TRANSPORT AND STORAGE


Transport and storage are the bane of the RC dirigible.

To transport you must either have a vehicle large enough to carry the entire thing, the entire thing in sections, or a container large enough to hold it.

I opted for the container approach. Using door veneer, the lightest and cheapest plywood available, I built a box of 1X1 inch pine strips routed to accept the plywood. I ended up with a box 30 X 30 inches square and 14 feet long that can tolerate 65 MPH on my Dodge Caravan. Once I even transported it on a '72 Dodge Colt station wagon - in the rain. The advantage of the box is that it can store the dirigible out of harms way while not in use. If you've got kids, anything fragile or valuable better be put away. I have kids.

When I get to where I'm going to fly, I use the storage box as a table.

You can hang the dirigible quite easily since the whole thing only weighs a couple pounds. I glued a thread at intervals on the top with loops to run a rod through, then hang the rod at a couple places from ceiling hooks. If it has set for long periods NOT in a covered container, I would recommend you pump it up with air and hose it off gently before you start to fill it up for flight again. Dust accumulations will rob a surprising amount of payload, not to mention being unsightly.

There are ways to build dirigibles in sections. The weight penalty for doing so would be about 15 grams or so for the DG-650. The two halves could be transported fairly easily and they would be small enough to place them in an attic or in the garage rafters.

Of course if you build it just 9 feet long, it should fit in something like a minivan or such.

The DG-650 resides in the rafters of the garage in its sarcophagus, rising on occasion to challenge the blimps for supremacy of the skies...


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