The following is reprinted from "Second Wind: a newsletter printed twice a year by Bob Dodgson and found in a copy of R/C Report by way of Pancho Morris. George Voss has written a truly original review which, it's safe to declare, breaks new ground in product reviews.
Bob Dodgson is alive and well in Washington State. With his early 1980's designed Windsong/Lovesong series of sailplanes, Bob set the pace for composite sailplanes for American built ships. This review concerns Dodgson Designs' latest sailplane, the V-gilante. The "V" sports a V-tail, a new mono-seam fuselage and the popular SD7037 airfoil. Enough chit-chat. Let's take a close look at this new design.
Construction: As usual, I started on the tail pieces. Nothing unusual here. Simple, light, strong, built-up construction. Only high quality pine and oak woods are included in the tail section. I used 5 minute epoxy with lead silica mixed in for best adhesion.
Wing construction begins with the spars. The spars are composites of carbon fiber, titanium and mild steel with some wood thrown in for good measure. I used spittle to adhere the spar to the foam core. I decided to use the vacuum bag method to attach the sheeting to the cores. Bob recommends the use of double sided tape to adhere the sheeting. I've used this method in the past and it works just fine but is much too simple. I used Waste Systems epoxy from Composite Sarcophagus Technology mixed with lead silica to assure proper adhesion. I mixed up a quart of the adhesive/silica mix and poured it onto the sheeting. I used a cement trowel to spread the epoxy mixture evenly on the sheeting, The lead silica added as a thickening agent worked just as described, although I needed assistance in lifting each piece of sheeting onto the foam. I adjusted my vacuum system to give a maximum of 6" Hg to assure the foam wouldn't be crushed and placed the wings in the bag over night. To my surprise (and horror) my construction table collapsed! I guess the lead silica was more than the table could handle. Oh well, at least the wing panels came out okay. I removed the wing panels from the bad using a fork-lift. All that remained was to install the servos, leading edge, and root and tip pieces. I found the best way to remove the sheeting from the servo area is not documented in Dodgson's excellent instruction book. After ruining a dozen or so X-Acto blades, I finally pulled out my soldering iron and burned the wood away and melted the lead silica/epoxy mixture and the foam simultaneously.
Fuselage assembly was next. Not much to do here. The hardest part is giving the forward portion a "nose job". This only takes a few minutes though. One unique feature of the V-gilante is the wing mounting system. The wing is held on using the tow hook as the retaining bolt! This puts the launch loads directly on the main wing rod where it belongs. The fuselage is just along for the ride.
I final sanded everything in preparation for covering. I like to have "show" finishes so my covering job took a fairly long time. If you choose to use something as simple as plastic film on the flying surfaces, covering should only take a few evenings. To archive a smooth surface on the tails, I sheeted them with 1/8" oak veneer and covered that with 6 oz. glass cloth followed by 2 oz. and finally 3/4 oz. cloth. Six coats of resin were applied in continuous steps. Final sanding was done using a 50 grit sanding drum (dry) on the router. The wings were sealed from the elements with helispheres (helium spheres). This was troweled on smooth and back in the vacuum bag they went. The next day revealed completely sealed wing skins with a glass smooth surface. Only light sanding was needed prior to applying four rolled on coats of Sears Best Weather Beater latex paint. The fuselage only required the four coats of Weather Beater to achieve a "show" finish.
Surprisingly, the V-giante came out very close to Bob's recommended wing loading. However, I think there is a misprint in the instructions which stated wing loadings in the oz. sq. ft. and my V-gilante came out fractions of an oz. over Bob's recommended 9-10 oz. per sq. ft., but I think "sq. ft." should be "sq. in." - I think!
This was the first ship I was unable to do hand tosses with. I wasn't able to secure a fork-lift for the first launch and since I have a bad back, initial launches were attempted ROG. I had recently purchased an electric winch with a 4-wind motor and 230 Ib. test line. After a dozen futile attempts to launch the V-gilante and numerous line breaks equal to our attempts, we quit for the day. I think it had something to do with the molten copper dripping from the winch motor. I quickly placed an order to Timbs Engineering to obtain a F3B winch with 1/8" braided steel cable. With twelve 6-volt batteries (six in series, six in parallel), again ROG launches were attempted. Some progress was made as the V-gilante at least was propelled towards the turnaround. That was until the cable cut the turnaround in half, halting our second day of efforts.
Success came after the installation of a Quadra 42 in the nose. We chose to hook up the winch without the turnaround and launched directly towards the winch. Telecommunication was set up between the winch master and myself to assure proper timing. I told the winch master to "hammer down" as I slammed the throttle forward. After a brief ground run, the V-gilante headed skyward. What a beautiful sight to behold! The winch master turned the winch off moments before I hollered "WHOA!" Through the radio communications, I could hear people yelling "FIRE" and swore I heard a fire extinguisher go off, but I was too busy to look at the winch since I was flying.
I was about to pull the power off the "V" but when I did, nothing happened! I guess the throttle rubber band had overcome the servo and it was stuck. I chose to use this time to test it's aerobatics capabilities. A Cuban 8, stall turn, and avalanche were tried with good success. The judges gave me 9.5's. Some pylon turns were tried with VERY impressive results. This ship looks like a very good candidate for Madera! After rounding pylon #3, the Quadra finally quit. Like most powered sailplanes, the "V" covers lots of sky while searching for lift. The ship is EXTREMELY stable as nothing short of a tornado can move it. On a later outing, I was able to thermal the "V" fairly well. Of course, when you see a VW Rabbit spiraling upward, you can assume the lift is pretty good.
Our field is about 1500 feet long and the "V" had no trouble hitting the spot. It is imperative, though, that you have about 1450 feet remaining in front of you when you hit that spot!
My final impressions are favorable. It is quite an accomplishment to produce a kit with the remarkable abilities that the "V" has. As previously stated, only two minor things came up, and they were the misprints of "sq. ft." instead of "sq. in." in the wing loading, and the lack of instructions for possible launch assistance needed in the form of the Quadra. I can highly recommend the "V" if you have more money than brains and want to aid the U.S. and Washington State economies. Normally, I wish you thermals, but in the case of the "V", it's NITRO, and LOTS of it. See ya!
G.V.
