Thanks for the info, Gary. I'll go look at the sites you mentioned. I'm
mostly interested in just making up my own designs and seeing it I can get
them to glide (see
http://ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/Indoor_Construction/photos/browse/c8d3?c=
). I don't know if I have the patient to build a real indoor plane like
this (I'm mostly just a tinkerer) but I like the idea of the prebuilt
Butterfly.
I got started in all this with a book I got as a teenager (which I still
have, somewhere). Its called something like "Building and Flying
Hand-Launched Gliders" (it has a very yellow cover and, if I can find it,
I'll give you the actual title). It not only explained how to build a nice
outdoor glider but it went into great details about aerodynamics and how to
trim it, plus how to scale the basic plan up and down. Anyway, with this
book as an inspiration, I started doing both simple balsa designs and
designs that combined typing paper with balsa (remember typing paper???)
Steve
P.S. I live in the Long Beach, California area, just south of the Long Beach
airport. I've noticed the Boeing 717 assembly building is empty so I'm
hoping they'll have a fly-off in there.
[snip]
Steve,
Try a Mini-Stick. They are 7" span, 10" long, with 1/32" square wing
spars,
1/64" sheet balsa prop blades and powered by rubber that looks like it came
out of the waist band of your shorts. They fly in circles small enough to
fit inside your apartment, the main limitation is the ceiling. Try to find
a
gym to fly in. Let us know where you live, some of us may fly nearby. You
can't do much glider flying under a low ceiling anyway.
Here is the official class description, sections 24 and 13:
http://www.modelaircraft.org/comp/0506Rulebook/indoorFreeFlight.pdf
Here is a plan and description:
http://www.indoorduration.com/IndoorDurationFrame.htm
Here are more plans:
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~hak/freeflight/plans.php
Here are kits for Mini Stick and slightly larger Parlor Planes:
http://www.indoormodelsupply.com/
Get a Butterfly already built and ready to fly:
http://www.pennvalleyhobbycenter.com/rubber/Ikara/Images/butterfly.htm
Gary
[snip]
Received on Sun Dec 31 2006 - 00:13:58 CET