Rocketry Boost Gliders - Let's see them!

[AKPilot]

Okay, in following in the spirit of the Goony thread, I'd like to see everyone's boost gliders; in package or built.

Come'on get me drooling . . .

 

[WiK]

I dunno about drooling, but here's my old VMX one of it's frequent crashes, I mean flights...

(I'm behind the camera, btw)

Here it is after a few modifications, an Estes C6 clustered with a long-burn German motor (note the scars) :evilgrin:

Vids of both flights:
https://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=kbsafWNDiLo
https://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=koCyCjw7UJA

Lost it after that non-spacking flight, but I've had another one to build for the last couple of years. Just deciding how many motors to gaffer tape to it

Phil

 

[burkefj]

Does RC boost glide count, or does it have to be free flight???

(just started a thread on these in lpr, but hey, you wanted to see some, so I'm sharing

Frank

 

[dpower]

This is my recently finished this Semroc Nighthawk xKit. It brings back great memories of the 70s, when I built the estes kit in an attempt to earn the EAC level of Advanced Rocketeer! (Though I'm hoping this one will actually glide... )

 

[CharlaineC]

Here are some of mine.

Estes Sissor wing transport. arv condorCrusader Swing wing, And the estes Astron space plane

 

[SecretSquirrel]

 

[SecretSquirrel]

 

[mikeyd]

The "Robarts" UFO gliders go up on G's, the Small Bomarc, to the right of the Goony, is pop-pod converted original Estes Mini-Bomarc, and an original Citation series Bomarc, pop-pod

 

[mikeyd]

Couple More, the SkyDart by the Monitor is 3/4 scale, you can see it next to the original, in the last photo.

 

[Delta-IV]

Here is my scratch built glider...well sort of.

Flew it 5 times....on it's last flight it glided for over 52 seconds.

 

[AKPilot]

I'm going to cry! A 52-second glide and it didn't make it?

What are you guys doing - skeet shooting?

 

[user 13]

Here is a few of mine. My flying jenny, orbital transport, space shuttle, mach 10, space plane.

 

[Delta-IV]

I'm going to cry! A 52-second glide and it didn't make it?

What are you guys doing - skeet shooting?

Well the glider flew for 52 seconds..unfortunately the booster flew for only about 8 seconds....

Not the best photo, but only one I got.
The rocket was a split glider, the BT was slit in half, where the glider and wing was on the upper half and the parachute recovered booster was on the bottom.

 

[georgegassaway]

Here’s some pics:

Great Dane - Two pics merged together. I made a lot of 6’ span or larger swing-wings. On the left side is my first one, in 1972. On the right is a photo taken in 2006, when I converted an old model for rudder-only R/C.

1978 scratchbuilt X-models. A large and medium X-wing fighter. The large one was designed to have the top two wings deploy up for glide, like a “K” wing, plus a clear plastic scissor-canard. But, that model was underpowered and I never could get the glide trim worked out (it tumbled). The medium X-wing was optimized to glide, less detail, lighter, and a larger clear scissor-canard. It actually did glide, but it had to be trimmed nose-heavy to glide fast, because if the X-wing stalled it would never recover. The X-15 was about 24-30” long, flew on a D12 usually, flew really nice once on an E20.

Orbital SkyDart Project. Made a SkyDart 2X in 1999. Then in 2004, made “SkyBooster”, with Orbital Transport style markings, two G12 power, to carry the SkyDart 2X piggyback, then air-start the SkyDart 2X (using either an E6 or E9). This required two pilots, most of the flights were with Bob Parks as the second pilot, flying the SkyDart 2X.

Astron Space Plane 4X, with Vern Estes - Scale up of the first B/G kit. F13 or G12 power. Made a 2X test model before that to confirm it would fly well as an R/C model, which it certainly did.

Stingray-Flap - FAI type S8E-P model. D7 and E6 power. Note the flap, colored red. The Stingrays were designed by Kevin McKiou, as a very high performance all-composite S8E duration glider. By the time of the 2002 WSMC, the senior event changed to S8E-P, or “precision landing” (which is sometimes more like “precision crash landing”). The objective is to land very close to a 50 meter long runway tape, at exactly 6 minutes. Every second over or under is a point off, and the landing points are 100-50-25-0 from 1/2 meter to 1 meter to 5 meters to more than 5 meters off the line. So for 2002, the team used a new Stingray design with a flap in the center to help with controlling the descent rate and descent angle. I used the same model at the WSMC in Spain last August, and won a Silver medal in the event. Though that was a minor miracle which was due somewhat to good luck and topped by a very unique strategy that made itself viable in the third round when the wind blew at 25+ or so, which nobody else thought of (everyone else was landing on the ground at 2.5 to 4 minutes or so to fight for the 100 point landing, and most got a zero on the landing. So I didn’t try to land it, let it glide as normal and drift downwind to try to stay up 6 minutes. Landed in an orchard, but the U.S. Team found it anyway).

- George Gassaway

 

[mikeyd]

I have always admired Georges work, and it was from his Robart Glider booster, that I got the Idea for mine. Thanks for sharing to everyone!
Mike.

 

[dwmzmm]

Here’s some pics:

Great Dane - Two pics merged together. I made a lot of 6’ span or larger swing-wings. On the left side is my first one, in 1972. On the right is a photo taken in 2006, when I converted an old model for rudder-only R/C.

1978 scratchbuilt X-models. A large and medium X-wing fighter. The large one was designed to have the top two wings deploy up for glide, like a “K” wing, plus a clear plastic scissor-canard. But, that model was underpowered and I never could get the glide trim worked out (it tumbled). The medium X-wing was optimized to glide, less detail, lighter, and a larger clear scissor-canard. It actually did glide, but it had to be trimmed nose-heavy to glide fast, because if the X-wing stalled it would never recover. The X-15 was about 24-30” long, flew on a D12 usually, flew really nice once on an E20.

Orbital SkyDart Project. Made a SkyDart 2X in 1999. Then in 2004, made “SkyBooster”, with Orbital Transport style markings, two G12 power, to carry the SkyDart 2X piggyback, then air-start the SkyDart 2X (using either an E6 or E9). This required two pilots, most of the flights were with Bob Parks as the second pilot, flying the SkyDart 2X.

Astron Space Plane 4X, with Vern Estes - Scale up of the first B/G kit. F13 or G12 power. Made a 2X test model before that to confirm it would fly well as an R/C model, which it certainly did.

Stingray-Flap - FAI type S8E-P model. D7 and E6 power. Note the flap, colored red. The Stingrays were designed by Kevin McKiou, as a very high performance all-composite S8E duration glider. By the time of the 2002 WSMC, the senior event changed to S8E-P, or “precision landing” (which is sometimes more like “precision crash landing”). The objective is to land very close to a 50 meter long runway tape, at exactly 6 minutes. Every second over or under is a point off, and the landing points are 100-50-25-0 from 1/2 meter to 1 meter to 5 meters to more than 5 meters off the line. So for 2002, the team used a new Stingray design with a flap in the center to help with controlling the descent rate and descent angle. I used the same model at the WSMC in Spain last August, and won a Silver medal in the event. Though that was a minor miracle which was due somewhat to good luck and topped by a very unique strategy that made itself viable in the third round when the wind blew at 25+ or so, which nobody else thought of (everyone else was landing on the ground at 2.5 to 4 minutes or so to fight for the 100 point landing, and most got a zero on the landing. So I didn’t try to land it, let it glide as normal and drift downwind to try to stay up 6 minutes. Landed in an orchard, but the U.S. Team found it anyway).

- George Gassaway

George, you left out your scratch built Concorde.....

 

[georgegassaway]

>>>>>
George, you left out your scratch built Concorde.....
<<<<<<

Well, I left out a LOT of gliders.

Many of which I have no photos of. Some of which I do. I was so glad to recently find that Great Dane swing-wing photo from 1972.

But since you mentioned the Concorde (BT-50 size, SkyDart style pod & elevator system), here it is.

- George Gassaway

 

[rokitflite]

>>>>>
George, you left out your scratch built Concorde.....
<<<<<<

Well, I left our a LOT of gliders.

Many of which I have no photos of. Some of which I do. I was so glad to recently find that Great Dane swing-wing photo from 1972.

But since you mentioned the Concorde (BT-50 size, SkyDart style pod & elevator system), here it is.

- George Gassaway

That plan was in the first issue of The Model Rocketeer I ever got! 1979 or 80 I believe. Thanks George!

 

[sunward]

Mine? ( I have a few )

 

[dwmzmm]

>>>>>
George, you left out your scratch built Concorde.....
<<<<<<

Well, I left our a LOT of gliders.

Many of which I have no photos of. Some of which I do. I was so glad to recently find that Great Dane swing-wing photo from 1972.

But since you mentioned the Concorde (BT-50 size, SkyDart style pod & elevator system), here it is.

- George Gassaway

Yes, that's it; forgot the plans were in The Model Rocketeer. I thought you
had several color pics? Maybe if the NARTS comes out with a disk with all issues of The Model Rocketeer (and American Spacemodeling magazines) I can
get it and use many of those plans; lost most all of my issues over the years
.

 

[dwmzmm]

I still use and fly many of my old competition boost & rocket gliders, mainly for NAR competition. Lets see, I still have my CMR Buzzard (but now needs
repairs for a bad touchdown a while back -- at least I have all the essential
part/subassemblies on hand), CMR Orbitron, CMR Manta, an upscaled Buzzard
built from some plans a long time ago, and the Nymph slidepod R/G. All of the
glider models shown below were built back in the 1970's and (believe it or not)
are still in good use today (except the Orbitron, which was built only a few years ago).

For our next Regional meet (Challenger Memorial Regional), I have the C Boost/Glide event on the schedule; should be very interesting!

 

[AKPilot]

Hey George, you should really think about competing with these one day?

 

[BobH48]

Here is my latest one. A clone of the Nova Salamander-5.

I got the plans from a fellow club member. They were photo copies of the blueprint in 18 pieces and were out of register and wrinkled. I scanned them all and took pieces of the pieces and put them together enough to be able to make the rocket.

It's covered with green, blue and grey tissue. I made a Mico-Maxx version last year to test out the flap concept before building this and it worked quite well.

I'm waiting for the good weather to arrive so I can give it a try.

 

[burkefj]

Keeping with the german theme(I like the salamander...)

I'm not done yet, but I have it framed up, 44" tall and 20" ws, 4.5 oz so far.

Frank

 

[Gillard]

I dunno about drooling, but here's my old VMX one of it's frequent crashes, I mean flights...

(I'm behind the camera, btw)

Here it is after a few modifications, an Estes C6 clustered with a long-burn German motor (note the scars) :evilgrin:

Vids of both flights:
https://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=kbsafWNDiLo
https://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=koCyCjw7UJA

Lost it after that non-spacking flight, but I've had another one to build for the last couple of years. Just deciding how many motors to gaffer tape to it

Phil

my friends VMX performed flawlessly for lots of flights on B motors, lost on its first c flight - after two minutes of it thermalling it was lost. i'm building the d version at the moment.

 

[AKPilot]

Yes, it's too bad that VMX (U.K. Manu.) went out of business. In talking to UMRS, he's had no success in getting a hold of them either.

 

[rokitflite]

Finally found the booster to this one! I built this when I was 14 or 15 in the early 80s. The glider was originally supposed to be a Dyna Soar type craft and plugged into the front of a larger rocket as the nose cone. That configuration had some of the most ugly corkscrew flights. So that booster was scrapped and I made the new booster more like the Estes full stack space shuttle model. It worked GREAT. This has probably had 30 flights on it and has been retired. I made a few larger versions of it (BT-80 booster) and all flew fantastically.

 

[WiK]

Yes, it's too bad that VMX (U.K. Manu.) went out of business. In talking to UMRS, he's had no success in getting a hold of them either.

Are they actually out of business? I know they've never had a big presence on the web, but I didn't think they'd actually stopped producing. FWIW, Rockets And Things has both in stock, I'm sure he could sort you out with shipping to the US.

Phil

 

[Mike Howie]

Finally found the booster to this one! I built this when I was 14 or 15 in the early 80s. The glider was originally supposed to be a Dyna Soar type craft and plugged into the front of a larger rocket as the nose cone. That configuration had some of the most ugly corkscrew flights. So that booster was scrapped and I made the new booster more like the Estes full stack space shuttle model. It worked GREAT. This has probably had 30 flights on it and has been retired. I made a few larger versions of it (BT-80 booster) and all flew fantastically.

I like the way that looks. I may have to try and build one.

 

[georgegassaway]

Finally found the booster to this one! I built this when I was 14 or 15 in the early 80s. The glider was originally supposed to be a Dyna Soar type craft and plugged into the front of a larger rocket as the nose cone. That configuration had some of the most ugly corkscrew flights. So that booster was scrapped and I made the new booster more like the Estes full stack space shuttle model......

I really like the looks of the final version. The camera angle of the glider in the second photo you posted reminds me of a cross between the rear half of Fireball XL-5, and then the yellow and big number reminded me of the submarine in Thunderbirds, even if it was #4 and not #5. The new booster with only two ventral fins, yeah, good design. I like the twin upright stand-offs too (seen in the rear view pic), with dowels, to anchor the rear part of the glider that had launch lugs, to hold the whole thing on securely at three points for boost. And the offset engine mount to keep the thrustline thru the 3-dimensional CG.

So, for NARAM-51, an R/C version, right?

You know.... Actually, even for a F/F model, it could be interesting to convert the glider itself to fly, with a SkyDart type internal pod system. The cheap/easy way would be to "convert" a Baby Bertha. But, you know, there is that BT-80 nose cone (Fat Boy & Super Big Bertha) of the same shape..... And then there is always BMS..... indeed have you seen their &#8220;stock&#8221; short nose for a 3&#8221; tube?

- George Gassaway