Elastic Launched Glider C

[retired1]

As a retired pilot, I will guarantee that it is correct; by rudder or wing low. The closer you can stay to a flat level flight with the constraints of the building, the longer your flight will be. There are so many things that can affect trim, it is difficult as to where to start and what change to try next. Blind dumb luck will always beat grace, skill and cunning, but the team that practices the most and upgrades their model as they see the need will probably have the most luck and win.

[jspeedyj]

wat is the average flight from last year?

[twototwenty]

If you look at the end of this post, it will explain what a "good" time is (It also covers how to succeed in this event; its quite helpful).

[jspeedyj]

what do people use to build their wings? is the wings made totally of balsa wood or is it covered with some wrapping of some sort> cause i have no idea on how to build a glider

[fozendog]

You can build it either way. The two ways I have done it so far is have a balsa sheet be the wing or have a balsa structure and cover it in tissue paper.

[andrewwski]

Assuming solid balsa wings would be allowed (old Wright Stuff rules prohibited this, but have not seen these rules), they still would be much heavier than wings made out of mylar or even Japanese Tissue. Take a look at the image gallery for Wright Stuff for a general idea on construction: http://scioly.org/phpBB3/gallery/album.php?album_id=1

[iwonder]

Yes, wings may be constructed out of solid balsa(or carbon fiber, technically) however the total weight must not exceed 10g.

[twototwenty]

As has been said before, you are probably going to wat to use solid balsa or balsa with carbon fiber; a covered balsa struture is probably not going to withstand the forces of thelaunch. Did you have any luck with such a glider, fozendog?

[fozendog]

Actually my glider that I made with tissue paper did ok for a 30ish ft. ceiling. I think the time was an average of 10 sec. after I got my launching down and the place to launch it from in my gym.

[retired1]

Tissue is not very strong, so I will guess that you are using a shallower launch angle and minimum launch speed and with the glider going into a glide as it nears the ceiling. It takes very good construction and lots of practice, but can be competitive.