My ever-growing interest in rocket-powered gliders is starting to run into my interest in unusual, out of left field designs (i. e., my taste for the bizarre ), which has caused me to wonder about a sub-sub-genre that I am going to call "odd-roc gliders." These are rockets, parts of rockets, or add-ons to rockets that recover by gliding, but which do not resemble anyone's idea of a typical rocket-boosted glider. I am asking if anyone has ever designed one, flown one or seen one flown, or has any other knowledge of such beasts.

To give everyone an idea of what I am talking about, let me mention two designs (the only two that I currently know of) that would fit into this category. The first one was Centuri's Gliding Booster, used primarily in the Black Widow two-stage kit, but also sold as a stand-alone add-on kit. Although the primary purpose of this item was to act as a booster stage in multi-stage models, the fact that it supposedly recovered by gliding, rather than the more typical tumble recovery, made it, in fact, a boost glider. Does anyone have any experience with the Gliding Booster? Did it actually glide? How difficult was it to trim for gliding?

The second design that I know of that qualifies as an odd-roc glider is Larry Deran's 1968 MRN plan, The Flyin' Stovepipe. This appears to have been a completely original, totally radical, absolutely unglider-like glider design that must have broken every rule in the book, and yet it worked. Or did it? Does anyone have any experience building this design (I don't - yet) and flying it, or seeing the flights of someone else's build, including the designer's own model? How well did it work? What was the flight like? I am absolutely taken by the bold daring of this design.

So you see what I'm after. In the 50 years of model rocketry, surely some other unglider-like gliders have been designed and flown besides these two; at least, I hope so. I'd love to have you tell me about them, any that you know of. And if you happen to have plans, picture or links to resources, well... that would really be the icing on the cake. And they don't have to be all successes, either; I'm also interested in hearing about designs that may not have quite worked out. So how about it? What wants to start?

MarkII

__________________
SAM # 0011