RC Soaring Digest magazine

The journal for the RC soaring enthusiast

bsquared AT rcsoaringdigest DOT com

The NEW RCSD, started in January 2021, now has its own website.
All information regarding this new publication will be located there as it is available.

	If you'd like to support the continuation of the RC Soaring Digest Archives please consider making a donation.		After 35 years and more than 400 issues, the December 2018 edition of RC Soaring Digest was the last to be published. The RCSD Archives contain downloadable PDFs of all of the issues starting with the first from January 1984. These Archives will be readily available for the foreseeable future. We highly recommend RCSD PDF files be downloaded to your computer HD/SSD where they can be opened with Acrobat Reader 5 or higher. Viewing the PDF within a web browser via a plug-in is not reliable. You can be automatically notified of changes and additions to this web site by subscribing to the RCSoaringDigest group on GROUPS.IO.

	R CSD ARCHIVE	PDFs of all RCSD and newRCSD issues can be downloaded from the RCSD archive. This archive is organized by year, 1984-2018, and issues can be downloaded individually. Those who desire to download the entire collection in one ZIPped file can do so by clicking on this link.

	TWITT Archive	TWITT (The Wing Is The Thing) came into being in June 1986 at Gillespie Field in El Cajon, California, as the brainchild of co-founders Bob Fronius, Marc de Piolenc, Richard Miller and Hernan Posnansky. Members included such notables as Dr. Karl Nickel, Peter Selinger, Reinhold Stadler, Don Mitchell, Al Backstrom, Bruce Carmichael and Dr. Paul MacCready. Guest speakers included: Dr. Paul MacCready, Jack Lambie, Bruce Carmichael, Karl Sanders, Kermit Van Every, Bruce Hinds (B-2 Test Pilot), Barnaby Wainfan ( FMX-4 Facetmobile ), Al Bowers (NASA Chief Engineer) and Irv Culver (Culver Twist). This is the official archive of the TWITT website, complete with downloadable PDFs of all published Newsletters. During its tenure, the TWITT website offered VHS videotapes and other materials for sale. The goal is to convert these videotapes and printed materials to digital formats that can be readily downloaded from the archive. Our sincere thanks to Nikolas Korakis for examining the entire archive, notifying us of internal errors, and making suggestions for improvement. Additionally, Nikolas provided several contemporary items which he felt should be added to the archive. This page lists these materials, along with links to the individual items.

	RCSD Special Publications and Preprints	The dynamic soaring of salmon. How salmon gain upstream thrust from pressure gradients and extract energy from velocity shears. Plus other strategies for upstream energy minimization. Authored by Philip Randolph Patten. This is a preprint, for more information on this technical format see this page. Isaac Newton’s falsely dismissed theory of inertially caused pressure resistance. Newton’s theory vs. d’Alembert’s paradox, each correct within differing conditions not knowable in the 18th century. 42 pages, 20,571 words. Authored by Philip Randolph Patten. This is a preprint, for more information on this technical format see this page. Isaac Newton's theory of inertially caused pressure resistance, reinstated. Flow separations and instability drag as the mechanisms of Newton’s theory and the theory’s defeat by d’Alembert’s paradox, each correct within conditions only differentiated in the 19^th century. An amusingly convoluted history. 14 pages, 5474 words (plus endnotes). This is a shortened version of the above aimed at journal publication. Authored by Philip Randolph Patten. This is a preprint, for more information on this technical format see this page.

	Martin Simons' Understanding Thermal Soaring Sailplanes	Walter Jaburek of Vienna Austria has scanned the complete Understanding Thermal Soaring Sailplanes series written by Martin Simons and created a single PDF which includes all of the articles. This series of articles appeared in RCSD starting in January 1990 and ending in the November 1991 issue. There are direct references to F3J, which had just been made an official event but the topics covered are easily related to all forms of RC soaring. Topics include the sailplane polar, weight and ballast, turning, drag, scale effects, performance calculation, moment arms and tail volumes, and horizontal stabilizer considerations, along with numerous others. Well worth the 5.6MB download.

	FFA DIAMANT Archive	RC Soaring Digest / B²Streamlines is pleased to be able to make available the DIAMANT Archive containing materials belonging to Art T. Babiarz, Jr., owner and caretaker of Flug- und- Fahrzeugwerke AG DIAMANT 16.5, serial number 012, N1193, XX. This vast amount of material is more than likely the largest collection of DIAMANT information in existence.

	SLOPE SOARING NEWS ARCHIVE	PDF versions of Slope Soaring News, published February 1988 through February/February 1990 by Charlie Morey. All twenty issues are now available for downloading.

	INDEX thru 2005	A complete index for all issues of RCSD through 2005. The search engine is now configured so the results have links to the respective PDF files.

	RCSD ARTICLES	* Brian Agnew, holder of 15 national titles, shares his expertise regarding trimming an R/C sailplane. (HTML) * Dr. Michael Selig wrote two important articles for RCSD some time ago and he has given us permission to post both articles on this website -"Flies Faster" and "The Square-Cube Law and Scaling for RC Sailplanes."(HTML) * "Scaling Sailplanes," a chapter from the book "Sailplanes!" by Dr. Ferdinando Gale and Aldo Calza, is now available as a PDF document (2.2 MB). Written by Dr. Gale, this 53 page treatise explores the physics behind obtaining "scale" performance from a miniature glider. Includes aerodynamic principles and construction materials.



	B²Streamlines.com	RC Soaring Digest is published by B²Streamlines.com