Top Flite Antares - Manual

RC-31 INSTRUCTION MANUAL
INTRODUCTION
TOP FLITE is proud to present the ANTARES, a multi task
capable, Standard Class sailplane that was designed
expressly to take a lot of the "mystery" out of flatwing,
aileron-equipped configurations and at the same time
offer you new levels of soaring capabilities There is no
denying that national and international competition has
made its' presence known at even the club-level of con-
test work The airfoil work alone has provided most of us
with capabilities in a wide variety of weather conditions
that just a few short years ago were unheard of Of course
t h e r e is a lot more going on than just airfoil work The top
U S and foreign R/C sailplane pilots long ago realized
that FAI - F3B competition was extremely hard on air-
frames, in particularthe speed portion of the three-event
format. This one aspect of the F3B competitions has
spurred a great deal of work in the areas of wing construc-
tion and spar engineering This to withstand the tremend
ous loads imposed on the wings during fully-ballasted
launches using extremely strong winches Work in this
area, particularly in Europe, has gone into the use of
exotic materials and methods that, for most of us, are
simply too costly and time consuming to even consider
All of this brings us to the reasons behind the design of
the ANTARES The design had to be efficient We were
looking for, and feel we have achieved, a tremendous
glide ratio with the ANTARES by use of a combination of
the top polars of the Eppler 193 "married" to the bottom
plots of the Eppler 205 and adding flaps to this combina
tion These flaps, as well as the rest of the controls, are
driven by a single servo in the fuselage with very simple
and straight-forward cable and tube connections This
airfoil was designed expressly for the use of flaps and we
think you will find that their use provides you with the
kind of control over the airplane that you have not ex
penenced before Our experience has been that these
flaps provide very tall, non critical launchesoneven the
weakest of launch devices, very precise speed control
during flight and remarkable glide path control during
the landing phase If you feel for any reason that you are
paying some kind of "penalty" in the use of flaps, con
sider the above If you feel that spoilers may be superior
to flaps, consider that the servo required is only of use
during one aspect of the total flight—landing, while the
servo required for the use of these flaps provides im
provement and modification of the total flight.
The ANTARES uses both ailerons and rudder (coupled) to
provide extremely flat, precise turning capability. We
discovered early on with the prototypes that we were
comfortably working light I lift at much lower altitudes and
distances than we would have ever done with our poly-
hedral ships and still making it easily back to the spot
when the time came We also found that wind became
much less of a factor in our thinking when making the
ever present "continue to thermal or return" decision.
With the reflexing capability of the flaps, returning to the
spot at high speed, even from low altitudes, certainly
bought us more time to work lift
You will also notice on the plans that we have shown the
optional installation of four Estes BT 5 rockettube bodies,
two in each wing panel on each side of the spar structure.
These are used to introduce lead ballast into the airframe,
thus increasing your wing loading and therefore your
speed and or ability to penetrate This feature, relatively
easy to do, has been incorporated into all of our proto-
types and used to good advantage on more than one
occasion The wing structure when built to the plans, will
support this increase of weight and you will have yet
another tool to work with in your flying There is more on
this aspect of the design in the Ballasting section of this
manual
A word about the radios that may or may not be suitable
for this design In this day and age of specialization it
simply is not possible to set-up a design such as the
ANTARES to carry every radio system currently or histori-
cally on the market Most of the radios currently on the
market, with the use of standard small or micro servos
will fit and work with the ANTARES CHECK YOUR RADIO
SYSTEM FIRST FOR SIZE AND FIT BEFORE STARTING
CONSTRUCTION Secondly, radio systems which are
equipped with such features as electronic RUDDER/
AILERON mixing servo reversing and, of less impor-
tance but a nicety non the less, EPA or "end point ad-
justment , tend to be great for this design If your radio
does not have RUDDER AILERON mixing, you will have
to do one of three things, 1. Obtain and install an elec-
tronic mixer such as ACE R/C's Christy Mixer", 2.
mechanically (with linkage) connect the rudder to the
aileron servo using a modified servo output arm or 3.
learn to fly the airplane uncoupled, co-ordinating both
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