Rubber Band Powered Aircraft?

Thanks Ron. The plane looks very familiar, an ultralight that I've
examined at legnth before, but the name escapes me at the moment.

The Monk

plane looks very familiar, an ultralight that I've
examined at legnth before, but the name escapes me at the moment.

Looks like leftover Lazair parts.

http://www.ultralightnews.com/lazair/index.html
==================
Leon McAtee

On Sun, 12 Feb 2006 23:05:13 -0800, Ron Wanttaja
wrote:

Guess what, I was able to find one of the pictures:

http://www.wanttaja.com/RB1.jpg

....and, I found a mention of it, using the search feature of the EAA Sport
Aviation CD-ROM. From the September 1991 issue, page 9:

"New ultralight/light planes included Mark Lokken's RB-1, a rubber band powered
ultralight (it uses surgical tubing for power!)."

No other hits on it, though. Only other hit on 'Mark Lokken' relates to the
seaplane gathering at Oshkosh '98.

Ron "I love the Sport Aviation CDs!" Wanttaja

jc wrote:
COLIN LAMB wrote:

snip
Someone must have done it, because in some of the old movies the pilot
yells out "wind 'er up" just before takeoff.

A starting method used for big engines (several 100 hp) involved a removable
handle with a gear train to a high speed flywheel. When the flywheel was
manually wound up to speed by ground crew the pilot engaged a clutch and
the power flowed back through the gear train to the crankshaft hopefully
starting the engine.


In the movie _The Great Escape_ James Garner and Donald Pleasance
steal a Luftwaffe trainer with that type of starter. I forget what it
is called.

Oh, and here is a bit of trivia. Donald Pleasance was an actual
POW during WWII. He was a crewman on a Lancaster (IIRC) that
was shot down.

--

FF

Morgans wrote:
"Ron Wanttaja" wrote in message
...

Saw one at Oshkosh, in the Ultralight area, about 1988. Was called the
"RB-1",
and for a "band" had some stuff that was originally used on high-tension
lines
for insulation or some such. Heard it had flown successfully, a distance
of
about 300 feet.

Got a picture of it, somewhere...

Do you recall if it had some kind of gearing between the engine and the
prop? I would think you would need to turn some of the torque into higher
RPM to turn the prop, to maximize run time. Just a guess.
--

You could also launch with a bungee and then sustain with the prop.

--

FF

wrote

In the movie _The Great Escape_ James Garner and Donald Pleasance
steal a Luftwaffe trainer with that type of starter. I forget what it
is called.

Inertial starter. It is highly geared, so you start out cranking really
slow, then it picks up speed.
--
Jim in NC

In article .com,
says...

In the movie _The Great Escape_ James Garner and Donald Pleasance
steal a Luftwaffe trainer with that type of starter. I forget what it
is called.

Oh, and here is a bit of trivia. Donald Pleasance was an actual
POW during WWII. He was a crewman on a Lancaster (IIRC) that
was shot down.


I think the plane was a Me-108 it was used as a civil plane then a trainer and
later a squadron hack.It had an inertia starter I believe.Wind it up and go :-)

Chuck(I was just a kid then) S

Bryan Martin wrote:
in article ,
at wrote on 2/14/06 1:18 PM:


jc wrote:
COLIN LAMB wrote:

snip
Someone must have done it, because in some of the old movies the pilot
yells out "wind 'er up" just before takeoff.

A starting method used for big engines (several 100 hp) involved a removable
handle with a gear train to a high speed flywheel. When the flywheel was
manually wound up to speed by ground crew the pilot engaged a clutch and
the power flowed back through the gear train to the crankshaft hopefully
starting the engine.


In the movie _The Great Escape_ James Garner and Donald Pleasance
steal a Luftwaffe trainer with that type of starter. I forget what it
is called.

Oh, and here is a bit of trivia. Donald Pleasance was an actual
POW during WWII. He was a crewman on a Lancaster (IIRC) that
was shot down.


That airplane in the move may have had an actual hand crank starter like
many old cars used to have. It seems unlikely that such a small plane would
have used an inertial starter. But then the Germans have been known to over
engineer things.

ISTM that a trainer for fighter pilots should have a very big engine to
prepare the pilots for real fighters with engines over 1,000 hp.

In the movie, the starter functioned as OP described, the cranking
started out slowly and got faster and faster before there was any
indication that the engine kicked in.

--

FF

In article ,
"Morgans" wrote:

wrote

In the movie _The Great Escape_ James Garner and Donald Pleasance
steal a Luftwaffe trainer with that type of starter. I forget what it
is called.

Inertial starter. It is highly geared, so you start out cranking really
slow, then it picks up speed.


Some Stearmans had an inertial starter. I remember that the University
of Illinois used them for an aerobatic course in the late 1950s/early
1960s.

They had an electric setup that wound up the starter to a certain sound.
then the pilot threw a clutch and the engine started turning, then it
got that "Blurp!, Blup!, Cough!, Ptupp, Ptupp, Ptupp" sound of a radial
starting up, along with a small cloud of blue smoke. I have always loved
that whole sequence of sounds! My second favorite startup sound is that
of a Bendix E-80 starter, with its muffled sound s it starts an engine
(used on everything from an O-435 Lycoming through an R-1340 P&W).

Some inertial starters used internal power to wind up the flywheel, too.

Thank you Leon and Chuck. I'm surprised that I haven't seen clips of
these flying. There's no reason why it wouldn't fly.

The Monk