There is a fundamental rule taught in every middle school science class: only change one variable at a time. I wasn’t in class that day! The Medicine Man is a great glider, but if you are like me – your curiosities sometimes get the better of you.
First off: I built mine at about 150% scale. This does not a negative thing outright, but it does mean that you are dealing with more mass. This brings us to:
Physics Law 1:
Force = Mass * Acceleration
In practice, the ground will bring your plane to a stop in a hurry, and the more plane you have, the more there is to break!
Don’t worry, this is only important in a crash, and I don’t plan on crashing! ….yeaaaaah
Kyle Aerospace, Remote Control Airplanes, UAV, Uncategorized Add new tag, Balsa Construction, Make Magazine, Medicine Man Glider, Monokote, Sailplane
We went to go fly the Medicine Man glider in the vast empty student parking lot at McNeil highschool. It was a pretty windy day, so I was excited to see how the glider’s stability would fair in a breeze, and I was not dissapointed! 
However, I was concentrating so intently on watching the stability that I did not notice a rather tall light pole. Turns out a 1lb or so balsa and foam glider does not do so well against a (relatively) unmovable object, and carnage ensued.
On a more positive note, sting launching went fairly well! We just used a length of kitestring, tied a small loop in the end for the belly hook, and then ran like fools across the parking lot!
I also made a modification for testing purposes involving the removal of the bottom lobe of the tail so that it was flush with the bottom of the fuselage. This modification lets the fuselage absorb impacts, as I had experienced a few rough landings where a considerable ammount of energy went directly into the rudder, sheaing it from the tail.
This particular frame will surely have a few more modifications and “battlefield repairs” that will keep it far from bueaty contests – but that is kind of the joy of experimentation – you are not so afriad of scratches that you don’t push the envelope a little!
Kyle Aerospace, Austin TX, Humor, Remote Control Airplanes, Uncategorized Balsa Construction, Make Magazine, Medicine Man Glider, Monokote, Sailplane
This engine is a bit too big...
Here is the frame so far, now there’s the question of how to mount the hardware so that it doesn’t tear away in flight.. or worse, on landing!
Kyle Aerospace, Remote Control Airplanes Balsa Construction, Make Magazine, Medicine Man Glider, Sailplane
I have been researching different R/C airplanes to use as a platform for various UAV experiments. I figure that it would be reasonable to have a pretty simple and durable test airplane to first use to get familiar with things like landing and how wind effects smaller aircraft, as well as testing basic navigation without (too much) fear of a horrific crash. I’ve looked at various park flier “foamies” and came to the conclusion that a stable, slow 3 channel craft would fit the bill nicely. However, it bothered me how cheap looking the foamies I was considering looked, and I am worried about structural integrity after carving a cavity for the ArduPilot, GPS, camera, etc.
And then … Make Magazine.
I was reading the hot-off-the-press issue 17 and came to an article about the demise of model aircraft. In short it put forth the idea that “Ready To Fly” foamie are to airplanes as fast food is to cuisine – yes the airplane did fly, but it’s a totally disposable experience after a few hours. It then offered a solution – a simple, stable balsa constructed, traditionally designed sailplane model that could be built by anyone with some patience called the Medicine Man. They even included the plans to build on and several pages of step-by-step instructions. This was the ticket!
So I downloaded the plans an took them to my local blueprint shop, had them print it full sized for like $1.80 and was ready to go!
Kyle Aerospace, Remote Control Airplanes, UAV Balsa Construction, Make Magazine, Medicine Man Glider, Sailplane
