Why the Alpha Club?

This was the first time I had bought a model aircraft through necessity. Normally, I see something I like and buy it whether I need it or not. This time was different. My trusty old Apex 100" thermal soarer was getting tired, (after 13 years of service), and the brittle ABS fuselage had a few too many repairs to the tail end. With the club bungee league looming, it was time to start looking around at what was available. My model had to be ARTF, as a new baby, house move etc, meant very little building time. After my previous experience with plastic fuselages, I decided that the next glider would have to be something strong and easily repairable. Oh, one other thing, it had to be inexpensive. The last thing I wanted was for me to turn up with a state of the art all-moulded ship, costing several hundred pounds. The success of our competition is greatly to do with the fact that a relative beginner could turn up and win a round with an ARTF 2-channel glider and basic radio gear.

The Alpha Club seemed to fit the bill better than most. In fact there was little else that came close to the criteria a had set, so I bit the bullet and ordered one from Model & Hobby World in Lancaster.

What's in the box?

When I first opened the box I was very pleased with amount of pre-fabrication of the kit, and expected to have it finished over the weekend. This however is never the case as I should know by now!

A beautiful GRP fuselage is the first thing to attract my attention, and typically for Multiplex the quality is superb. Strong, light, nice and straight; surely this won't take long to screw together. Snake outers are already installed for you making construction a tad simpler.

The wing is ready made and covered to a high standard, consisting of a centre section and two tips, giving a polyhedral wing. The three-piece configuration of wing is my favourite. With a nice strong centre section and tip joiners that are stronger than the main joiners of the apex, I feel I can stretch the bungee just that little bit more, and two more paces can make all the difference in a competition. Interestingly the construction is mainly built up balsa, but with an obechi-skinned polystyrene D-box. I suppose this makes the most vulnerable part of the wing more durable.

The tail feathers are from balsa sheet, and are fully built and covered. The rather large tailplane is removable making transportation easier.

The build.

The first job was to install the tow hook, before all that radio gear restricts access. This is simply a case of epoxying a hardwood block on the inside of the fuz to spread the load, and then pre-drilling and screwing in the supplied towhook. Job done.

Next the (carbon-look) canopy. There's not much to do here, just the gluing in of a length of piano wire, which retains the canopy (see pic).

The wing joiners are 6mm steel rods. The tubes are all built in, but the wooden dowel incidence pegs need trimming to length and gluing in place. That sounds simple enough, and it would be if the pegs lined up with the matching holes on the centre panel! I decided that the repeated assembly and dis-assembly of the wing would cause the holes, which are simply drilled into the balsa, to wear, causing poor alignment. So the solution was to drill out the holes a little large, pop a piece of snake outer over the dowels, apply the glue CAREFULLY, and push the wing together, making sure everything is lined up. A little Vaseline smeared onto the dowel prevented accidental gluing to the snake.

The simplest, cheapest and most effective way of retaining the tips in flight is to tape them on. I just use electricians tape and it has yet to fail me. This is also the best option aerodynamically.

The removable tailplane is virtually finished, leaving the builder with the simple jobs of gluing a locating dowel in the leading edge, and attaching the elevator by means of good old diamond tape. The lowest part of the fin is incorporated in the fuz moulding making alignment a doddle. A little filing of the seam on the inside the fuz meant the fin was a perfect fit, cyano was my choice for securing the fin, and 5-min epoxy was carefully dripped down the fuz from the tail end to make reinforcing fillets where the fin meets the bottom of the fuz.

The wing is ready covered, but the ailerons and optional flaps need to be cut away from the wing and hinged. I opted for both ailerons and flaps, and used the recommended Multiplex MS-X3 mini servos to drive them. These servos are fast, smooth, powerful and affordable. Plug over. The servos were wrapped in a little masking tape and glued directly in the servo bays. To save time and avoid mistakes while setting up the model I used a 9-pin D connector (available from computer shops) to connect up the four wing servos to the receiver. Yes your right; 4 servos with 3 wires each is 12 wires. No problem, use a common +ive and -ive supply per wing with a signal wire for each individual servo, so you end up with a total of 8 wires.

The control surface deflections were set up as per the instructions, but I was concerned that the small ailerons may not be powerful enough for such a large wing. So thanks to the wonders of computer transmitters, the flaps were coupled up in such a manner that as the right aileron goes up 100%, the right flap goes up 50%, and the left flap remains still. The opposite obviously applies with left aileron input. The centre of gravity was too rearward so a chunk of lead was cast to the correct shape and epoxied into the nosecone.

Standard size servos were used in the fuz, and were just screwed onto ramin bearers, which were held in place with epoxy and micro balloons. All the linkages for the control surfaces were connected up to the servos and the Alpha Club was ready to take to the skies.

Flying.

After a couple of hand launches to roughly check the trim I headed straight for the bungee (via the hedge). Nothing much to say really, I could have put the transmitter on the floor for the launch. She went up the line straight as a die, and up elevator stretched that bungee back above my head. The Alpha Club gained as much height as any other model on the day (if not more) and behaved impeccably. But I was right about those ailerons! Even with the flap assistance the roll rate was very slow; I certainly wouldn't be as confident throwing it into a low level circuit on finals as I would be with the rickety old Apex. The model is very stable in flight with little tendency to buffet in the gusts, so you shouldn't need loads of aileron authority anyway, just fly accordingly.

Since the test flight I set 3 different flying "modes" on a 3 position switch.
These are as follows:

1. Ailerons and flaps up (around 15°) for penetrating back upwind or to escape sink.
2. Ailerons and flaps level for normal flight and landings.
3. Ailerons and flaps down (around 15°) for launching in light winds.

Additionally, when landing, the flaps are actuated progressively with the throttle stick, and as the flaps drop to 90°, the ailerons are raised to roughly 20°. Beware, with this set up, when the flaps are fully deployed you are left with very little aileron control, so be prepared to take over with the rudder if necessary.

Conclusion.

After a season's flying, and competing in our club bungee competition, I can honestly say this is the best thermal soarer I have ever owned. Despite a fairly thick wing section and broad chord, the Alpha Club manages to penetrate very well, even managing to shake off an Algebra in a 20mph+ comp (when the Apex would definitely be grounded). Also in zero wind, she was out launching everything in sight, thanks in no small way to the aileron/flap deflection, and could be slowed right down to make the most of small patches of lift.

Around £150 for the airframe, ready built and covered, has to mean great value for money. I would heartily recommend this model to just about anyone interested in thermal soaring, and I'm sure it could embarrass many a more exotic machine.

Many thanks to Mark Nickson for the review

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