Flying, maybe, on New Years Day 2012...(RTF? pics)

[wwwarbird]

 The Minneapolis Piston Poppers will again be having their annual New Years Day "Freeze Fly" event this coming Sunday starting at 11:00 at our club field. Anyone who may happen to be in the Minneapolis area is certainly welcome to come on by.
 
 One of our members, Norm Anderson, typically shows up each year with an all new winter or Christmas themed flying thing. By thing I mean that he has shown up with various items converted into control line "airplanes" like a real snow shovel, hockey stick, snowshoe, candy-cane yard ornament, and even an actual pair of long underwear. All of these have actually taken off from the ground and flown under their own power. Keith Sandberg even performed some loops with Norm's hockey stick the year he brought it.

 I usually just bring out an old beater for this day and put a couple flights in. For a few years though I've considered jumping into Norm's game and coming up with some sort of oddball flying doo-dad. I've always chickened out though, usually wanting to instead focus on whatever the main winter building project is.
 Just last Monday the 19th I decided to start in on something though and see if I could still whip it out in time. Unlike Norm I didn't start out with an item from the Fleet Farm store, this one is just a scratchbuilt conglomeration from scraps around the shop and this Sunday we'll see if it will fly...or not. I'll post some more pics when it's completed.

[wwwarbird]

 Here's a couple of Norm's examples...

[BillLee]

It's hard to top Dave Ek's ceiling fan ornithopters! Has a new one every year. Has to since they invariably crash in a most spectacular fashion! 

[john e. holliday]

I too would be concerned like Bill Wilson launching that thing.    One way to get rid of scrap wood.   

Now is Mike G. going to kit the flying hockey stick???

Now have a HAPPY NEW YEAR and don't forget the camera.

[Tim Wescott]

It's hard to top Dave Ek's ceiling fan ornithopters! Has a new one every year. Has to since they invariably crash in a most spectacular fashion! 

The seminal advancement in gyrocopter technology (from way back in the 1920's) is that the rotors must be individually hinged, or the entire rotor disk must be allowed to tilt.  Otherwise the whole shebang is unstable.

I don't know if that's what's happening here -- but I've certainly heard from a lot of folks who have successfully flown FF and RC gyrocopters that you either need twin rotors, or you need some freedom for rotor tilt.

[REX1945]

Maybe the ornithopter is tail heavy.

Did you ever fly a rag (free flight) ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbQrYJF2rP8&feature=youtu.be

Rex

[john e. holliday]

I have found my copy of the plans for a control line gyrocoptor.   Built one and it flew great.   Jim Lee flies one quite a bit for fun and balloon busting.    Years ago someone had one for carrier, but the static blade area did not come up to 300 square inches, so was deemed illegal.  Besides Dave is having a blast as well as fun with these.   

[Tom Niebuhr]

Dave Ek has been very successful with his twin rotor V-22s. But we always look forward to his next "Ceiling Fan" he is determined to get one to fly more than a lap.

This has become a January 1st tradition!

We have seen some very harsh weather on New Years but have also had some nice days too. This year the forcast is for 60s but I have not seen a good prediction on winds yet.

[wwwarbird]

 Well, here is the finished product, ready to fuel up and, um...fly?

 The original idea here was that it would resemble a packaged/wrapped Christmas gift box when completed. It doesn't "present" as well as I would have liked, but oh well. I'm not even going to guarantee that it will fly, at least under much control. I'm sort of thinking it just might though, it's actually a little longer overall than my Tom Niebuhr "WOW" flying wing that flies very well. If it does get airborne, I do think it will be a handful. If it doesn't, it should at least be quality entertainment...

 Happy New Year!!!

 Wayne

[wwwarbird]

 Well Mother Nature provided us Piston Poppers with some totally ridiculous winds for New Years Day, which hampered any real flying activity. Too bad too because as usual we had a pretty good turnout with about 10 or 12 members attending and hoping to fly. Only our club President, Tony Kubes, put up a flight. I put "The Gift" on display along with Norm's new "Christmas stocking" creation for 2012, but we decided not to attempt flying because of the extreme winds. Oh well, this way I'll get a chance to actually try some test flights before next years event.

 Hey Pete, got any more pics to add???

[PJ Rowland]

Whats all that stuff on the ground?

We just had 105 over New years eve....... 

[jim gevay]

I love the "more, less" in one of your pictures Wayne.
I can tell from the last picture you guys were having fun. Sorry I missed it.

[wwwarbird]

 PJ,

 The stuff on the ground is an evil white substance known in this region as SNOW. It is a four letter word, so it is definitely bad. Annually, it will fall from the sky and is typically accompanied with very uncomfortable outdoor temperatures and many times high winds as an added bonus. This disturbing process repeats itself often for approximately 1/4th of the calendar year.
 I am considering putting together a commitee to organize mass groups of people around the world to stand outdoors and voluntarily spray aerosols of choice into the air to potentially combat future development of this thing called SNOW. Supposedly there is scientific evidence saying that this could work.
 As far as I'm concerned, the only good thing about the white stuff reappearing year after year is that it forces you indoors to build model airplanes. When timed correctly, you can usually finish a model by the time it disappears. Also, around that same time the temperatures normally return to a level to where a human can stand to be outdoors for extended periods.

 and Jim,

 The "more-less" just popped into mind when I was doing the final assembly, got a few laughs out of that one.

[Dan McEntee]

  Hey Wayne; Add some detail to make it look like there is a ribbon going around it span wise that lines up with the bow. Then add some black lines to simulate folds in the wrapping paper. That should help with the presentation. What you have here is getting close to the flying R/C Snoopy's dog house that a guy here in St. Louis designed and built several of. The designer was Al Signorino and I think both an original and improved version were published in Model Airplane News. It was basically a rectangle flying wing for a floor, sides that had pivoting panels so cross winds didn't render it helpless, and slats for the roof with some gap between them for the same reason. And old Snoopy sat on top as kind of a weather vane to help with cross wind condition. It looked pretty neat in the air. Wouldn't be hard to do one as a C/L model, and that may have been done at that time.
   Type at you later,
   Dan McEntee