Me 163B radio controlled model
Beni Lörtscher from Switzerland kindly sent the following report of his 1.4 meter span Topp-Rippin model. His own model is now under construction, but he has flown a similar model of a colleague. It flies extremely well, it is very fast, it is extremely stable ("flies like on railroad tracks"), responds in a harmonic way, and flies standard aerobatics maneuvers very well. It's one of the best RC aircraft he knows.
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Contrary to the excellent performance, the building process is not so much fun. The quality of the glass-fibre fuselage parts is bad, and the fuselage-wing fit requires lots of fiddling to get it right, and to make it strong enough. But it is all worth it in the end. | ||
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A rear view, showing the wooden wings with near full-span elevons (ailerons-elevators). | ||
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The weight with Beni's equipment is 2.8 kg. The engine will be a Rossi 60 of 2.8hp. Beni reports that this engine produces a very loud sound; you can hear it coming from a distance of 2 kilometers. It's almost like an F1 race car. This will make local people not very happy, but it is a lot of fun! | ||