Deltie Thunder Air Show

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IMG_0971.jpg
Photo by Deanna Mann
This is a scratch built trios of Deltie Thunder Gliders on a scratch booster
TTW fin attachment standard glider hook on fin tips
Motor was a Cesaroni H-54 delay drilled to about 4 to 5 sec. A little long 3sec would have been better.
Flown at SCORE on 15 July 2017
George Shaiffer
 
And I always had a hard enough time recovering just one of them. :)

I usually flew my Deltie Thunder on an E15 motor. A D12 didn't seem to get it high enough. The E, through, gave it room to soar, which it often did - across the field, across the road, across the next field ...

Do you have any more photos or video? That looks really cool!

-- Roger
 
That is an extremely nice liftoff shot. More please ! How did you build the upscale ? Did you work from an old kit ?
 
IMG_0971.jpgIMG_0975.jpgIMG_1015.jpgIMG_1025.jpgIMG_1121.jpgIMG_1041.jpgIMG_1089.jpgIMG_0971.jpgI was fortunate enough to fly in front of a large group! Two of the three flew nearly a quarter mile in opposite directions. One landed about 500 ft from pad.
I used 3/16" basswood for the boom, balsa tends to snap in front of the wings. I'm not sure if the detail will show but Deanna Mann captured a one in a million photo of one of the gliders hitting the booster! Slight damage to the left wing on recovery was found, photo confirmed it was not damage from the landing.
 
This was the second flight attempt. Last year's attempt resulted in balsa confetti from two of the gliders; third was lost the next day on standard boost configuration. Two of those were original kits.
These were built using templates provided by Dave Virga plus he loaned a built 'Thunder glider to use for comparison/measurements. Dave successfully flew an original Deltie Air Show earlier that same day.
It was the existence of Dave's Air Show that caused him to issue the challenge to build a 'Thunder Air Show. There was concern that the H-54 long burn motor would not have adequate thrust on that first attempt
so an H-95?? was used on the first attempt. An impressive failure with all the balsa falling. Since booster recovered with no damage I decided to build three more gliders and make another attempt with the original motor that I had planned to use.
 
Awesome project. Boost gliders are the coolest. :) Welcome to the forum BTW.
 
I have a Deltie Air Show, I have flown it twice, great flights both times.

But I agree you have to have lots of help because parts go everywhere.
 
I was there to see this. It was awesome! Big gliders flying every where, a real mid air collision, miraculous recovery of the one glider where your clay weight on the wing got knocked off, making it fly straight towards the canyon!
 
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