38 kg AUW. That's with 2300mAh flight pack and 120gm additional nose weight to balance at the forward CofG. I carefully selected the balsa using your recommended weights, I must have overdone it with the epoxy and primer!

Thanks for all your comments. I was a little eager to put the pics on the blog hence the missing starboard starter fairing, Well spotted Andy. The faring is now on. I built the model from scratch off Andy's RCM&E plan, being a late starter I found the previous hints and tips on the blog very useful. I have finished the model in 25gm glass and finishing resin. This was my first attempt at glassing, It wasn't as daunting as I first thought and I was very pleased with the finished results. After much rubbing down and elbow grease I airbrushed the final finish using Humbrol acrylics. I was amazed to find I only used one and a half pots of each colour to complete the NATO scheme. I have a reputation for severely flexing wings so I have upped the carbon wing spar to 6mm, all seems nice and rigid and should take my abuse. I will post flying shots once maidened. Thanks Peter for your advice on the rudder/aileron mix, this is now programmed in o my TX

Hi All, I have just completed my Canberra B2. Hope to fly it next year in the PSS meetings as finished too late for this season. I am just waiting for the right conditions to maiden and trim out at the Cat and Fiddle near Buxton