Pioneer by AC Glenn

Pioneer by AC GlennSome Words from the Designer, AC Glenn After the 2019 US F3A Nationals, Bryan and Brett approached me about joining CK Aero and developing my own design. I started creating the design of this airplane with the assistance of Alexander Safarik, who is well known in the model airplane industry for his incredible CAD and 3D drawings. I started with an original idea that I devised a few years ago on the trip back from the 2017 FAI F3A World Championship.

Some Words from the Designer, AC Glenn

After the 2019 US F3A Nationals, Bryan and Brett approached me about joining CK Aero and developing my own design.   I started creating the design of this airplane with the assistance of Alexander Safarik, who is well known in the model airplane industry for his incredible CAD and 3D drawings. I started with an original idea that I devised a few years ago on the trip back from the 2017 FAI F3A World Championship. After a successful showing, Chuck Hochhalter, my caller and close friend, convinced me to create a design for myself. The airplane originally took life as The Ariel with the help of Mark Hunt who was instrumental in the design process. Based on some positive feedback and lessons drawn from the concept design, we started again with an updated profile. Alexander has been instrumental in the design process with his ability to take even the smallest changes and augment them to its fullest potential.     

One of the main things you will notice with The Pioneer is even with the sequences constantly changing and growing towards a biplane style design, I have still chosen a monoplane design to start with. This is for a few reasons that may seem small to most. With biplanes, the judges are able to see every mistake and therefore the correction of the mistake more prominently than with monoplanes. Also, the ease and quickness of the assembly and disassembly of the monoplane provides a decrease in time wasted at the flying field. Due to my hectic lifestyle and limited availability, this aspect allows me to maximize my time towards practice flights.    

From an aesthetic perspective, I’m very particular on being consistent with the same color scheme for my personal airplanes. This allows me to know what the airplane is doing in every angle due to my eyes and brain being trained to see specific colors in certain spots. I reached out to Chuck Hochhalter and gave him free reign to create a highly visible scheme for the stock design. I wanted to keep the color combination that I have always used as I have found that orange, red, and purple are easily seen in any lighting condition. Chuck had this to say:

     “I wanted something similar to your existing scheme that flowed nicely with the lines of the plane. Also with the larger fuselages in the new designs, I didn’t want to make the fuse look like a large flat profile. I wanted the scheme to flow, like movement, and not be stagnant by drawing your attention to key focal points for orientation and good contrast.”

Taking notes from previous designs, I find that I prefer a slimmer fuse aircraft. This is mainly due to my flying style. I fly a little faster than most and have found that wider fuse airplanes carry a lot of drag.  So compared to The Ariel I flew in 2018, the fuse is slimmed down significantly. I have also added a T-can to bring the knife edge performance closer to the performance of a biplane. However, you will notice that the T-can isn’t a very large one. This decreases the sensitivity of the rudder around (the) center but provides the power needed for knife edge maneuvers. Andrew Jesky was instrumental in this design decision as he executed testings with a smaller T-can on his Element design. 

Download a PDF containing several color scheme swap options below!