| Articles | Scrap Book |
The first Sky Bench Kit, Lil'Bird, 1993. I designed the Lil Bird with a 54 inch wing span for slope soaring, the airfoil was close to RG 15, the wings were fully sheeted. I found a small slope site near my Michigan home and the Lil'Bird did well.
The word got out and I ended up hiring two people to produce Lil'Bird arf's and kits. But, the Lil'Bird was being used for hand launching by some customers and I knew it was not going to perform very well as a HL.
I redesigned it to the hand launch wing span, changed the name to Lil'Bird 2, changed the airfoil, root dimension, made other changes to reduce weight and make it stronger and this is how the Sky Bench kits got their start. Hand Launch competition was getting under way and the Lil'Bird 2 design proved to be a very good performer and very popular. The entire Bird Series evolved from the success of the Lil'Bird 2.
This is a construction article in the June 1972 issue of RC Modeler written by Rod and Mark Smith, designers of the Windfree, at the time the kit was being made available to the public. We owe RCM a great deal of thanks, they were the magazine that promoted RC Sailplanes and LSF in the early days and are highly responsible for the early growth of this great hobby.
Notice, this is the original construction article for a scratch built Windfree and will undoubtedly differ from the instructions now contained in the kit.
Sky Bench
Aerotech
skybench.aerotech@GTE.net
Ft. Wayne, Indiana 46804
Phone/Fax 1-(260) 434-1322
