RC Antonov AN-225 & Buran decouple and land separately

[Weaver]

This guy built a radio-controlled Antonov An-225 with a Buran shuttle on it's back, which separates in flight and glides to a separate landing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64ibvDXV5Ac

If the flying characteristics of the model Buran are anything like the real US Shuttle, then flying it in is no mean feat: the glide-slope will be steep, and the flare has to be timed perfectly.

[PR19_Kit]

AWESOME modelling, to say the least. 

But as usual with these large models, they tend to be flown far too fast and too abruptly. The Moments of Inertia are too low for them to handle like the real thing and they need to be flown slower and with very small control movements to look 'scale like' really.

[Weaver]

I agree with respect to the Antonov Kit, but I thought the Buran looked rather convincing on approach. I suspect it's high wing loading and sink rate conspire to dampen out any out-of-scale movements.

[PR19_Kit]

Yes, I only  meant the -225 actually. I didn't make that clear enough.

The Buran looked pretty much like the Shuttle did on approach, more like a guided brick! 

[Hobbes]

the square-cube law works against you wen you try to make a convincing scale model: as you scale down, weight drops faster than wing area so you tend to get a really low wing loading.

[Weaver]

the square-cube law works against you wen you try to make a convincing scale model: as you scale down, weight drops faster than wing area so you tend to get a really low wing loading.

You could fix that with ballast of course, but then for jet types, I'm guessing that you don't get the engine power-density at small scale, so you havn't got enough thrust to deal with higher weight and wing-loading.

[Doug K]

the square-cube law works against you wen you try to make a convincing scale model: as you scale down, weight drops faster than wing area so you tend to get a really low wing loading.

You could fix that with ballast of course, but then for jet types, I'm guessing that you don't get the engine power-density at small scale, so you havn't got enough thrust to deal with higher weight and wing-loading.

Not sure that works on aircraft, even large ones tend to move like that. I model RC ships and we have the same problem, 1:1 scale water doesn't quite work! The larger the model, the better of course. My smaller ones at 1/144th can bob a bit cork like....