Re: Re: Rantoul Contest 10/1/2016-10/2/2016

From: William Gowen <wdgowen_at_gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 10:56:51 -0400

Gliders are awesome! And we could always use new participants.

One of the more interesting aspects of gliders is that they must be
tailored to a fairly specific flying site or ceiling height. Rantoul is
unique in that Cat 1 gliders are usually too light or too flimsy to do well
there and gliders designed for a full Cat 2 site (like Kent) are too heavy.
To some extent this equalizes the competition as different people try
different solutions to a 40'+ site.

So far my best Rantoul glider seems to be a Slow Poker modified for
catapult launching. It was built several years ago and came out too heavy
for Cat 1 and too light for Cat 2 so I refer to it as my glider that's
wrong for any situation. At Rantoul it's just right - at least when it's
not warped from high heat and humidity.

Stan Buddenbohm had an excellent construction article on his Slow Poker in
Model Aviation a few years ago, I believe that the plan and article are
still available. Kurt also has published plans for his Cat 2 catapult
modification of the Slow Poker.

Hand launched gliders are a wide open opportunity at Rantoul. The best
times so far are in the low 40 second range. For comparison Stan's long
standing Cat 1 HLG record is about 47 seconds per flight and the Cat 1 WR
for F1N is around 50 seconds. My original BigPoker has done 40+ in Cat 1. I
think someone with a reasonably strong javelin throw or someone who can
solve the low ceiling discus throw can push the Rantoul times to the 50
second range.

On Tue, Aug 23, 2016 at 10:17 AM, mkirda_at_sbcglobal.net
[Indoor_Construction] <Indoor_Construction_at_yahoogroups.com> wrote:

>
>
> Hi Kurt.
>
> Same here. Raymond might be too.
>
> Mike
>
>
Received on Tue Aug 23 2016 - 07:56:52 CEST