ANOTHER BERG SECRET WEAPON

It really is the time of year one one can get down to a little research and development, while the PROJECT STILLETO is still on going, there are others in our midst who are also busy. These spy photos have not been published anywhere to date
so this is a BERGBLOG scoop .












Notice the near eliptical wing planform considered in theory to be the ideal

















It looks good hope it flys well
The paparazzi will try to scoop more for you so watch this space.

Top SA Glider Pilot To Give RC Gliding Clinic at BERG.

Craig Goodrum will conduct a RC gliding clinic at the BERG field
on Sunday the 3rd of Dec.

After many years of flying and wining competitions Craig will
tell us all about it from setting up our gliders to trimming them,
how to read the condition, landing patterns and will also answer
any questions that you might have.

Whether you are serious about RC gliding or just want to improve
your postal score be their on Sunday. Bring our plane and winch
along as we will still fly as per normal and a frequency peg board
will be available.

There is no charge for this and every body is welcome.
The gate will be open from 9.30 on.

PS. Bring your own refreshments along if you are staying for the day.

BERG Blog register 1000 + hits

In a very short space of 3 months our BERG blog site has
nock up 1000 visits.

In the last few days the hit counter started ticking over
like a clock. This could be because of links added to the
SAMAA blog and also to the BLOG host ( automatic
notification when the BERG blog gets updated).

To all our visitors and viewers out on the net, we thank
you for visiting our BLOG and hope that you find the
content of our BERG blog informative and interesting.

In the last week or so, Mike May have showed us how
to make a plug for a 3 meter Thermal RC glider.

I, for one has followed it and found it very informative
and interesting. If this ship is going to fly like it looks like,
then we are in for a treat. Thanks Mike, keep up the good
work and keep on Bloging!!!



















Mike May (Author of Stilleto article)

STILLETO PART 4

So the weekend has arrived , a good time to spray outdoors in good light, by now the epoxy coated plug has been waterpapered to a smooth finish, and most of the hollows and bumps taken care of. The materials are shown on the left as follows, a glass bottle to mix paint in, in this case 2 x paint to 1 x harderner , always wear gloves the harderner contains isocyanate a cyanide based compound not good for you. Your favourite spray gun , I like the gravity feed touch up gun shown, some mixing sticks, 2k or lacquer thinners and a good mask of course.


Spray in a well ventilated area if it looks like rain or there is moisture about, it could give poor results, altough these are not final coats , remember to build up layers smoothly and evenly.

The 2k with a fast harderner will flash of in about 15 minutes, so I alternate between 2 or more projects ,that need sraying in this case VENTUS 2CX, while one is drying the other is being srayed. Tip mix the 2k properly and let stand for a few minutes, then mix in thinners about 20 percent so that it drips off the mixing stick like water, then spray, if it is still to runny let it stand a while longer, an orange peel effect comes from to little pressure or not enough thinner.

If you are going to add finishing touches like the streamlined shroud for the rudder control, mould it on with body filler sand to shape prior to spraying, remember all shapes need to be smooth ,and be able to release from a mould.

The results are now very pleasing but still require another round of wet sanding now with 600 grit and a final coat which will be polished prior to moulding , remember this plug will be accurately reproduced so if you are not happy with the finish keep working on it, it is 90 percent perspiration and 10 percent inspiration, next we start preparing the wing .

Hang glider makes out landing on BERG field

With a light to moderate E to NE wind yesterday the hang gliding guys were flying on the krugers Dorp Ridge( far left of picture) and the wind was
sufficient to keep them up for 20 min plus.

The pilot in this case decided to land on our
field. This is the second time that it happened and the distance flown is about 4Km.

That’s 4 times more that Evan and myself did with our Zagies from the ridge behind Evan's
house. (Sterkfontein Slope).

How about one of these Mike? (GBOGH).

STILLETO PART 3

Bond verticle fin on with sikadur epoxy try get it as verticle as possible using the centre line and wing seat as a referance, the wing seat can still be adjusted with filler to closely match the airfoil
profile.















The tail is now flared onto the fuselage and then sanded back to a smooth shape, at this point the sanding is all by hand with a sanding block, cool looking shark fin.















The basic fuselage shape will now be coated with z-poxy made by zap and a mixture of micro baloons and aerosil thickerner to about syrup consistancy, always wear gloves and clean up with acetone.














The epoxy soaks into the wood which can now be wet sanded with a 220 grit to a smooth finish,any small defects can also be filled again with the epoxy mix.















The finish is starting to take shape , the finely sanded blemish free plug will shortly be sprayed with a 2k gloss paint and when perfect, be ready for moulding. more next week.

STILLETO FUSELAGE MOVING ALONG

By now the two halfs are bonded together the differrent colour wood helps to work to the centre line. sand and plane a little at a time and check for high spots with a straight edge. An artistic flair also helps.








once the original marking lines are work of keep marking areas that need work with a felt marker.

















start sanding curves with a belt sander never a disc sander about 100 grit
















fill with feather light polyester body filler , tip mix about a table spoon at a time as it goes off within 5 minutes , smooth it on with a piece of card.
















start roughing out superwood tailfin try use the redder type again plane and sand out rough use a template to fill.
















next we will attach the tailfin.

PHOTO JOURNAL STILLETO BUILD

AS PROMISED PHOTO JOURNEL OF STILLETO BUILD

BASIC TOOLS AND WOOD

CHOOSE TWO SHADES OF WOOD

BOND WOOD WITH SIKADUR EPOXY

ACCURATELY CLAMP AND LET CURE

ONCE READY WE WILL MARK OUT AND MEASURE DIMENSIONS BEFORE PLANING AND SANDING OUT ROUGH SHAPE

NEXT PHOTOS TO FOLLOW

PROJECT STILLETO

About a year ago I decided an attempt at my own design moulded gliderIt was called a PATHFINDER and was a learning exercise in epoxy,composites, mould making, and flying.Not only the reward of flying your own design but independance and scale of economy make this route attractive . The PATHFINDER was born and with successes and failures along the way it was / is fairly pleasant to fly, however the desire to build something better has led to project STILLETO a more sophisticated design but still easy to accomplice with limited tools and materials.
To ensure a reasonable amount of success the airfoil is the well proven MH32 with its wide speed range , the wing plan form has a parallel centre section and tapered tips both moulded in one mould. The aim here is to prduce a set of wing moulds which can provide a 2 mtr slope/thermal ship, a 3.5 mtr thermal duration ship and by using two centre sections a 4.5 mtr cross country or light condition thermal glider.
As the building progresses I plan to post a series of photos showing the steps used, I build with the limited tools and resources available and many methods are not as per the conventional ways but work if you take care in the form preparation.
I would welcome any thoughts ,questions or constructive criticism as I progress as these gliders form part of a development to be more competitive during 2007/2008 and put the BERG club at the top.

regards Mike

HTL 2006 Results -Team BERG bag 2 out of 3 Class wins

After the rain washed out HTL #6 (Vaal triathlon) we had to
wait and see how the postal results would impact on the final
outcome, and it certainly did have a few surprises in stock for
us.

As usual the open class were fiercely contested, but here our
top pilots Craig and Michelle Goodrum(from the MMS club)
showed us the way. In the other 2 classes namely the 2 Meter
and RES100 the BERG Team and the home brew Tsotsi's
dominated the scene.

We hope to see more pilots in the RES100 class next year as
there were not much competition in this class.

I would like to thank every one at BERG for there efforts that
they have put in to achieveing this results, and here a must single
out Evan as he gave us the Tsotsi design glider(and also help
build them) that can most of time's hold it's own even against
bigger and more efficient 3 meter ships.

The Results as for BERG was as follows:

Open class:

Place------------- Pilot-------------- Plane--------------------Score

6----------------- P. Rheeders------Tsotsi 100"---------------4492
7 -----------------M. May-----------Pathfinder/Ellips---------4380
10----------------E. Shaw-----------Tostsi,Makulu,Songololo--3991

Club :
place 3rd overall-------------------------------------- Score 4975

RES100 class:

Place ----------Pilot------------ Plane--------------------Score

1 -------------P. Rheeders -------Tsotsi 100" ------------4978
3 ------------ E. Shaw------------Tostsi------------------3352
5------------- P. Joffe------------Tostsi------------------2272

----------------------------------------------------------------

2 Meter class:

Place----------- Pilot------------- Plane--------------- Score

1----------------E. Shaw----------Tostsi----------------3870
5----------------P. Joffe----------Tostsi----------------2290
6----------------G. Prahm--------Spirit----------------2003

Here are some photos Evan took at the HTL#2 this year.

HTL comes to a raining end.

The clear sky that we needed yesterday but was not to be !!!

The Vaal Triathlon was cancelled yesterday due to heavy rain , and all 6 league events (4 x HTL’s, Nationals and Postals) will now be considered to calculate the final scores for the year, irrespective of the number of HTL events the pilot flew in.

If the last event was flown, it could have well been another humdinger as many pilots would pushed hard to improve there final position in the rankings.
All this is now up to the postal scores as to determine the final outcome of the HTL league.

Some estimated calculations has shown that it is still possible for the BERG team to have 2 or more of our members in the top 10 positions.

The final results could be announced this week when the postal scores are expected.

The overall individual scores will still be calculated on the basis of the best 5 events. Club scores will still be calculated based on all available scored events.

Camera Technology helps with F3K Launching

Sunday morning saw the last day of this years postals and it
started out over cast and windy.
I had one trim flight with my 100" Tsotsi and then the wait
began for the conditions to improve.

In the mean time Stephane was practicing his F3k launching
technique.

So at the spur of the moment I took my digital camera and
started taking sequence shots of him running up and launching.

After every few launches we replay the photo shots and according
to Stephane it defiantly did help him to get a more ' power full' launch.

Here are one of the sequence’s that we used to analyze Stephane's
Launching method. You can click on the picture to make it bigger, and
once it opens you can
fill the screen by clicking
again in the right hand
bottom of the picture.





















Setphane sent me and e-mail below with the results of the launches as logged on
his on board data logger and on this screen shot one can clearly see the improvements.

Fw: dlg

-------Original Message------- From: Stephane Date: 11/12/06 13:28:39 To: Piet Rheeders Subject: dlg Hello Piet, I have had a significant improvement in launch height with the simpler "golf" technique of about 5 - 10 m . Towards the end I was getting between 45-50m. I will have to see if it is still better with no wind . Thanks for your help, Stephane

New members in action at BERG

Kevern Upton assisted by Evan Shaw on the winch launch on Sunday 5/11/06.


We had a good turnout on Sunday with some good early morning weather.
Later on in the day however it became more difficult to find and ride the thermals as the wind picked up and at one stage came all most from the south.

Good to see the new members more often. Here are some more pictures taken on Sunday.

Postal competition 2006 draws to an end In Nov

Postal Competition at the old BERG Field


The next 2 Sunday's in this month will see the last round ( round 4 ) of the postal competition for this year . Up to now BERG member's have done well with a possible 2 to 3 members in the top 10, country wide. Only 3 of the 4 round's are used to obtain the result.

This wil be your last chance to improve your score for this years postal’s so hope we have good weather and scores on Sunday.

BERG Results Up to Aug 2006.

7thP.Rheeders i'Tsotsi 100 4285
13th E.Shaw Shongo/Tsotsi 4177
15th M.May Ellipse 4154
21st W.Steffny 3912
23rd P.Eagle 3856
24th P.Rheeders (2 meter) 3832
26th P.Joffe 3566
38th T.Roberts 2033
41st E.Shaw ( 2 meter) 1773
47th C.Viviers 1274
48th G Prahm 1270


Club Score

1: MMS 13440
2: DMAC 13231
3: SSC 12207
4: BERG 11883