The story of the J-DOG

This story is about a glider which was called the junkyard-dog or as Piet calls it the J-DOG.

Basically my son , has now reached the stage were he has mastered flying a Zaggi and a great trainer it has proved to be . (Remember Evan when I said I wouldn't ever fly one , I humbly apologise ,best airplane for the price, and great fun).

However Blake needs to move on , and he now flies a Hillbilly no problem , but is still a little unsure about landings.

AS his mentor and coach I know he needs to be provided with bigger and better planes, as his skill improves. But still keeping well within his crashes allowed budget.

So when I recently visited Peter to drop off some servo's ,I noticed a worn out Skybolt powerplane and a set of glider wings, HEY PETE WOTS THESE THEN ...oh those are going in the bin. No they are not, my kids can use these ,can I have them ?.....sure but they are junk.

I keep many of my crashed planes , and soon found a fuselage and a tailplane, some glass and epoxy, and some old red??? now can aged and mellowed OROS orange 2k and we started patching and painting.

The end result is an acceptable aileron trainer with excellent thermal flight characteristics, not sure of the airfoil, they were originally purple and yellow , with steel tube joiners built by Mr Evan Shaw.

I fitted a pair of old but working MG mini servo's in the wings and a R130 G-Tech four channel

Receiver, nothing to expensive for the J-DOG. Next was a flight test on the recent Volksrust trip.

Blake with the J-DOG

Some pre-flight photo's

Charl getting ready to throw.

Went out well and needed a little left trim, but everything about the flight was relaxed and easy, with no dual rates on the basic 4 channel , the aileron movement was responsive and yet not a handfull in the turns.

It flies nicely, and is very responsive to lift, however Blake is thrilled but says he does not want to fly it just yet, so if you have a plane/planes that need to be "junked" have a second glance at them , maybe you can give them one more life ....on the slope.

Cheers
Mike