Re: What I learned from Sebastian

The main problem is not so much the weight of the glider but acceleration levels on impact which will depend critically on nose flexibility, deformation etc. If the wings are very light, this will help.

Bob

On Feb 20 2013, William Gowen wrote:

Shock loads aren't a big problem with a 1.5 gram glider. Also the chemical
composition of Durobatics foam may be different from other foams. The
person who invented the product died without sharing the formula with
anyone. If a person were to want to try this trick with a different foam it
would be a good idea to repeat the experiment first.
On Feb 20, 2013 5:45 AM, wrote:

> **
>
>
> The main problem with cyano joints is that, certainly with balsa, it
> appears to have no shock load resistance. The joints are liable to fail if
> the glider dives onto a hard surface.
>
> Bob
>
>
>
> On Feb 19 2013, William Gowen wrote:
>
> Sebastian Perez is a local high school student involved in several Science
> Olympiad events. Sebastian worked all day today to finish his second glider
> for the SO elastic launched glider event. I have often assured him that the
> only glue that would work for gluing the foam flaps onto a WIF7 wing is
> epoxy. Somewhere toward the end of the day (and after many messy and time
> consuming epoxy applications) he decided that he wanted to do an experiment
> to see exactly what CA would do to Durobatics foam. I gave him the thin CA
> thinking that would burn a hole thru the foam the quickest. He poured some
> on the foam and said "nothing's happening". So I said that maybe the
> problem was that CA wouldn't stick to the foam. We both wanted to find out
> so I took a piece of balsa and a piece of foam and glued them together with
> a thin film of thick CA. A few seconds later they seemed to be stuck when I
> pulled on the foam, so I decided to see how hard it would be to pull them
> apart. The result was that the foam split diagonally, leaving a strip of
> foam glued to the full length of the balsa. My next glider won't have any
> epoxy!
>
> Oh yeah - 2 weeks ago Sebastian set new Sr. Cat 1 AMA records in SCLG and
> UCLG using his first glider and on his first day flying it.
>
>