And for something completely different.......

[GDJ]

Here is something I've been tinkering around with. It does kinda glide, but more like a shallow bellyflop or controlled descent with wings. Goes up fast and high, but slow and glider-like......if a X-15 rocketplane can glide........


Here is the .ork file and the .pdf file.....

[powderburner]

It does kinda glide, but more like a shallow bellyflop or controlled descent with wings......

And that's about all the X-15 did. It was not much of a 'glider' at all, its job was to go fast (very fast) and for that, you don't want wings. The X-15 wings were there only as a way to get slow enough (barely) to get back on the ground.

I don't know if very many people on this forum understand what makes a good glider (as in boost-glide, rocket-glide, etc) but this goes immediately into a completely different category of flying stuff. You need to learn and follow the rules for flying model airplanes, including wing loading, wing airfoil shapes, and all the rest. It is a VERY difficult task to combine rocketry with flying model airplanes. You tend to end up either with:
-- a model airplane that barely hangs together while it staggers slowly into the air under rocket power, or
-- a model rocket that shoots right on up there...and flops right back down

[burkefj]

You can get X-15's to rocket up and glide back(with rc at least), the key is light weight for the size, I've done several in depron, they have a very nice glide, better than a hobbylab SR-71, but weight on the order of 9 oz rtf with an E-6 and are 39" long, so have a lot more wing area. The problem you'll have with a smaller rocket are forward CG(ahead of the wing/tube joint) for boost and then it gets more nose heavy as you burn propellent. You would need to loose some nose balast at burnout and have some up trim for glide that is neutral for boost. On my larger version the CG shift isn't as drastic relative to the size and I can get by with a less stable boost CG because I'm steering it ont he way up if needed, and can click in up trim for burnout glide. You can cheat a bit on wing area and still keep the look.

Frank

[fyrwrxz]

Hello- George? Any body home? Feel free to chime in anytime, or do you enjoy watching everybody muddle thru what you figured out a long time ago???