Thread: Glider Building
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Old 08-14-2018, 11:32 PM
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MarkB. MarkB. is offline
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Guys,

Here's a picture of an Estes Firefly clone and a Vashon X-13 clone, side by side.

These are clones built from the instructions on JimZ and on YORS. the fuselages have been replaced by spruce of the same length and the addition, on the X-13, of a small dowel on the nose in place of the elaborate elastic system required for flying off of Cold-Power rockets . The X-13 is slightly shorter. The tail surfaces are identical; on the Firefly the vertical stab is reversed. The X-13 wing is slightly larger in both span and cord but not by much.

Obviously, the position of the parts is different. The X-13 nose is longer making it need less weight to achieve a good glide. The X-13 also has a keel piece under the wing which makes it very easy to hand-launch. Right off the bench, the X-13 is almost ready to fly without nose weight; the Firefly isn't even close.

The last step is covering. The X-13 gets MonoKoted. I located both some Orange MonoKote and my MonoKote iron which hadn't been used in at least 15 years. It did come up to heat right away. The Firefly will be getting dope and tissue. Both should be done this weekend. When they are covered I should have a better idea of how much ballast they'll each need.
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