Thread: Glider Building
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Old 02-19-2019, 10:22 PM
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MarkB. MarkB. is offline
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Comrades:

Just to close the loop on this thread, I finally launched all of the stuff I mentioned here except for the parasite glider I designed as it got left at home. (It'll fly next time)

So what were the results?

Well, of the two pod-gliders, the FlyBaby and the Semroc Swift, the FlyBaby flew better, hands down. In fact, the Swift separated from its pod shortly after burn out, which of course, sent the pod tumbling down and the glider didn't fly all that well from there. The FlyBaby needs a little less left trim, but flew well. I have a picture of it flying, below. It made two more 360s from that altitude. I don't know how good 48 seconds on an A8-3 is, but it was cool to watch and I was totally pleased. My launch crew thought it was pretty darn cool.

As to the parasites, perhaps the key was the Glider-Launching-Rocket or GLR. It flew four times, once with no gliders, then twice with the two small gliders and then once with the big Enerjet Pterodactyl. At the end of the day it was missing a glider lug (of three) and the chrome paint was pretty beat-up, but other than that, it was OK. The X-13 and Firefly both flew well but the Firefly landed first both times. Even though the X-13 was Monokote covered, it was lighter than the dope-and-tissue covered Firefly because it needed no nose weight. I think that was reflected in the performance. More tweaking is needed as I think there is more performance in there for both. I think I could get 30 seconds on the X-13 without too much trouble if it were launched alone on the GLR on a B6-2 . The picture is kind of cool in that it shows one of the gliders flying by the parachuting GLR with a few wadding clusters falling higher up.

Which leaves the Pterodactyl. From test-flying in my backyard, I knew it was a little nose heavy but I thought it would glider better from higher up. I was wrong. It came screaming down like the lifting body at the beginning of the Six Million Dollar Man, hit a small rock (in the desert! Go figure) and tumbled over a few times. It now has a dent in the nose which I'm going to try and steam out and then were going to get a much flatter glide in the backyard before we try again.

On the plus side, I'm happy that the smallish GLR can launch the Pterodactyl. The GLR is significantly smaller than the big Enerjet E and F powered monsters the Pterodactyl was designed to piggyback. The downside is I'm tempted to recreate one of those big monster boosters, get an Enerjet hat and scare the children at the next launch.
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