Phoenix Model Products – Stage 2A Mk2

With what is possibly the least glamourous model name in slope soaring history ­­– this is my latest winter build project.

I said last year that I’d reached the zenith of my model plane requirements and as such I didn’t need to make any more. But I enjoy building, so I came up with the cunning excuse that each new model must, hence forth, replace at least two existing models – this should result in the rapid rationalisation of my fleet! First to go will be the Ridge Runt and Coyote, to be replaced by this handily-portable general-purpose slope hack.

You’ll notice that I couldn’t just stick to the plan, I had to add some modifications of my own devising. I wanted a bigger model than the Runt/Coyote that would still fit in the car boot or roof box, so the one-piece wing now comes in two parts with a homemade aluminium joiner. For the joiner to work I had to adapt Stan Yeo’s very neat all-sheeted ‘egg box’ wing construction and add traditional spruce spars with D-box webbing balsa. I was mildly concerned about the additional weight penalty, so I compensated for this by cutting ‘windows’ in the wing sheeting; this also gives the model a bit of a ‘vintage’ look, which is a bonus in my book. It may leave the wings a little less rigid, but we shall wait and see what effect, if any, this has on aileron response.

I’ve started looking at radio layout options. The ‘cabin’ can get very cramped with standard-size servos, battery and receiver. With 35mhz gear you needed to keep the receiver near the front to allow for the run of the aerial lead, but with little 2.4GHz aerial wires this is no longer an issue, so I’m putting the heavy stuff up front, leaving a gap under the wing for ballast and locating a lightweight receiver at the rear. I’ll wait and see where the C of G ends up and adjust accordingly…

 

Happy landings,

 

Russell H