Deltie Thunder Air Show

[gshaiffer]

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

 

[jadebox]

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

 

[samb]

That is an extremely nice liftoff shot. More please ! How did you build the upscale ? Did you work from an old kit ?

 

[gshaiffer]

I 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.

 

[gshaiffer]

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.

 

[samb]

Awesome project. Boost gliders are the coolest. Welcome to the forum BTW.

 

[H_Rocket]

I could never get the gliders to stay on the rocket while on the pad.

 

[Crawf56]

Outstanding!!!

 

[Lowpuller]

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.

 

[Lowpuller]

 

[Daddyisabar]

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!

 

[BABAR]

congrats on a nice bird and great flight(s?)!

 

[rstaff3]

That's really cool, glad all of the parts were recovered.