In Australia, the most interesting things happen. In this case, our friend Marty has developed a pull apart JART expressly for riding along on his motorcycle jaunts. Entirely scratch built from the plans, when broken down it fits in the topbox of Marty's touring bike. He does quite a bit of alpine touring so we should see this lovely lady in some lovely air sometime soon. He's even threatened to take it on a tour of the Himalayas. Now THAT I would love to see!
Here's Marty's description of the maiden flight:
"I only finished the Jart on the Friday Night, 65 days after starting her. The maiden was to be on the Sunday. This has been a massive task for me, battling a major case of procrastination in life, having a partner recently confined to a wheelchair and mostly the fact that thing is my first ever scratch built plane. I have only been in the hobby for 9 or so months.
I love my motorcycling, I tour a fair bit. There is nothing worse than riding through the hills and seeing a great slope, the Jart-a-Part is the plane to solve this problem of not being able to combine the two.
The build was long and a huge learning curve for me, I stuffed up, made my self scream, I created and made myself smile. Part of me wants to rip my shirt off and beat my chest and yell “ I am man!!! Look at the toy plane that I made!!” I feel good, happy with what I have achieved.
I was up early on Sunday, packed the car this time, the bike needs new tyres, chain ands sprockets. In went the Bee wing, Eraser, Redback and of course the Jart. It’s an hour drive to the slope. I met Kahnx and got out the bee to warm up the thimbs, followed by the Eraser which was too light for the conditions of over 20knots. Dingo turned up and suggested we move half a Km down the hill…. OK? It was a great move, the lift was far cleaner and no rotor to worry about.
I then threw the Redback out, a 60” EPP Vtail built to last by Samotage. I had a good play with that until a pump went wrong and I belly landed it a little too hard, a broken wing bolt was the only damage.
Then it was Jart time, I wasn’t worried about the flight, it was the landing, I am a shocking lander, I am getting a lot better, but it is still my Achilles heal. Dingo manned the camera and Jason manned the Jart. My heart was racing, 10 weeks hard work was on the line here, I wasn’t allow home with a broken Jart “I allowed you 10 weeks in that shed for that plane, don’t come home with it broken” SWMBO said!
Off she went, straight as a die, not the slightest sideways moment, she was spot on. A little up elevator and there was not much there, I have 60% dual rates dialed in and had to switch that off straight away, if anything a little more elevator might be needed. She cruised through the sky like she owned that 20 knots, she just did every thing I asked her to do, which wasn’t a lot because the Jart is far more of a craft than I am use too. I tried an aileron roll, around she went, no effort and I have the rates down, I switched them to full, even less effort, quick and sharp. These Jarts do run on rails.
I bought her across for a low pass and it just seem right to plonk her down on the lovely fluffy green grass, not a text book landing but safe all the same. A maiden and a landing, just what I wanted. I turned around to be handed Jason’s mobile phone, it was Samotage with a congratulations call and I think he could see the smile on my face down the phone.
I decided to give her another go, straight as a die again, this time I was a little more relaxed, explored her a little more, she is a little light at 44 ½ oz, a good weight for a beginner like me, you can pull her up to get your bearings right but she could easily take another 10oz at least in those conditions. A ballast system is on the way as there is enough space in the under canopy for a fair bit of lead. I screwed up a low pass for Dingo to take a photo and got down wind, she landed flat but fast and was pulled up quick by the long grass, the control horn on one of the ailerons came off, the epoxy holding it on wasn’t strong enough, they will need some screws methinks. That was the end of her for the day, but 2 flights and a 99.9% complete Jart was a great way to start her flying career.
It is not all perfect, I wasn’t happy with the fuse covering, too much heat with the iron and heat gun ruined some of my beautiful shaping and spakle work, if I ever film an EPP fuse again in will be low temp film. I am not happy with the elevator, I used tape as a hinge under the film and it shrunk causing the hinge to be a little too tight, it will have to go, same thing happen to the main wing and I recovered it and then used silicone hinges that worked beautifully. I also think the HS81 servo might not be upto the task, I will replace the hinge and see.
I still have to make up a foam packing create to fit in the top box to carry it in, the vibration of the bike would destroy the finish in one trip. I have the CG set at 63mm, half way between Reeds and Samotage’s recommendations, I will have to play with that to see what is best and then I can add ballast.
South Africa has been represented in jartworld for some time by Adrian B., but I've just received a note from another SA gliding addict that he'd like to build a J-bird at some point. He's even mentioned JART in his cool glider blog at berg-gliders. Check it out!
September 4, 2007
JART Studs in SoCal
I've been too busy to check in on the RCGroups slope forum lately, but today I did and I found this great story. Jeff Charlot and Dave "Nauga" Hyde maidened two JARTs (from the same mold, same group build) at the legendary Point Fermin in Southern California. Actually, not only did they maiden them, but they maidened them together and flew big halfpipe formation with them. Dave picks up the story from there (more pics here):
Maiden!
I figured Jeff or Pete would beat me to it, but all three of the group build Jarts have now flown. All three are either dead or in need of some serious lovin' too. IRJ has already posted about his first flight.
Jeff and I met up at Fermin around 3:30 today, and Jeff jumped right into it with "Good enough to fly!" and smiled and mugged while Schiessco chucked Jeff's Jart off the edge. Jeff made it clear ("OOH! AAAH! THIS IS AWESOME!") that it was flying well, so I set mine up and gave it a toss too. The both seemed to fly like they were on rails. Both were a little nose-heavy, and Jeff's was easily outpumping mine (pilot skill or weight, take your pick), but in a word they were unbelievable, and lived up to the legend. After 10-15 minutes or so of formation, I noticed a little waviness in Jeff's paint. I most graciously tried to remove the blemish with my wing, removing about $0.05 worth of paint. Unfortunately Jeff's airplane needed this paint to fly, and mine didn't fly well with the additional paint, so we drifted back over the fence (translation: I somehow overtook Jeff in the vertical and smacked into him). All humor aside, we tangled pretty good, and by the time the gyrations had stopped we had blown back over the road and were too low to recover. I landed in the street and Jeff landed on the cliff side shoulder, and both of us sustained major damage. With another 50 ft of altitude both of us might have made it, but not today. I'm thankful neither of us hit a car or person. Someone apparently drove over my wingtip while in the road - I'll leave that on the wing as a reminder that Fermin is a pretty serious place to deal with. The final score is that my fuse is probably repairable but I'll lay up a new one. Wing and tail are salvageable with minor dings. Jeff's fuse looked OK but his wing is broken at both servo bays. Dang. Both of us are talking about the next time around and 10 minutes of Jart time is enough to convince me that it's worth the time and effort.
Nauga,
with plenty of altitude above him and runway behind him..
-A-Part by Marty
of the group build Jarts have now flown. All three are either dead or in need of some serious lovin' too. 