Radio Control Gliders
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With the huge improvements in electric power in recent years (see the 'Electric Models' section), the most popular type of glider is now the electric thermal soarer. The electric soarer uses its motor to gain height rapidly, as if going up on a towline, then goes thermal hunting with the motor off and the propeller folded back. Very long flights can be achieved in the right conditions by using the power of rising warm air to keep the glider aloft. There's a great deal of skill involved in 'reading' the air and thermalling is relaxing and challenging at the same time. Click here for a video of a power glider from the DMAC You Tube site.
There are lots of electric gliders available as kits, almost-ready-to fly airframes and as complete packages, including everything you need to go flying. Some are of conventional wood construction (e.g. The JP Easy Pigeon or Thrush) but many of the most popular are produced in moulded foam (e.g. The Parkzone Radian or Multiplex Easyglider). These can make a good introduction to model flying as this type of plane is generally (but not always) slow and easy to control. The foam models also have the advantage of being remarkably light and tough, and easy to repair and get spare parts for. Not all electric gliders are so relaxing though. Gliders can be capable of aerobatics and very high speeds too. Sleek aerodynamics and very powerful motors can produce some very exciting hotliners, as they are known, which can climb vertically at a huge rate and achieve enormous airspeed in a dive.
Also to be seen at the field, although less commonly, are pure gliders which are pinged into the air on a bungee or even aerotowed up behind a power model.
The other main type of glider is the 'slope soarer'. This uses the updraft created when the wind blows directly onto the side of a hill to keep it in the air. This type of lift is more predictable than the thermal sort, and with the right type of hill (of which there are a number in the Dundee area) and a decent wind (of which there is plenty) a slope soarer can stay up almost indefinitely. DMAC doesn't officially support slope soaring these days but there are still some of our more rugged members who head off up Auchterhouse or Pole Hills when the wind is up.
There's also a thriving club in Fife who fly from East Lomond. Slope soaring is one of the most relaxing areas of aeromodelling and you can enjoy many pleasant hours on the hillside, assuming of course that the climb up the hill didn't put you off! If you have never tried slope soaring, you should really give it a go. There is no doubt that the ability to fly a glider will teach you far more than you will ever learn if you only fly powered model aircraft. Reliance on the noisy hot bit at the front of a power model usually means that you take off with the aircraft at (or below!) flying speed and you depend on the engine to drag your model into the sky. How many times have you seen a training aircraft agonizingly claw it's way into the sky? And have you seen what happens when the engine conks out? Try this with a glider and you'll be picking the pieces up! Gliding gives you a much better "feel" for a model. Is it near the stall? Is there enough lift for another circuit? and so on.
Slope soarers can be tremendously simple balsa or foam models with just two servos controlling rudder and elevator or elevons, or can be state of the art moulded carbon fibre ultra efficient racing machines capable of unbelievable speeds (the world dynamic soaring record stands at around 400mph at the time of writing!), or anything in between. Possibly the cheapest way into aeromodelling is with one of these. The Soar Ahead Sailplanes Wild Thing or Fusion costing around £65, are two examples of flying wing style gliders which are made of EPP foam, are easy to fly and as near as you can get to indestructable, making them great to learn on. It might even be possible to teach yourself to fly with one of these, which isn't something we'd normally recommend. All you need to get them in the air is a radio set with elevon mixing, with two standard servos.
Of course there are still more conventional slope soarer kits around, like the almost legendary Chris Foss Middle Phase, but these need a bit more care when landing, for obvious reasons (the slope guys don't call them 'crunchies' for nothing), but are often more elegant and efficient designs.
There are all sorts of variations on the slope soaring theme. Models like thermal soarers for light wind conditions, pylon racers, scale models of full size gliders and 'power slope scale' models of aircraft such as Spitfires, Red Arrows Hawks and even B52 bombers.
An example of this is the A-10 Thunderbolt II. The original is of course powered by a pair of jet engines, but the two old Coke bottles on the glider version do nothing for increasing power or decreasing drag! Many examples of P.S.S. gliders can be seen around the slopes successfully flying. After all, if a Warthog can glide, anything can!!!