Gruse BG15/1 1930s motor glider prototype
Posted: 23 Mar 2020, 13:15
This attractive little plane was featured as a 48" span free flight design by Kurt Schnittke in the 1958 Aeromodeller Annual (the one with a Fokker DR1 on the cover, and yes, I did buy it when it was published). He called it the Rossiten AS but the correct designation for the aircraft was Gruse BG15/1 and I gather only one was made by Herr Gruse. Back in 2005 I modified it for RC rudder/elevator/motor indoor and light wind outdoor flying and had the plan published in Aviation Modeller International (AMI). The plan was taken up by a number of modellers and there is a short build discussion https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthr ... 28Gruse%29. Whether Charlie (portablevcb) still has the cut flies I don't know!
The scale of the drawings seems to be about 1:8. The 1930s picture with the man (Herr Gruse?) puts the wingtip about 40" off the ground (6" on the model), which puts the span at between 26 and 30 ft but documentation puts it at 10.8 metres, 33'6". A quarter scale model would be about 96” span.
There is a 2014 German build log for this aircraft, with at least four versions in different colour schemes. It seems certain that the registration D-YGYF was carried and the colour scheme was red over white, with a couple of detail variations and engine types documented on page 2 of the log.
Last year I built a new version at 68” span with ailerons and no dihedral, as scale. I've flown it a number of times and found that it flies best with a 3-cell 1300 battery placed as far back as you can under the pilot's seat. In this way she climbs strongly (for a 1930s motor-glider) and has a very reasonable glide, even tipping a wing in the right thermal conditions. She's a lot of fun to fly in tight spaces and an interesting shape.
The original free plan and lots more details are on my RC Groups thread here https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpos ... stcount=30
The scale of the drawings seems to be about 1:8. The 1930s picture with the man (Herr Gruse?) puts the wingtip about 40" off the ground (6" on the model), which puts the span at between 26 and 30 ft but documentation puts it at 10.8 metres, 33'6". A quarter scale model would be about 96” span.
There is a 2014 German build log for this aircraft, with at least four versions in different colour schemes. It seems certain that the registration D-YGYF was carried and the colour scheme was red over white, with a couple of detail variations and engine types documented on page 2 of the log.
Last year I built a new version at 68” span with ailerons and no dihedral, as scale. I've flown it a number of times and found that it flies best with a 3-cell 1300 battery placed as far back as you can under the pilot's seat. In this way she climbs strongly (for a 1930s motor-glider) and has a very reasonable glide, even tipping a wing in the right thermal conditions. She's a lot of fun to fly in tight spaces and an interesting shape.
The original free plan and lots more details are on my RC Groups thread here https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpos ... stcount=30