Elegant Simplicity

Back in 2016, in the quest for a simple lightweight and compact model, I built a West Wings Aurora. With a little ballast it flew very nicely and with my split-wing conversion it was very compact, the only drawback was its fragility; anything less than a perfect landing risked a session-ending fracture.
However, the Aurora proved the success of the overall concept, so this year I found a kit with a very similar specification but from a manufacturer with an established reputation for designing more rugged models. So after several months in the workshop I have some bare bones pictures of the Phoenix Model Products 'Snowy'.

1600mm span, approximately 870gms flying weight.

The wing design is in two halves with a steel rod and brass tubes included in the kit.

The structure is very traditional (and easily reparable) balsa, spruce and ply, although for ease of construction Stan Yeo (the designer) has stopped short of a full 'D' box leading edge, relying instead upon 10mm cap strips to maintain torsional stiffness.  

On the PMP website Stan describes this as a "slope trainer" and 40 years ago this kind of glider was what everyone learned to fly with. Generous dihedral offers innate stability and once it is aligned into the wind it will happily fly 'hands-off'. Of course the recommended slope trainer of today is made from carbon-fibre-reinforced foam and has the innate ability to bounce in the event of a hard landing. You pays your money and you takes your choice...

Happy landings
Russell H