5 foot wingspan Buzzard Motor Glider

In this article I am going to walk you throught the build of my depron buzzard. I got the plans from one of my dad's mates who had built one. He brought it down to mine and tried to fly it but his "V" tail wasn't set up on his transmitter. It failed but he gave it to me to fix as he was busy over the weekend. Not only did I fix it, I flew it as well and that was the beginning of my first buzzard which is pictured here,

This one met its end after only eight days in existence. As I was powering up into the air the back of the wing came out of its rubber band mounting solution. The wings reared up and over hitting the prop which caused the entire airframe to scatter across the sky. I didn't know what had happened at this point only that my buzzard was in bits all over the sky. 

I did have the mobius on board that morning but it ran out of charge about 30 seconcs before it happened so I still didn't know what had occured.

To cut a long story short I eventually found all the bits (after a few days of constant searching.) There was a slight breeze on the morning and that had spread all of the lighter bits over 2 fields downwind. I wanted to make another one but I only had foamboard to spare and because the thing is so large it requires depron to keep it light. But lightness comes at a price as we all know you sacrafice strengh for less weight when using depron. 

This picture is showing you the finds of the first day of searching,

 After two weaks of serious tree pruning and helping my Dad shift branches and logs around he said he would by me a box of depron. This is why all of my models are made from depron now. 

The mk2 buzzard had some little changes. Instead of the horizontal pencil to the vertical pencil method that had let me down on my first model I went over the wing with big rubber bands using the flite test way of fastening wings on. I also changed the motor from a d2826 2200kv to an ntm 35 to 30 1100kv. This is a big improvment as It is a lot more docile when climbing but if you want it can still go vertical and gain good height quick. 

It is amazing how realistic it is in the air. One person even came up to me and asked me what I was doing looking up in the air with a transmitter. When I said it was the buzzard he couln't believe it! I also took a lot of time with the paint job making it as real as possible,

This is the build in pictures,

I did all of the painting by hand and blended colours to create a feathered effect. Alternative paint jobs can be found on the internet on similar models which represent other birds such as a bald eagle.

Did the MK2 buzzard fly? of course it did and here are some pictures from both my first and second buzzards,

How can I describe the flight charcteristics? Awsome is the only word for it. It glides amazing and looks real. So real it has made other buzzards fly over to check it out. Also pigeons and crows scatter before it like it has mistical powers.

This picture shows its size compared to the FT Spear,

Overall the buzzard is an awsome and realistic RC plane which is an awesome camera ship and glider. A must build for those of you out there. If anyone wants plans for this I will try to supply them in another article if enough people want them. I will also say that building with depron is a giant advantage as it is so much lighter than using foamboard. Although it is slightly more expensive and requires a slightly different build style the benifits when it comes to gliding are unreal.

Thank you for reading.