Lets See Those Gliders!!!
 

Wahoo!!! Lets get this area rolling with members pictures of their favorite rocket boosted gliders!!! Either your own or one you thought was pretty cool :D .

I'll start with my current personal favorite which most of you have already seen. My 4" Mach 10. It just had 2 more flights this past weekend at the blue/grey regional. This thing has flown about 30 times now and is still going strong. I want to make a BT-80 based RC one for the new Quest D5-4 motors, but the vendor I was waiting for tiny servos from just delayed their release :mad: .

I love your upscale Mach 10's I remember you showing me them at NARAM 35. IIRC you have a the elevator neutral during boost and it flips to glide position at ejection. Do you have any plans/diagrams on how you set that up?

Here are some pics of my favorites. One photo is one of my Sky Dart launches, another is the rear engine BG I designed for THOY, and the rack photo has my Space Twins 2000, Nighthawk, Competition BG, and Sky Dart. The Sky Dart is hands down my all time favorite.

Scott, you already posted pictures of the coolest glider I've seen in person.

As for my own gliders, I really do need to repair my Fake Wulf's wing tip and try it again.

Plus I ought to try launching my Edmonds Deltie again some time. It may need a new booster, since I left the original one sitting in my car for a year or so and it got a little bit brittle from the heat and sunlight.

Here are some build write-ups I did on a couple of Edmonds kits. In this case, the most interesting part was resurrecting the wrecked birds.

http://www.doug79.com/cici/
http://www.doug79.com/cici2/

And here's one I had high aspirations for that turned out to be quite a turd. But I still have hope for it. I picked up a piece of hard, trailing edge balsa stock at the RC hobby store the other day in hopes of upscaling the Zoomies a bit, and seeing if I can get them to fly. <fingers crossed>

http://www.doug79.com/zoomies/#lil-dougie

Doug

Hi Eagle,
Nope, I went the lazy route... It will boost straight hands-off... I do like doing a few rolls and sweeping turns with it under power though. It ejects a weighted cone just like the original one which gives it its ballistic stability on the way up. I will be reducing the weight in the nose for the next few flights though. As a result it will fly higher, but I will probably need to feed in a little down elevator during boost.

I love the Sky Dart too... I have a Neubauer Rockets "Sky Dagger" that I need to get built. :rolleyes:

Jim's MegaDagger is awesome, as well!
Allen

I need to paint the pod for my Fake Wulf and trim it as soon as the hurricane force winds die down around here. :rolleyes: We have a launch on May 9th and I'm hoping to get the Wulf in the air. :)

Say, I didn't miss out on the Fake Wulf kit, did I?

I actually have some disposable income at the present time!

An availability announcement will be made later today :D.

I meant your non-RC versions. Did you have a fixed elevator on those as well?

Doing the happy dance!

In the Rocket Boosted Gliders forum first I hope. :chuckle:

Yep, fixed. Just like the original only larger.

OK... That and the vendors section then ;)

Hopefully there will be lots of posts here from people asking questions as well as post photos and build threads for gliders.

kj

Here are a couple of mine.

Fake Wulf, Sky Dart, Space Plane

I personally like this one...

http://www.dars.org/gallery/nthp21/index.htm


Bill

How well does your Space Plane glide Bob? I never got past trimming mine before it got crunched. It's repairable, but on the back burner.

Keep it on that burner long and it *won't* be repairable!

(Oh, I just slay myself sometimes...)

Actually, it glides fairly well most of the time. It's the boost that sometimes gets exciting, especially with any kind of wind.

The spin tabs on the rudders don't really make it spin. It's more like giant barrel rolls. I could improve the boost with more nose weight but haven't gotten around to it.

I have the nose cone friction fit with some tape so I could add weight if needed but I did a lousy job of gluing in the bulkhead. On one flight, one of the "energetic" ejection charges blew the bulkhead and nose cone off the front. :o I was able to find the nose cone and it's since been repaired.

The elastic that pulls up the elevons could be better. Sometimes one of the elevons doesn't get pulled tight against the stop and the glide suffers.

My old Spaceplane boosted better and had a good glide until a shotgun ejection charge blew part of the elevon and elevon stops off. :mad:

I don't have many...

The R/C "2X" SpacE Plane i made, for C6 boosts, flies too fast for me to control the boost. What I did was to hold the ailerons (mixed elevons) hard over to make it roll a lot, to even things out. What I would suggest for the original model is to delete the spin tabs (GASP!), and arrange the elevons so that one is "up" by say 1/8" and one is "down" by 1/8", to make it roll. The key is to get equal up and and down angles. So, one up 3/16 and one down 3/16 also should be good, maybe better since it would roll faster. Maybe even 1/4" up and down. It will take a bit of tweaking of the mechanics to get the elevons to be that way for boost, but it is not really a big problem

BTW - bad news. At a launch last week I was doing a "routine" flight of the 2X SpacePlane. rolled fine on boost, as usual. I go to transition it for glide, and nothing, it just keeps rolling, al l the way into the ground. I suspect that the battery connector lost contact at liftoff. But the R/C gear was working after it crashed, so the lost contact was intermittent (so, it did not get unplugged). The model is repairable. The biggest issue right now is one servo arm broke, and I do not recall what servos are inside there (permanently glued), so that I can identify exactly what brand and size of output arm needs to be replaced.

- George Gassaway

George,
Did you ever try the new Quest Cs in it? They are nice and gentle like a C3 or 4. My BT-80 Mach 10 flys very nicely on them.

Have you flown the Centuri 5066 Shuttle yet tbzep?

No. It's pretty heavy. I think it will remain a hanger queen and I'll build another as light as possible to fly.

[QUOTE=tbzep]I don't have many...

But you have plenty!!

Not yet. I actually want to save those for testing out in a contest sized C Rocket Glider. The contest model boost is ALWAYS scary-hot and fast, so those C3/C4's should make it a lot more reasonable. And also should boost somewhat higher too, since a relatively draggy model is more efficient on a lower thrust engine (long as it keeps pointing up). That Quest engine would have to be a "C2" for me to be able to boost the 2X by piloting rather than rolling it on boost (the 4X Space Plane is a pussycat when boosting on a G12. But if I boosted it on a G40, and the wings did not rip off as they 100% for sure would, it would be a nightmare to boost it by R/C).

- George

I haven't built either one of my kits of them yet, but I really like how these two look.





I'm also really interested in the design in the attachment, too. I could mention a whole bunch of other RBG designs that I like, but Scott has only so much server space. ;)

MarkII

I completed the Semroc Nighthawk xkit this winter, haven't flown it yet. The Skydart is recently restored from a vintage model of my brothers, and flown for the 1st time ever a few weeks ago - it had a dangerous looping flight, pulling up just a few feet above the ground - no damage, but needs some work on the elevator to get a straight boost. I probably fly the red baron the most, it is just so easy to prep, and always puts in decent flights. The scissor wing and Semroc X-21 have flown quite a few times, and both glide quite well.

I almost forgot the Cardstock downscale Orbital Transporter and the Micro-Maxx Falcon

I mentioned that there were other RBG designs that I liked. A partial list can be found in this thread:

http://forums.rocketshoppe.com/showthread.php?t=2845

A few more here:

http://forums.rocketshoppe.com/showthread.php?t=4706

;)

MarkII

Whoof! It sounds like you are liking every glider out there! Which ain't a bad thing in this forum! :D

I have a couple I can't wait to scratch build if they ever get these darn servos to market!!! :mad:

http://www.horizonhobby.com/Product...rodID=SPMAS2000

Very true. RBG's are one of my two newest passions in rocketry. (The other is scale.) I'm glad to see that you have made a new batch of Fake Wulf kits, so I'll have to scrape together some bucks and get one. :D

MarkII

I have been flying a T-25 and AeroTech Phoenix for the last few years.

I also had a 36" foam and tape flying wing that I converted and it worked great until a cato caused a foam fire :(

Someone needs to start a parts and supplys thread!

Fun Fun,

I have many. You asked for it. :)
I'll start with my favorite, my upscale OT...

...continued
(photo Scott Branche)

...continued

I think this is it... probably missed something.

Dang, this thread makes be wanna build a glider! I haven't built any for such a long time, unless you count RTF gliders :eek: