Introduction

 

An extraordinary model caught my eyes when I visited a German site, by Artur Blömker, called www.dynamic-soaring.de. This very interesting website with lots of good information and footage of Dynamic Soaring (DS) in Germany, also tells about the TamLam Team (three friends practicing DS) and their SuperRennTamLam (SRTL), a concept by David Pichler. The plane is designed specially for DS, as you can see… a T-tail, one piece wing with straight LE for extra stability. After talking with the builder Thomas Nothdurft other specifications were showing a very robust sailplane. Among these specs were a very strong Carbon/Kevlar/Glass fuselage and if wanted lots of extra carbon in the wing, which has a modified RG15 wing section and enough room for strong servos.

After knowing this information (and falling in love with the SRTL’s looks) I knew I wanted one, a strong plane for the slope, capable of doing DS.

I fly the front-side of the slope most of the time, but got my first experiences in DS last year which I can say IS a real virus. There for I would like to use any opportunity to go and fly DS again, with the right plane. Still if not ballasted the SRTL can be a good plane for the front side as well.

 

 

First of all some technical information on the SRTL (Carbon version 1)

 

 

 

 

What is in the kit?

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When it was delivered in a very stable wooden package (the only good way to transport such a large wing) I was happy to see it survived the trip in perfect condition! The kit consists of the following:

1 Wing, 1 fuselage, 1 stab, 4 glass servo lits (cover servo opening), 4 glass lits (covering on the linkage side), 4 rudder horns, piano wire, quick links,  1 mount for the servos in the fuselage,  Glass tape for mounting the wing a lit for the ballast bay and of course the manual. This meant that except for the electronics everything was there to get the SRTL up in the air.

 

So what is not in the kit?

 

The equipment you still have to buy for this plane is:

2 Aileron servos, 2 flap servos, 1 rudder servo, 1 elevator servo, 1 receiver, 1 battery pack, a wire harness some high current connectors (to connect the wing servos)  and if wanted a switch.

I in my case I bought 4 Robbe S3150 (37 Nm) servos for the wing (with the servo frames for it from www.servorahmen.de) a Graupner C3041 (26 Nm) servo for the elevator and a Dymond D200 (plastic gear 26 Nm) for rudder. The receiver is a Schulze 835w and the battery a Sanyo 2300 mAh NiMh 4 cell pack. And of course 2 component 24hrs epoxy as some other basic materials.

 

Building the SRTL

 

There isn’t really much left to build the SRTL, because rudder and elevator are pre-hinged and linkages in the fuselage have already been placed! In the fuselage this means the placement of battery, receiver which should be kept in place by some pollster. Now this is done the servos will be placed on a wooden servo mount, which will be kept in place by two screws which enter the fuselage from the bottom side. Balancing the plane will be done in the end.

In the wing the linkages have to be build, but the holes through the wing have already been prepared so the place of the servo is set. Installing the servos with the frames from M. Frey is peanuts (where I used to need some time to make the right wooden frames that would fit) and I like them being secured by 2 screws which makes removing for repair very easy. With the S3150 everything can be kept within the wings surface for the flaps, for ailerons you need the lit which has been prepared because the nearly 11mm servo just fits in the wing. Ballast can be inserted in the wing if needed.

 

Some special features

 

Besides the really strong wing the SRTL has some very useful features, which makes it easy to build but also reliable on the slope. First of all the wing is secured with tape. This is an unusual kind of fixating a wing on the fuselage (also seen with the FS models from Sport Klemm and the Erwin5 from PCM). Still with a standing DS record at 325km/h (202 mph) and some rough landings out of experience it has proven to be a very reliable method and it saves wings ;-).

The very strong T-tail configuration gives lots of stability in flight with a good rudder function.

 

Some information on the builder Thomas Nothdurft

 

Thomas is very willing to inform more on the plane than the information which is available on the website. What I really think is a great advantage over stock models; you receive hand made quality on a very high level! Also you can ask Thomas for a special type of SRTL if you like… Do you have a special airbrush? You don’t need flaps? Do you want even more carbon than the 2 times 200gr/m² heavy duty lay-up? Ok, ok, it does have its price but it is possible ;-). Hope you’ve enjoyed reading this… a flight report (with initial setup recommendations) will follow when the snow is gone…