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I still think I perfer R/G to B/Gs for competition.. I seem to be able to get them to trim out better than most B/Gs. I tihnk my favorite is called the NO-Mad either an NCR or Matt Steel design. in this model a burn string releases a some preset up elevator changing the geometry from boost to glide, little possibility of red baron as everything stays together:) hyou are still carring the expended motor casing weight which is something of a disadvantage but i've had pretty good luck placing in a lot of B/G contests with this R/G. Yes; you can fly rocket gliders in boost glider competitions but not a boost glider in Rocket glider contests. just to confuse:D
I like this design so much I've downscaled it to 7.1mm pod for micro-maxx motors.
 
Just because they are used in competiton doesn't mean they can't look good. NO; I don't bother making my glider pretty but my then B division daughter did a heck of a free hand pen and magic marker job on her EC-13 R/G before taking home the blue ribbon for her division in an Open meet. heres my EC-13 R/G (upper Left) along with Kathleens, build at the same time, but didn't even come close to her flight time...Kids always whip up and the parents and Looks better doing it... Man! here 5 pics of Kathleen's EC-13 Disney theme R/G.. these images were all penciled in then magic markered and pen outlined. She told me the other night the whole decorating process took an evening.
 
The Thermal Hawk was the best BG that I've ever built and flown. I wish I could get my hands on another kit... After many, many flights, it landed in a roadway and was crushed to bits by a passing vehicle...:(
 
Here's a picture of mine, Ghost Of Thunderbunny.
https://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~adrian/irw2003/sun24/35thunderbunny.jpg

Originally this was Thunderbunny. With an adaptor and an A3-4T in the booster, it flew nicely. With a C6-3 and no adaptor, it shredded itself completely.

I stuck the bits together, reinforced the joints with glue fillets, renamed it Revenge Of Thunderbunny, and tried again with a C6-3. The joints held, the balsa wood didn't.

I stuck the bits together, reinforced the wings with doped tissue, renamed it Ghost Of Thunderbunny, and tried again with a C6-3. The joints held, the wings held, it flew fine.

The latest modification is just visible behind the wing in that picture, a pod to hold a Rapier motor. These things are low thrust, long burn - about A class, about 7 seconds. They can't lift their own weight but they can keep a glider going. The official way to light one is to put a fuse in the back, light it with a match, then throw the glider. The unofficial way is to connect an Estes igniter to the fuse, then light it at the same time as the booster. :)
 
Great story Adrian:
wonderful naming, The NAR Prez should be so proud:D LOL

Where did you come across the Rapier motors? They sound a little like the Little Jetx solid propellant motors we used to fly in hand tossed gliders back when hector was a pup... I think I still have one of the alum. motor caseings but haven't seen the propellant slugs in a very long time.
 
You need some difference between the angles of attack between the stab and the wing to get this bird to glide.

I originally took to putting a small wedge under the trailing edge of the stab to force this angle into place. If this wasn't done JUST
precisely right, the bird would glide great, but loop into the ground under power.

The secret to getting good Estes Falcon performance is to put the incidence in the WING. (I stole this idea shamelessly from Kevin Stumpe, husband of NAR HQ manager Marie Stumpe.) He suggested 2-3 degrees of incidence in the wing to me during one of my NAR HQ visits. Putting the incidence there means it's close to the boost CG, and will thus have less of a moment arm to work through during boost.

As soon as the engine spits, then the CG shifts, and the moment arm gets a lot longer, and more effective. Instant pull-out from a dive.

How to get that angle in there, you ask?

You could try eyeballing it, but I prefer to cut a couple of small balsa triangles to the 2 degree angle, glue them first to the fuselage, then glue the wings in place using the triangles as a guide.

You just need a rectangle of 1/16" balsa as long as the root edge of the wing.

Now split the rectangle into two triangles, by measuring a 2-3 degree angle and cutting it on that diagonal.

Build the Falcon fuselague stock.

Now take the triangle, and glue the straight edge of one of your triangles such that the 2-3 deg. angle is located at the wing glue
location.

Glue wings in place, and voila!

One other Falcon tip I use.

Introduce some roll on boost.

I do this by canting the pod a bit to one side.

DON'T overdo it.

To get the alignment right, I center a 1/8" dowel in an expended engine casing, insert that into the body tube, and then align the tube on the pylon such that the thrust line is about 1" to the right of center at the trailing edge of the stab. If you more than 1", the model expends too much energy spinning and won't get any altitude.

When I used this trick on my Canon City NARAM Falcon, it worked perfectly for 6th place in teams. Not bad for a 30+ year old design
whacked together in less than 2 days. . .
 
You can't see it well in that photo but the stabiliser is angled. I don't know how much; I just eyeballed it. ;) Now that it's strong enough to survive a C class boost, Ghost Of Thunderbunny does glide. :)

Rapier motors are available in the UK from a couple of distributors; I don't know if anyone imports them into the US. They're a sort of single-use Jetex. Here's a page about Jetex with information about Rapiers as well:
https://jetex.home.att.net/motors.html
Ghost Of Thunderbunny uses the "pre-formed paper tube attached to the airplane" attachment method. :) The motors I've been using are the L2 variety.
 
Originally posted by Micromister
I still think I perfer R/G to B/Gs for competition.. I seem to be able to get them to trim out better than most B/Gs. I tihnk my favorite is called the NO-Mad either an NCR or Matt Steel design. in this model a burn string releases a some preset up elevator changing the geometry from boost to glide, little possibility of red baron as everything stays together:) hyou are still carring the expended motor casing weight which is something of a disadvantage but i've had pretty good luck placing in a lot of B/G contests with this R/G. Yes; you can fly rocket gliders in boost glider competitions but not a boost glider in Rocket glider contests. just to confuse:D
I like this design so much I've downscaled it to 7.1mm pod for micro-maxx motors.

Micromister,
Where can I get the plans for that rg? I've had really good luck with bg's and rg's this year, but I need a simple RG for my 7 year old to build for NARAM and/or some regionals next year. I never knew I could use my RG in BG competitions. I already built 2 BG's and have 3 RG's for Naram. 1 of my RG's is 13mm size, so I'll take it as a spare for BG. Why?... You never know when you could have a "Non flight" accident, or a motor cato on the pad. Unlike you, my BG's seem to fly great; it's the pods I am having trouble with. Does it seem to anyone else that those 1/2 A's have a much stronger ejection than the full A's?
Russ
NAR #81741 L1
 
Thanks Bunny:
I'll try those modifications on a micro-Falcon clone i'm planning. I really like the offset pod idea for roll. If I can get the Falcon to fly as well as my other micro-Gliders I'll be most happy:D
 
narprez, can you post up some diagrams, perhaps? (I'm not an idiot, I just play one in real life.) That would be helpful, as I'm planning to build another Falcon. thanks!!
 
If not using a elevator up type Rocket glider, slide Pod designs seem to work better for me than slide wing designs.. anyone have better luck wiith slide wings? mine alway tend to spriial around wildly on the way up, really reducing the boost altitude. Like I siad I'm just AWFUL at flying glider... I like building them they just don't like boosting for me:(
 
I prefer the slide wing gliders (don't know why - may be a cool factor... :) )

I had one that a friend of mine (Arnie Paye - co=founder of our club the Goddard Society) and I built. Took a couple of ribbons with that beast and have been flying it for nearly 20 years.... last year, at a CMASS launch, some young lady was walking her dog without a leash and he ran right through my blanket full of rockets...

...nailed the RG and ripped up the wings...

I was *not* a happy camper...

but she'll fly again, just have to find the time to do the repair job

jim
 
Jim:
maybe it's the boom slide hardware that makes my "slide wings" flop around. I've only used QCR's slide wing design that passes the boom thou a couple 1/2" long pieces of Square plastistruct tubing. while the wing seems secure enough in the up/down axis, there seems to be some slop side to sdie. Could this be what's causing these flights to do really tight rapid spirials on the way up? Maybe you can see the plasic slide blocks in this photo.
this model literally spirial whipped itis self to shreads about 10feet above the rod. I think the pod continued straight up after loosing the wing:(
 
micro:yeah probably, I have not seen a QCR SLide wing RG yet, but if anything is out of alignment or loose, that would cause the "squirrelly" boost.... and yes I also agree that a slidepod is probaby the easiest of RG to trim.....and build....
 
John,

That is most likely the culprit... does not sound like a very good design. The one that I am talking about (see attached pix) has the entire boom boxed in under the wing.

In the pix (by the way, you can see what the dog did to it... :( ) you will see that there is a box around the boom using 1/64" ply for the sides and a strip of square basewood for the underside. The topside is the wing itself.

To get a stable fit and assure a smooth sliding action, we placed a single thickness of paper on either side of the boom while constructing. Constructing it *tight* then removing the paper spacers left a wing that would slide easily but with very little side to side wiggle.

Also, to help the sliding (because this is, naturally, very environment sensitive), we would talc the boom before each flight.

hope this helps explain

jim
 
A mini-motor version of the Flat Cat. About 45 seconds on a 1/2A3-2T in windy weather. The wings are tissued 1/16 inch balsa.
 
Ah HA! Thanks Jim & shockie:
All these years I've though I was just a numbnut would couldn't get a smiple slide wing to work.. one picture and it's very clear.
OH man! Bad DOG! did you shot it, the owner or maybe both?
sorry; Nhoj my evil twin come out sometimes. Thats just awful, no leash I'm think'in I might have donated a short length of rope to string the little beast up on the flag pole or something.
Hope you can repair it.
 
A Sig Flip converted to an 18mm slide wing RG. 1/64 plywood for the slide mechanism. Mylar tape to ease locating in a winter corn field--those weathered stalks look just like balsa :(
 
A very nice looking Bird Zack:
I may just give one a try. I'll second Jims Welcome to the forum!

The only RGs Ive had any luck at all with are Edmonds Ecee's, I like the canard type gliders I guess mainly for the cool factor Jim mentioned eariler, Robert also up out this hi-wing 10.5mm RG that was a very nice flyer and a good looking model to boot. I'm going to try to retro-fit it for 13mm thou Mr Edmonds said it likely will not to well in the glide mode???
 
I've built at least 10 slide wing rocket gliders :)

My "secret" to getting them to deploy properly is to make sure everything is nice and straight--I use a laser level when looking for straight edged balsa. I also believe in cutting straight edges with a No. 11 hobby knife and a selected piece of brass strip for a straightedge. But, I don't sand them straight--sanding always smooths down the soft balsa faster, so it is impossible to get a straight surface. Sanding is just a smoothing operation for the sharp edges--not a tool for accurately dimensioning balsa.

I always measure the T rail with a dial/digital caliper to make sure the width is constant. If its not, cut a new rail. When things are going well, I can even make the wings interchangeable ;)

You might want to study Jeff Vincent's JV-15 and Nocturne--great articles on building slide wings. I won A RG with a heavy JV-15 that landed at the edge of our field with an 83s flight. I just tested a lightweight version on a 1/2A3--75 seconds in windy weather--good enough for my Nartrek advanced Competition glider requirement.
 
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