Elastic Launched Glider B

[wlsguy]

Hi,
Wanted to find out what times other schools are getting for flight times for the glider. We are currently able to get a flight time of 22 seconds. Is this good enough to do well at regionals and state?

22 seconds in how high of a ceiling?

[retired1]

To be competitive in most states you will need to be at 1 second of time for each foot of available ceiling.1.1 or 1.2 will frequently be the winners.
You will never reach times by people in AMA sanctioned contests because your glider is much heavier.
Most states will have a 35 to 40 foot ceiling. Developing the launch skills to miss the obstacles and still get that high will frequently be the winner.

[bernard]

Just noticed that the Elastic Launched Glider Kit from Freedom Flight Models is now available! (Yes, I've been waiting for it!) These kits can be very competitive (but are not necessary, just helpful).

[seadog]

We unfortunately have a relatively low ceiling in our school gym. Anyone else having a hard time finding a good indoor place with high ceilings to test gliders?
I am planning to scope out the other school gyms in our area and see if they will let us test there.
Any other ideas?
Thanks !

[jander14indoor]

Depending on where you live and the weather, you can do your initial trimming and learning out doors on calm days. Do it someplace with soft grass and you'll break less planes. You can learn how to trim for good transition and glide not worring about smashing your glider on the ceiling or floor. Once you can transition and glide, you can start working on controlling height of transmission and then start moving indoors and learn fine control of transition height.

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI

[seadog]

Thank you Jeff. I will try that. I wish it was easy to find a 40 foot ceiling though.

[chalker]

Thank you Jeff. I will try that. I wish it was easy to find a 40 foot ceiling though.

Another place to look is in a theater, either at your school or a local movie theater. While not ideal, many have pretty high ceilings.

[torqueburner]

I am helping our Middle School students with their gliders. I recommended that they start with Stan Buddenbohm's kit rather than the FF flapper design, mostly due to ease of construction, though I've seen the posted observations that practice and launch technique and trim are probably of more importance than design.

In any case, the students built their gliders with a minimum of difficulty. Pretty quickly, they were able to launch up to the top of our gym (very low, 19 ft. beams). The transition from ascent to glide was very nice, with minimum loss of altitude. A much happier result than I had expected, so no complaints. However, one problem they did have was unexpected - they had trouble launching without the glider making contact with the launch handle, which was a piece of dowel with a loop of rubber, pretty much the standard bare bones launcher.

I'm guessing that there is some technique for avoiding this? Can anyone out there give us some suggestions? Thanks.

[SOCoach]

My students have been working hard on ELG for a month or so now. Their biggest frustration is getting a consistent transition zone/time. Sometimes it will barely fall, transition quickly and begin its glide, other times it falls half-way to the floor before it begins its transition. Any ideas what causes this? I think they are getting frustrated in the fact that one day they will get times of 14, 15 seconds and the next (with the same plane) they can only get 6 to 7 seconds. There simply doesn't seem to be any consistency. Any suggestions?

[bernard]

My students have been working hard on ELG for a month or so now. Their biggest frustration is getting a consistent transition zone/time. Sometimes it will barely fall, transition quickly and begin its glide, other times it falls half-way to the floor before it begins its transition. Any ideas what causes this? I think they are getting frustrated in the fact that one day they will get times of 14, 15 seconds and the next (with the same plane) they can only get 6 to 7 seconds. There simply doesn't seem to be any consistency. Any suggestions?

Could you explain what you mean by transition zone/time? I have a resource that might help but I'm not sure that I'm understanding you entirely.