Kits OLY IIS Kit!!!

[Chris O'Hara]

Look what came in the mail today!!!! My OLY IIS kit by Sky Bench!! I know, I still need to finish the last kit I bought, but this one should be awesome! I'm going to build it with the optional spoilers so that it will be competition ready for next year if I get the chance to go to an event. The level of completeness of the kit is VERY high. All the control rods, horns, and even an optional motor mount are included. The parts are all perfectly laser cut and the ribs for the wing come stacked and ready to go! I'm super excited about building this plane, it will likely become my new favorite!

 

[Tony]

Looks like it's going to be a fun build.

 

[Chris O'Hara]

I started working on the OLY again and I have some pictures (I need to find them and put them all in one place). I wish I had taken more, but I started working so fast I forgot to document it. It should be done just in time for some good weather for thermalling.

 

[Tony]

Sweet deal, can't wait to see it.

 

[Chris O'Hara]

Hey guys, you're probably wondering what happened with this kit build. Well, as you know, life gets in the way sometimes and projects get pushed aside for work or school or whatever. I lost interest in the building process (never in flying), so the plane continued to sit in its bones. Well, one day I walked in to the room to see a completed OLY IIS on my workbench Haha, all joking aside I got my act together and finished almost all of the covering today! I have some pictures somewhere of the in between process, but they are in a jungle of files Oh well, here is the almost ready to fly ship



My issue now is fitting the plane in my daily driver.....

- - - Updated - - -

Okay, this weak, but here is a photo of a wing not yet finished. Note the sheeting on the bottom of the wing. The original Olympic II as designed by Airtronics did not have a sheeted wing. Ray Hayes at Skybench redesigned it and made this the OLY IIS, with a D tube sheeted wing and an S 3014 airfoil. The original has a flat bottom wing, which he sells as well. If you're interested in builing a sailplane he is the guy you want to buy from, all his kits are very complete and laser cut.
SKYBENCH AEROTECH

 

[Chris O'Hara]

I finished covering the elevator and installed the tow hook for high start launches (or maybe some winch launches if I get lucky). I didn't look at the plans to set the cg, but decided to balance it on the spar and give it a hand launch glide test. The plane gracefully flew about 120 feet before I nosed her down...didn't want to fly into the street. Turns out the plans suggested the spar as the starting point for the cg. Hoping to maiden this awesome plane sometime next week. Until then I'm thinking about building a winch......anyone have a Ford long shaft starter motor?

 

[Derek]

WOW!! That is awesome!!! I hope you can get some good video of a high start launch and the glider flight. Best of luck buddy!!!

 

[Chris O'Hara]

Thanks! Hopefully it will get a good launch sometime in the coming week. Will try to remember to take video.

 

[Chris O'Hara]

The maiden voyage has been completed, everything went very smoothly and I am a happy camper.

 

[Chris O'Hara]

Decided to add three 6 1/3 inch wide white stripes to the underside of each wing. This will greatly improve my ability to tell the top from the bottom when it's in the air, which was the only problem on the maiden.

 

[Chris O'Hara]

Hey guys, I told you in my last post about the stripes for visibility, so here they are. You can see how much more contrast there will be in the air. There is also a picture of one of the spoilers open, and you can kind of see how they work. Basically with a microservo and a specially bent piece of music wire. Was not easy to get it bent to the right angle on both sides, but at least I had plenty of wire to work with

 

[Tony]

I have a feeling, when this is in teh air, your going to find that the white and yellow will blend together. If you find this, put black over the white. It will show up much better.

When we are going to see a video of this thing in the air???

 

[Chris O'Hara]

That was something I thought about, but since any colors blend together at over 1000 feet altitude I figured I just need enough contrast to tell up or down when I'm low to the ground. It's hard to explain why it's hard to tell orientation when the plane is lower, but that's the way it seems to be. Black would give better contrast, but to be honest the white stripes just look so cool!!

My next plane might be all white with red stripes on the bottom, I figure that would look good and be high visibility.

- - - Updated - - -

oh, and for video.....that one will have to happen soon. I have the problem of not having enough people around when I fly my sailplanes, maybe I should make a mount for my gopro to sit on my head

 

[Tony]

They already make one

 

[Chris O'Hara]

I'm too cheap to buy one!! An old bicycle helmet should do the trick. Even better would be a skate helmet, because they're smooth and I could probably use my suction cup mount.