R/C X-37B rocket glider

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burkefj

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I'm revisiting this. I attempted to get an R/C X-37B rocket glider working back in 2011 with some help from someone who had built an X-40 pure gliding model. Scott used a combo of V tail controls for pitch/rudder and flaps/aileron.

To simplify, I tried using just differential V tail on my design which works on many of my other models, but I had issues with adequate pitch/roll control after boost transitioning to glide. Boost appeard to be fine, but I think the wing was blanking the V tail in glide with some aoa.

I eventually re-purposed the fuse into a buran that I flew a lot.

This time I'm using fixed tail and trying a pure elevon model and will see how that works. I used a 6" width, 36" length and 22" wingspan as the base. I made a really simple fuse and left off the rear fuse flare for now just to see if it will work and to save some tail weight.

It's built from 6mm depron bottom/wing, tail and formers, and 3mm formed depron skin. I did some indoor glide tests as I usually do prior to rc install when it is really light and think the CG is good.

9.75 oz rtf unfinished, 10.75 oz after trim vinyl application, with motor ready to fly. Almost no CG change after vinyl was applied.

It's got 2 sq feet of flat surface area so may not be as bad of a brick as I'm expecting.

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Got out this morning to fly the X-37B and am very happy. I was very nose heavy on the first two flights, but plenty of roll/pitch control in boost and glide with speed, but ran out of pitch to pull the nose up for landing, actually wound up moving the CG back a full inch, and dumping 1 oz of total weight, so now at 9.75 oz rtf. Video is of flight number two which was still nose heavy but you can see the boost and transition are nice.



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Is that your ride behind you? If so, is it perchance a Hemi? (Hypercars and gliders are still what get my adrenaline pumping).
 
Yes it is that's a 2014 it's my daily driver it has the 5.7 l engine which is called a hemi but I don't think any of the modern engines are true hemis anymore but it's got plenty of power

Is that your ride behind you? If so, is it perchance a Hemi? (Hypercars and gliders are still what get my adrenaline pumping).
 
Here is a good video of the X-37B from today with multiple flights, the first one was to test the max rearward CG which I found, I had to push forward to keep the airspeed up till approach, following flights at optimal cg location. It wants to have some speed and low aoa after burnout till on approach, then level off and let it settle, if you try to get it too slow it just gets into a nose down mush which you can't get out of without letting it built more airspeed. Very flyable though. Thanks to Scott Todd for the inspiration and for his being the first air dropped X-40 R/C model built and flown.

 
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