Tales of aSanta
A homecoming of the Free Flight Endurance kind!
By Ray Boyd PHOTO: ERIC STRENGELL T
he following is a note I received from Eric Strengell who flew his new Santa Cruz Mk III at the dual club Orbiteers/Fresno GMC Meet at Lost Hills, CA, over the May 17–18 weekend. In case you missed it, the Santa Cruz Mk III, plan CD450, was featured in FLYING MOD- ELS, January 2013 issue. Eric is an accom- plished O. T. Gas flier who won the Fresno Gas Model Club’s High Time trophy and an Olsen 23 engine from the late Bill Booth’s collection. He wanted to fly AMA gas and “Came Home to Free Flight” with this ship. He’s pictured on page 17 of the Jan-Feb 2014 issue of the Free Flight Digest, launching his showroom-quality Santa Cruz.
fect transition but at a very low altitude. She caught lift though and maxed again! Santa Cruz has a phenomenal climb and glide that was not overlooked by the compe- tition as I got numerous compliments on her performance and good looks.
came back to the camp area hot and ex- hausted but unable to get a strong enough signal. Don then suggested that I go to the top of a small dirt mound right in front of the parking area. I did and that’s when I caught the first solid signal! I then started riding into the active gypsum mining pit and the signal got louder and louder until I stopped and looked down into the huge pit and there was Santa Cruz! She landed not even a quarter mile from where I launched! “In spite of losing my Santa Cruz Mk III for several hours I still managed a third in Clas- sic 1
A Gas! I sure learned a lot that day.” Circling home
⁄2 PHOTO: ERIC STRENGELL Eric Strengell’s Santa Cruzwith a Cox TD .049 1 ⁄2 A
using a pressurized fuel system, the plane he used in the Orbiteers/Fresno GMC meet. The semi-high thrust engine mounting with up-thrust results in some exciting climbs.
PHOTO: DON DELOACH
Ray launches a Santa Cruz Mk III powered by a Cox .051 A Class at the South West Regionals. His crew chief is his daughter, Ramona Boyd Brenholdt. The Santa Cruzcan be flown in 1
⁄2 A and A classes.
Eric writes “Sunday was Santa Cruz day and that was all I flew. I actually almost crashed it on my first test flight of the day due to a very bad launch that was—based on my flying buddies’ accounts—not even into the wind or angled properly to the left. She didn’t go in fortunately, but afterwards I was thorough- ly coached on proper launch technique and the next test flight was textbook perfect. “On the first official she went up like the proverbial ‘scalded ape’ and maxed easily. With the second official I got too excited and again launched her all wonky. She was all over the sky and finally shot up into a per-
FLYING MODELS
“The third official did not go so well. A big thermal mass moved through and I fired her up but concentrated so much on proper launch technique that I forgot to trip the timer! The launch was quite perfect and SC screamed up in glorious fashion with a per- fect power pattern until she could be seen no more, but the engine could still be heard running and running. I knew I was in deep do-do at that point! The lift was phenomenal as well.
“I went and got out my tracker receiver but could only catch a sporadic signal—then nothing at all. Another modeler and I went out in the direction that everything was drifting trying to pick up a signal but to no avail. After a couple fruitless hours or more of searching, my buddy Don suggested that he didn’t think the drift at high altitude was going west like at lower altitude but rather eastward. We went to the top of a giant mound of gypsum dirt to the northeast and finally caught a very faint signal. “We searched and searched and finally
I’ve just finished designing the third plane in the “Coming Home To Free Flight” trilogy series. It is named Pulque II, after a firey Mexican drink made from fermented cactus juice. Don DeLoach has just translated my sketches into computer pdf format and drawings. It uses the same proven structure as the Santa Cruz and QBIT, plan CD465, FLYINGMODELS, March 2014, is a pylon mod- el and has a touch of nostalgia. I have start- ed its flight trials and it looks like another good flyer. I should have it trimmed out well for its early summer competition debut and will pass along the design to all of you as soon as it has proven itself.
Cruz Mk.III
PHOTO: DAVID SNIDER
Ray Boyd, and Eric Strengell with a pair of Santa Cruz Mk III at the South West Regional Championships. Although they flew in two different classes, Eric's featherweight beat Ray’s times.
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