Free Flight Hand Launch Glider & Rubber OT & Modern>>>

[BellicoseBloke]

Today found a pretty good channel on the subject... This guy does a good job of launching & filming by hand at the same time... Hails from Indonesia & the background scenery is quite nice...

I used to compete in HLG & OT Rubber decades ago... Really liked it as you are competing against others building, trimming & flying skills NOT their pocketbooks...

Here he's tossing discus launch free flight glider... Very nice I like his nose 'bumper'... Looks like he has it flying a bit nose-heavy probably to keep it from going up in an early morning thermal-

Here he workflows the building of a Cessna Bird Dog rubber scale model & flies it as well using more turns each flight, the last one is quite nice... Looks about 26 inch span maybe more-

Here he workflows building & flying a Planophore, a design from 1871... Very nice... The last flight I thought he lost it in a thermal but looks as though it popped out & he recovered it after all-

Here some kid-guy made a 36 inch glider that weighs only 17 grams!... That's a feat for an outside glider-

 

[BellicoseBloke]

BAAAaahhh!... So many websites gone! Checking my old links for free flight... However some still alive... Most these have downloadable PDF plans or images-

http://www.parmodels.com/Plans/nocals.htm

http://dbdesignbureau.buckmasterfamily.id.au/plans.htm

http://theplanpage.com/prev.htm

http://theplanpage.com/esp.htm

http://theplanpage.com/st.htm

http://theplanpage.com/How To Articles/How to Articles.htm

This is FF Glider knowledge base with some trinkets-

https://www.amaglider.com/?p=home

I have a ton more that used to be available on the net as well as all the thermic thumber articles in PDF... Probably will try using archive.org to store out now that so many are gone...

One must build both strong & light & very much with 'tweaks' built into the model as you go along unless you don't want to fly it... Like wing wash-in or wash-out (the latter important), wing weight offset, wing offset (common in HLG), stab tilt & more>>>

Rubber still available but not as good as decades ago... Japanese esaki silk & tissue no longer made but some selling their 'caches' of tissues for not too bad an elevated price, Glad I got plenty...

Here is a pic of the late Larry Conover with his original design HLG 'Tern II' one of my favorites as it is bird-like appearance & has a 'spoiler-flap' dethermalizer when kicked up the glider simply descends out of the thermal like using 'down stick'-

Have made 4-5 of these some enlarged to 24"... Instead of DT fuse I use a spring pulling an arm thru a trough of silly putty so after 1.7-2.2 minutes it releases the spoiler flap-

You see the flap released there & the silly putty...

Here another angle... The tissue used to be nice white with red lettering but all bleached out now-

Here's another that I finished about 8 years ago not tested it's some aussie guys design but I added carbon fiber to wing...

That is covered in polyspan not Japanese tissue... Same silly putty dethermalizer but with tail boom that kicks up, making glider come out of a thermal like a parachute...

Here's closed detail-

Here's open detail-

 

[BellicoseBloke]

Here's technical library hosted at national free flight society... Many hundreds of PDFs on building, trimming, tips, etc...

Incredible source-

https://www.freeflight.org/docs-category/technical-library/

Main Page-

https://www.freeflight.org/

Some good stuff here-

https://ffscale.co.uk/

Here too-

http://parmodels.com/Plans/Free Flight.htm

Image style plans-

https://web.archive.org/web/20050207010244/http://home.swipnet.se/mfk_slandan/hlg/hlg.htm

Twin Pushers & Other Free Flight Oddities Page-

https://web.archive.org/web/20100113070239/http://home.att.net/~dannysoar/home.htm

A few from here-

https://web.archive.org/web/20060827135416/http://modelplanes.my100megs.com/index.html

 

[BellicoseBloke]

Gee Bee R1 rubber powered flight... seen pics of rubber Gee Bees but never an actual flight... You gotta build these quite light due to the phat body-

Specking out against a chemtrail sky>>>

Burnelli vs Boeing - lifting body designs-