Radio Control: Soaring
The Airtronics name has played a significant part in Soaring during the last three decades. Lee Renaud's designs, especially the Aquila and Sagitta, have become classics. As contemporary glider design marched on, those designs became dated, and were discontinued. The advent of Nostalgia class has sparked new interest in some of these old designs. Nostalgia class allows pre-1980 designs to compete against each other in a separate "antique glider" class. Jack Iafret, the creator of the Nostalgia rules, intentionally set the cutoff at designs that were kitted or published before January 1, 1980, to exclude the Airtronics Sagitta. The Sagitta had many of the key features of modern designs.
Radio Control: Soaring
Thanks for choosing me as the new Soaring columnist. Who was it that said, "be careful what you wish for; you just might get it"? I will do my best to publish a variety of Thermal and Slope Soaring topics. Please send me interesting Soaring pictures with caption information. If you scratch-build, send me some photos, and explain what makes your airplane unique. Mike Fox placed first in Hand-Launched Glider at the 1998 Nationals. Not long ago I was visiting Davenport, Iowa and had the opportunity to see Mike test-fly his latest Hand-Launched Glider. He calls his new scratch-built creation the Focus. The Focus weighs 83/4 ounces, with rudder, elevator, and flaperon controls. It has a triple-taper composite vacuum-bagged wing. Mike used blue foam for the inner panels, and lighter gray foam for the tips. The airfoil is an SA7035 thinned to 7% thickness. The V-tail is also vacuum-bagged fiberglass over blue foam.
