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Albion 5m Electric soarer

All non-scale topis should go in here for discussion.
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Peter Balcombe
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Joined: 18 Mar 2015, 10:13
Location: Clevedon, North Somerset, U.K.

Re: Albion 5m Electric soarer

Post by Peter Balcombe »

John,
I suspect that your Albion fuselage/plan may be another model, coincidentally having the same name.
I am pretty sure the the John Hall one this thread is based on was always intended to have 5m ish wings.
However, I’m checking with John, so hope to be able to confirm whether he knows of a Neil Sleight version.
Peter
Last edited by Peter Balcombe on 22 Feb 2021, 22:22, edited 2 times in total.
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Peter Balcombe
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Location: Clevedon, North Somerset, U.K.

Re: Albion 5m Electric soarer

Post by Peter Balcombe »

John,
From John Halls’ recollections, it might just be that your fuselage is one of the original 1980’s ‘ish’ vintage that travelled to the U.S for competitions & stayed there/spawned a plan from Neil Sleight.

John says that he used to have a photo of about half a dozen Albion variants in California, with Robin Sleight, Rod Potts and Dave Charles among others whose names he cannot recall. They were there as a team and John believes they sold on the spare fuselages rather than ship them back to the U.K. John never saw any of the variant designs but the Albions primary purpose, at the time, was to facilitate “own design” models.

I attach an overhead shot of my fuselage showing how near parallel & flat the fuselage sides are in the rear hatch area. The fuselage there is certainly flat enough to seat the wing root ribs directly against the fuselage surface without a gap.
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John Treble
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Joined: 13 Jan 2021, 11:08
Location: Lyme Regis

Re: Albion 5m Electric soarer

Post by John Treble »

It's definitely a John Hall one. It says so on the plan, and looks very similar to yours. It might be that we just have a different concept of 'flat'! The unusual hatch over the wing seat is a clear pointer, as is the quite sharply raked rudder LE.
I've just noticed that somehow I wrote Neil where I should have written Robin. Sorry for confusing the matter.
I'll take some photos and post them later.
John Treble
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Joined: 13 Jan 2021, 11:08
Location: Lyme Regis

Re: Albion 5m Electric soarer

Post by John Treble »

Photos as promised. 1. This is how the plan for XC1 is described, XC2 is similar in shape, but different in detail and is claimed by Robin Sleight as his own design. They are both the same span, 4.14m (not 3.8 as I claimed earlier)
XC1 Plan corner.jpeg
2. Here's the fuselage
Fuselage.jpeg
.
3. I put the rule on a couple of pieces of ballast so that it touches the fuselage side roughly where the centre of root chord will be. As you can see, there's about 2mm of daylight at the LE and another 2mm at the TE.
Curved side.jpeg
4. Here's the curve of the fus viewed from the front.
Curved side from front.jpeg
5. The last two are the photos of Robin Sleight with the XC2 that I found in the fus when I bought it. The photo of the launch has a caption and a note on the back:
CALIFORNIA VALLEY, CALIFORNIA, MAY 1988 - PRIOR TO 18 MILE FLIGHT. (ROBIN ON LEFT)
Peter - no need to return anything to me - these are all copies for you to keep and pass to your friend. Robin
Albion XC2.png
Albion XC2 Launch.png
Albion XC2 Launch.png (111.67 KiB) Viewed 4646 times
I believe the '18 mile flight' was a world record at the time.
John Treble
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Location: Lyme Regis

Re: Albion 5m Electric soarer

Post by John Treble »

Sorry about the formatting in the last message. I tried to fix it, but failed.
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Peter Balcombe
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Re: Albion 5m Electric soarer

Post by Peter Balcombe »

John,
You have not got an Albion fuselage.
It’s probably a Rubicon which is very similar but has a wing seat to bolt a wing down onto rather than a mid height wing which my fuselage is designed for (there are even dimples in the sides of my fuselage for the original wing section joiner rod centres).
See pic below (ignore the spare forward hatch cover taped to rear of fuselage). The rear hatch cover is white, just behind the forward one. The fuselage moulding under the rear hatch comes right up to the bottom of the hatch, just like the front one.

The Rubicon rear hatch goes over the wing.
Look at my thread photos again & you will see what I mean.
John Hall may well be along later to confirm the above.

Your picture formatting issue is probably because you ‘inlined’ the photos. If you omit that feature & add a title to the photos instead, it may be more like what you wanted.
Peter
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John Treble
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Location: Lyme Regis

Re: Albion 5m Electric soarer

Post by John Treble »

Thanks, Peter,
You know, I've been puzzled by the wing seat ever since I first looked at it because it seemed more suited to a bolt-on one-piece centre section than for a central joiner. It was only after I looked again at the photo of Robin Sleight that I started to have doubts. Then your remark about the fuselage sides being flat really rang bells. It doesn't matter much to me because I just want a model to take on walks along long slopes. Whether it is called Albion Redux, or Rubicon Redux doesn't make much difference. Everything other than the fus will have been designed and built by me.
I'd like to hear from John Hall, though!
Thanks for your help.
fibreglassjohn
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Re: Albion 5m Electric soarer

Post by fibreglassjohn »

John
What you have is a Rubicon fuselage and I can confirm what Pete has said so far.
If I can find it I will post a picture from the same California event showing the team holding their Albions, Robin Sleight, Dave Charles and Rod Potts among them.
History.....I got to know Rod and Robin in the late 70's at Cross country comps at Crook Peak. At that time Clive Hall (Dad) was making Algebra 8 fuselages for Sean Bannister but was not keeping up with demand and it was Rods suggestion that I takeover production. Thereafter Rod would carry stock round the competition circuit selling on my behalf.
It was Rods suggestion to create a fuselage for a large span model and he contributed the name "Albion". I carved the pattern from a big chunk of Jelutong and finished it with Furan resin (horribly laborious and dated technique) It has flat sides for a plug on wing, there are two faint countersink marks each side, these are purely a datum and not as suggested join rod centres. The concept was for what we called a "component fuselage" on which people could base their own design.
With the arrival of F3J the Albion was deemed a bit big, hence the Rubicon. It was created by whittling away at the old Albion pattern and was changed to a bolt down centre section to help cope with aggressive launch techniques. The rear or wing root hatch cover is moulded down to the wing seat allowing for trimming to fit any aerofoil section. (if you are missing this cover let me have you details and I'll post one)
Hope this helps Cheres John
John Treble
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Re: Albion 5m Electric soarer

Post by John Treble »

Great to hear from you, John!
Mysteries all dissipated, except perhaps the mystery of why there were details of one plane stuffed inside a different (well, not very different) one. Fortunately, my plans for the rest of the model are not affected much by the reidentification. When I started thinking what to do with it, I was thinking of a three-piece wing, so I can safely go back to that idea, which makes the structure a lot simpler.
I've been calling this project 'Albion Redux', but since I seem to be fulfilling your original conception by designing my own flying surfaces, perhaps I should just call it a Rubicon, even though my proposed versions will be no smaller than Albions.
Thanks for the offer of hatches, which is not necessary. The central hatch I've got matches the fus in colour, but of the two forward hatches that came with it, one is sky blue and the other orange - another mystery!
And finally, yes, I'd like to see the photos, even though they are of a different plane. I'd even like to see pictures of Rubicons, if you've got any.

All the best
John
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Peter Balcombe
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Location: Clevedon, North Somerset, U.K.

Re: Albion 5m Electric soarer

Post by Peter Balcombe »

Well, back to the Albion there has been a bit of movement on the covering front.

Rudder covered in red/white check & hinged to the fin post ready for this to be bonded into the fin tomorrow.
Meanwhile, the tailplane halves have been treated to the check pattern on the undersides & plain white on the tops.

Profilm ordered from Stan Yeo, so hopefully should be able to get the wings covered in a few days time.
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