The gliders together!
It's 6.25" long with an almost 6.75" wingspan. I fit a centering ring at the front of the transition to help it ride off the booster at ejection. The wings are 3/32 balsa.
Spent a long time staring at it, thinking up a way to mount the adjustment screw and rubber band holders. I waited till the fin assembly was glued together to carve out a hole for the tiny dowel. If I make this again I'd either cut the holes prior to gluing, wait till it had a coat of sanding sealer ..or get better tools than a heavy gauge needle and a knife haha.
I filed the adjustment screw head down to a reasonable size, again if I were to make another I'd just buy smaller head screws online, nylon is TOUGH.
Glide testing:
*Prior to this I had no experience with gliders or airplanes so if you spot any crucial mistakes or have advice please share*
Right away I learned that gliders are real tricky to throw and a bad flight is more than likely the throws fault than the gliders. So I ignored all bad glides and only made real adjustments after decent glides.
I decided it needed more weight in the back. so I taped a lug filled with clay and a few bb's to the bottom aft of the body (3 grams of weight). This balanced out the glide and helped it's roll stability/ recovery. No more spiral death dives after a gust of wind, it would roll out of it and do a little pendulum swing before leveling.
I made the lug more permanent as you can see in the pics, I'm holding off stuffing it full of clay and bb's again till the gliders closer to its finished weight.
It's a tiny bit unnerving not knowing how much these ground level tests will reflect how it performs 300ft up but at least they show potential.
When there's more sanding sealer on the balsa I might chuck it off the roof a few times to get a better idea.
Once it's painted i think two strips of Mylar tape or chrome monokote for hinges should dress it up nicely.