Dave Hughes Soarcerer

I've just built a Dave Hughes Soarcerer. Who remembers these? Great slope soarer from the late 1960's

The radio is an old Horizon 2 channel set that I've converted to 2.4ghz just to keep the retro feel.
Ron

What a nice looking model.
nice to have you on the site sir.
welcome.

Thanks Tony
It was the maiden flight yesterday. Flown it at our local sandbanks at Marske by the sea headlands. Had a couple of short flights and it went very well before my fingers were dropping off with the cold.

Ron

Hi Ron
Remember it well as well as the gear
Welcome to the forum, when you have a bit of time, just pop a post on the "Introduce Yourself " thread as its nice to know peeps experience when talking to them
Thanks

Garry

Ive just built an aileron wing for the soarcerer and flown it this morning at blakey ridge.
Wind was blowing around 25mph gusting 30 and was slightly off the slope by about 15 degrees. Temperature around +10C so good enough for a test flight.

Threw it off and had to give it around 5 notches of down trim and no trim whatsoever on the ailerons. I was pleasently surprised how well it went, nice positive controls, very smooth feeling.
I did a couple of rolls which were reasonably axial and a couple of loops which were very straight with no twisting out at the top. Gaining altitude was no problem.
I reckon the ideal wind strength for her would be around 15mph, though will probably fly on about 8mph. Had around 20 mins flying and decided to land as the low cloud was getting closer and visibility was getting to be a problem. Once behind the slope it behaved very well, Ailerons were still positive and landing was a doddle.
All in all a very nice, easy to fly aerobatic glider that looks the retro part too.
Thanks to Mr Hughes, Ive really enjoyed building this aeroplane,
Ron

What a lovely model and well done on flying in that wind.

So Eric was wrong it didn't cartwheel lovely thread thanks

Hi beard,
Na, it's a doddle to land, goes where you point it ))

One of the slope-soaring "Classics"
Such a versatile model - flies equally well on one, two or three channels - how many other models could do that?
I used to like Dave, lovely bloke, he was just one of the lads, never let his "magazine job" get the better of him.

A local variation here was to cut foam wings, but to only sheet the L/E & T/E with cap-strips between.
Strong, light, and looked built-up!

One of our members Dave Hill used to make fibreglass Soarcerer fusses, divided top & bottom rather than left & right.
They looked really nice with say a red top & white underside. This was maybe 40 years ago mind!
I've still got one, have built 3 Soarcerers over the years, flown the socks off them but never cartwheeled one!

Cheers
Phil

Have been up Blakey Ridge today with the full size aileron Soarcerer.
Wind was blowing around 15-20mph and bang on the slope.
Lovely blue sky but a bit chilly at 7C.

This model is so stable it flys like its on rails. Although I was keeping this fairly low the lift was tremendous and I had it just a dot in no time.

Short video of flight, again I was on my own so apologies for the quality.

Ron

vimeo.com/163141769

Lovely model and nice flying sir.

Hi Ron
i'm new to this forum and already like the content.
I have built two Sorcerers in the past and want to build an aileron wing version. I know its been a few years since you posted ref the Sorcerer but wondered if you would share with me how you did the aileron wing please? I want to follow DH's version and use one centrally mounted servo. If you have some additional images ref your aileron servo installation i would be grateful. Looking at your existing images it looks as if you've used one servo per wing?
Any help would be welcome.
Thanks and regards
Gordy

Hi Eric
many thanks for the welcome and your response to my query- yes, i did see Ron's post was back in 2016 but it was a long shot!
I too have come to the conclusion that i need to use two servo's in so far as i can see the single servo route may be the more challenging. I was concerned about weight but i notice that you can buy these very small lightweight offering so will give those a go.
I am returning to the hobby for the third time having stopped for mortgages, marriage, children, illness etc over the last 5 decades.
I am just completing the Soarcerer as well as two Middle Phases. Like most modellers i also have a number of other unmade planes / kits.
I live in Kent and about to join a club based in Sussex who fly off the South Downs. I will need to buy a new radio set and am considering Spectrum and Futaba having used Futaba before.
I am considering electric power at some stage but thats in the future.
I like the forum by the way. I have joined others but i quite like the nostalgic approach of Aermodellers- keep up the good work and thanks again for the help.
Gordy