As a youngster in the late 1960s, I was intrigued and inspired by Keil Kraft models, and Mercury was another favourite....Even today they have a certain something not found in modern models....🤔🤔😳😳😷😷
Fabulous ! The original free flight Invader was first balsa model I ever built when I was about 12. Used to fly it from the tops of big sand dunes on Ainsdale Beach...it went for miles ! Happy days.
Really like the intro and close ups at the beginning, I built a free flight invader a few months ago, your video reminded me on how difficult those oval winglets on the tail were to cover!!
I think this is the best format from you so far. No problems with speech (I'm Russian and understood every word), cheerfull on camera plus the gliding in the end - perfect!
No words!!! John's video's are my favorite thing to watch ! I don't enjoy anything on youtube or television more. Magnificent! Thanks again John. Will- Glider guiders
I remember the KK Invader, in fact ALL the Kiel Kraft stuff pretty much. These dual control wings work brilliantly. I can see this working with increasingly small gliders, I mean, those tiny blue micro servos are pretty light, the possibilities for this and other branches of aeromodeling just keep on expanding.. Nice one John, hoping the move is going well for you and your wife. ⭐👍
When I first saw the film about this model I was wondering how the heck you made the pitcherons!!!!! work, seems simple is always the best plus you wouldn't have to worry about the CAA with the minimal weight of the glider! Hats off to you sir and thanks for sharing and your good lady for filming, regards from Alan in south Yorkshire 👍🤗
liked the new first part. But always enjoyed the silent version also. My request is to split them in two separate videos. There is something so nice about a short silent video of a glider that I dont want changed.
Thank you John. Nice to see the man behind the sticks. Your normal videos are so fantastic; the music choices, camera work, editing. The flying isn't bad either. Getting a look behind the scenes is nice too.
May I say that I am amazed at your brilliant imagination and skill. Thank you so much for sharing so many of your positively inspirational artistry. 71 year old from Colorado Springs, Colorado
Thanks yet again, John. Having seen your original video, I bought one of the Ripmax laser-cut kits as a Christmas present to myself from my wife. This was an "authorised purchase" as I had shown her your video and she was fair taken with the model! I plan to fit a little electric motor in the nose as I had had great fun flying a little 47 gram Radian UMX off our local sea-wall, which acts as a little slope in gentle Westerlies. The slope of the beach at low tide is about 10 feet and the wall is about 4 feet high, so I was able to drift the Radian along at about the level of my feet, back and forth along the beach. Most relaxing, although the motor was much appreciated in marginal conditions as landing on the fine sand really messed up the tiny motor and linear servos. The wee Radian's in the shed, awaiting a refurbishment, which always seems to be too low a priority. I can do the same thing with my 2 meter Radian, but only when the place is absolutely deserted as it looks rather intimidating to others! I find the lighter aircraft much more socially acceptable to others, particularly when they see they're hand-launched, fly slowly and sedately and - when I'm on song - landing back in my hands. Walkers would come up to me and chat away, fascinated by the ability to control these things, and not be at all intimidated by the aircraft. That's all changed, of course, by the post-Gatwick situation, but it'll be nice to follow your pitcheron lead and bring in a new sub-250 gram model to the party.
Fantastic stuff. I put one of the UMX units in my tiny Lazy Bee but I was thinking of building something else to put it in. I’m just not sure what yet..
Hey John, Congratulations on the last two videos. Brilliant. Great format, hope you continue to go from strength to strength with subscribers and viewers. I know of one plane you built that doesn't appear on your lawn, once the lockdown is finished it's all yours. Look forward to more of your videos. Take care John. Brad
Adding my vote for the explanation/introduction segment. You have a fine speaking voice; you are succinct and intelligible. I saw your video where you showed your shop and I enjoyed that one, as well. I would like to see how the wingeronervator hinge is made. How do you keep the wing on? Currently working on a Super Condor ff towline glider and considered converting to r/c. Thanks for the wonderful videos!
John, thank you soooooo much for revisiting the invader by Kelley Craft !!! I finally found a clean PDF file to do the blow up of ... As soon as I can get to the copy store get it printed ... I'll be building one ... Thank you so much ... Loved the music - the wife does really well filming editing and making you look good ... Bless her heart!! Happy Easter and please be safe ... Ed in Phoenix writes
John, I have made similar mods to my full sized Bird of Time. I make a stout center section with 2 HD wingeron servos and in so I eliminated the central dihedral angle, though the tip panel angles are unchanged. This wing has been fitted to a fiberglass fuselage, slated for a 100" competition powered sailplane. I used the original BoT rudder with the t-tail fuse, and for a stab I repurposed a pylon racer wing (upside down). It flies very well, but I've only flown it with RET control as of yet. Cheers.
Your channel keeps getting better. Can you tell us the nature of the wing pivots? Carbon tube in fuselage, brass tube in wings? Any sense of tightening in turns? What keeps the wings from sliding outwards in flight? Quite understand if you don't want to reveal.
It’s perfectly okay. Like you thought, it’s a carbon spar with brass wing tubes. There is nothing stopping the wing sliding off other than the servo push rods. There is no great load on anything so it’s perfectly sufficient.
Decades in "powered" kit (fixed and multi) - I recall many CG Gentle Lady designs of the 50's always a joy - but rather "fragile" as well. Like what you did here articulating the lifting surface! Remnants of the old Curtis "wing-warp" - orig activated by the pilot's shoulders' leaning to bank! Switching to LiPo cells will cut battery weight in half or better -
You once asked about taking requests for you to build a model...I TOTALLY have one for you. The Klinberg Wing. It, like most wings has its own very distinct flying characteristics. It's unusual in the way it has a very light wing loading and ~usually light wing loading planes don't penetrate very well. This one is different. It's fairly fast and most of the banks are rather steep when flying, but it has excellent energy retention. It's also a bit tricky to fly...but it seems like a plane that would fit in your Airforce Armada! Just a suggestion. Check it out, you might like it.
Interesting to see John however long since we tried this, already in the 70's ... The one who brought it the longest was Mats Strömberg who just flew this way ...
Hi John, I am making this particular model at the moment and am really impressed by your conversion and I am inspired to do a similar build. I am a complete novice at RC stuff but want to get further in to it, so can I ask what transmitter and receiver you are using please to achieve the pitcheron control? Can it be achieved on any Spektrum transmitter? Also I have built the Keil Kraft free flight Dolphin some time ago which I find flies really well; do you think this might be a good model to also RC convert? Your video is excellent by the way and well put together. Thanks.
hi John, this is exactly the sort of thing I meant when I asked about the conversion of these free flight models.. I'm guessing that very very little movement was needed on the pitcherons, maybe 1 or 2 mm ? i have converted the Keil Kraft Caprice kit to radio control and have a 1.5 times Keil Kraft Dolphin that I have been working on for a while now.
Have you ever made an RC conversion of a Veron Classic? One of my first 'proper' builds many many moons ago. I have often thought of scaling it up and converting to RC, might even work well as built with small gear.
Genius way to get around that...although it seemed like it is a bit...for lack of a better word..."twitchy" compared to conventional rudder/ elevator controls. Like seeing you in front of the camera. You would make a great presenter. Do you have formal aeronautical training or are you self taught? You are very knowledgeable and creative. The "Mike Patey" of RC gliders!
Thank you John, that was really interesting. The controls are so unconventional and it still flies so sweetly. Then again with your thumbs I think you can make most aircraft fly well. How does it feel compared to say the Sinbad ?
Thanks Anthony. The big scaled up Invader almost the same size as the Sinbad and actually feels very similar to fly. However, the standard sized one is completely different. A small glider will never be as efficient and gets bumped around by every little gust.
Great video! I’m about to follow in your footsteps and have got my build 75% finished :-) How would you feel about making the wingspan 16.5cm longer (in addition to your modification)? I.e. adding one more rib on each side? Intuitively the tailplane looks big enough for that - or do you think I would end up with pitch instability?
Hi there and good luck with the rest of the build. I think it would be fine making the wing slightly bigger. The original freeflight design had to be stable in flight, hence the large tail area.
Outstanding, John. But no idea how you've kept the additional weight of the r/c gear plus battery down to an additional 20gms? Please tell us what Rx and servos you've used. Also, presumably a small lipo (180mAh or even 300mAh) would be as good or better than the small NiMH? I have my Pitcheron Invader half built, which because our club field is flat will need a motor and ESC also. But it would still be good to know what you have used? Thanks for your terrific idea!
Hi there and thank you. The weight of the flight battery takes the place of the lead weight in the original freeflight model, so doesn’t add any additional weight. It’s only really the two servos at 6 grams each and a micro receiver.
Having another look on my PC large monitor and can see its the old angled rod and tubes in the wings....I could also get a good look at the servos connectors now.... My Samsung Tab means I cant see details very well....Thanks Laurie
@@SlopeRCGliders Thank you! Nice to not over complicated things. I'm in lockdown plane experimenting mode in preparation to returning to cornwall in the summer.
It would definitely work well on pitch control. The roll response may be limited because the tail is narrower than the wing. I guess there is only one way to find out.. I have seen people convert the foam ‘Lidl Glider’ to RC and place the ailerons inboard of the wing dihedral. They found that the ailerons wouldn’t roll the aircraft because they weren’t at the wing tips.
It’s okay on a small model like this but on a larger or faster model you need a strong spar for the wing to rotate round. The forces on the wing are high so you need really strong servos and it’s hard to set it all up with no slop and not too much friction.
Was this Kraft guy the same person that made the Kraft Radio's? Really old school and wouldn't surprise me. I knew people 40 years ago that still had Kraft Radio's and used them in R/C.
Excellent. My late Brother who used to fly both RC and the full Gliders would have liked this. Have you looked at building an Albatross , painted to match, on the same principle as this. Keep the vertical stabilizers clear. That would one almost statistical "bird" i flight.
Derek Pirie I have tried toying with some bird designs in the past, never with much luck. However, I never thought about controlling it by the wings. It could work well.
I used to build these Keil Kraft ‘chuck’ gliders long ago, but I keep looking at the model and thinking that the one I preferred had a single tail, does anyone know what version that might have been?
Might have been a Keil Kraft Chief, like the one I have nearing completion in my garage. It's a free flight model but having seen this video I'm now windering whether it would be practicable to convert it to R/C with pitcherons same as John's Invader conversion.
Jhon holly cow thays awesome brother. 👌 where can i get a set plans or should i get the kit and blow up how mutch your recomnd on size wize your Genius brother 💯💯💯🧠🧠🦾🦾🦾🦾
