TOPIC: Profile Kits from TSP

Hey Roger,
thank you for the heads up about the tab. Will try a decent 45 degreeangle for the start
There are no hinged elevons and rudder but they can be bent easily a bit. I think Ill give that a try and if it dont glide straight Ill fit those with a couple of aluminium hinges.
Will try that out in England as I am going to Buckminster on the 17th of May to meet some friends and fly with them together
Really looking forward to this.

You Skyray is looking awesome. Like the fleshed out parts

Waiting for Terrys answer but I think off forum contacting is a good start.

So, I've finally got the last two kits put together, the Alpha Jet and the Skyray.
The Alpha is for L1 sized motors while the Skyray is for L2.

The Skyray is a little smaller than the Bill Dean version that is on my video. In addition the Tendera kit has a flat wing with the grain selected to run parrallel(ish) to the leading edges. (This is unlike the BD version which has the grain running tip to tip which, with softish balsa, permitts the cutout in the fuselage to induce a concave leading section and a reflexed rear section.) It will be interesting to see how it flies compared to the BD Skyray. Am I right in thinking that Howard had a hand in this?

The Skyray, like all these kits is preprinted in grey and black with a wealth of panel lines. And of course comes with gorgeous decals and matching paint where one can colour in any gaps or edges.

Again, all these kits are awsomely complete, and come with everything one could wish for, except time to get to the flying field

Good morning,

just a quick question about trimming the model. I read that the glide should be absolutely straight. Should be no problem. What I wonder about is how the models fly circles under power when trimmed straight.
I watched tons of videos and the models all seem to fly circles.
Is there any hint on how to achieve that? Just imagining a plane flying powered for 15 16 seconds and gliding absolutely straight will fly very far away?
Thank you for a quick heads up on this.

Counting the days to go to England

The TSP Skyray is indeed derived from Howard's 'Flatray' via my 'take' on this with the jetex.org kit prototype which was 'fleshed out' to make it more '3D' with intakes etc, and hinged elevons and rudder, which I don't think the TSP kit has (?). Piotr reverted to the pure 'profile' 'flatray' model.

As to the 'dead straight glide' from a hand chuck, this has been the advice since the early Jetex days. But our models nearly always circle to a greater or lesser under power. Partly due to the speed they fly at showing up small differences in flying surfaces.

Mind you, I have seen scale models just loop unde power, this is cured by putting in just the tiniest bit of rudder or aileron and not just by adding more nosewight. Howard also strongly advises using a thrust tab to control power looping.

Most experienced (free flight) modellers work things out for themselves on the flying field!

Thats something I can deal with
Just wondered about any tips or tricks... So this is like old school rubberpowerd free flight. Perfectly fine with that

What do you use to hinge your rudders? I thought about some tiny metal strips, same material I used for the Thrust defelctor (litography sheet metal).
Thinking about hinging the elevons (and maybe rudder) too since this has more potential to trim the plane correctly.

Are "trim tabs" working also well oder do you prefer the full rudders to be bent?

Roger comments:
I use thin aluminium as hinges; litho plate for a thrust tab sounds ideal. As to trim tabs or full rudder, well, it all depends.

We can talk about all this when we meet!