My first boost glider.

The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Scotty Dog

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 1, 2010
Messages
7,451
Reaction score
302
Started my SEMROC "SWIFT" Boost Glider.I got the parts sanded and the wings foiled. Now Im ready to put the wing together. This is as far as Ill go tonight. Couple pics also. Scotty Dog

Swift.JPG

Swift1.JPG
 
I glued the pieces parts together. Got ready to prime them and noticed I had attached one wing tip on backwards :y:OHHHHHH Well, cut it off and re did it. So, heres where its at. Im gona paint it in pieces then put it together. Scotty Dog

SWIFT2.JPG
 
Did you ever finish this one? I'm curious how it turned out and how it flew.

After the untimely demise of my daughter's Estes Transwing last weekend at our club launch, we found and bought a Swift from the vendor there. The primer is currently drying and waiting for the sanding. I'll probably sand more than normal, to try and keep the weight down. And I can't decide if I'm going with the kit's paint scheme or something all together different. I'm leaning toward dark blue or black with yellow trim, or a tiel with deep red/maroon trim. The latter may be hard to find...maybe the yellow would be better.

One thing I'm curious about on this one. It's test flights before primer/paint went extremely well. Almost too well, as the glides were all straight as an arrow. While the modeling part of me is damn proud about that, the flyer part of me wants a little imperfection so that it glides in circles, you know, so I don't have to walk forever to recover it, or worse yet, lose it all together.

Maybe the paint will give me that imperfection I'm looking for. If not, what do folks typically do, add a paper clip to one wing? Smear a little clay to a wing tip? I thought about making the paint a little thicker on one side, but that would be permanent and not allow for any adjustments. Or do folks simply cross their fingers and bring binoculars with them when flying these bad boys?
 
To get it gliding in circles, put some clay or other weight on the left wingtip.

If you're worried about weight, color the glider with a permanent magic marker. I use red on top and black on the bottom. The coloring should be done before using sanding sealer. Another method used by some BTCs is dope over Japanese tissue. This method adds strength with little added weight.
 
I built this one. I had fits trying to get it trimmed; it was me, not the glider.

I finally got it to glide so well that it glided away forever. Heck, it might still be up there somewhere. I wasn't showing any siigns of comeing down when we lost track of it.

It remains the only glider that I have ever gotten to glide.
 
I built this one. I had fits trying to get it trimmed; it was me, not the glider.

I finally got it to glide so well that it glided away forever. Heck, it might still be up there somewhere. I wasn't showing any siigns of comeing down when we lost track of it.

It remains the only glider that I have ever gotten to glide.

I just finished building one of these. It was absolutely fantastic. As for trim, it was virtually perfect out of the box. I added only a tiny amount of nose weight.
 
I have such mixed feelings on the Swift so far. It was a lot of fun to build, and the trim was great, very nice glides when testing. But then I started getting cute and worrying about its appearance. While sanding the primer I snapped apart one of the wing tips. It was right at the joint, so easy enough to fix.

I finished the paint job and put it away waiting for an opportunity to fly, probably at a club launch on the 20th. But then Saturday afternoon I thought to myself, "you really didn't check the trim after painting, and there is more surface area in the tail for the paint to have added weight..." So I decided another toss or two to check trim was in order. On the plus side, it was good that I did the testing, as there was apparently a little too much tail weight for flying into a breeze, the nose went up and it stalled. Now I know to make an adjustment. The bad part was that with all of that wide open grass where I was tossing it, it decided to nose dive onto the relatively thin sliver of the cart path. The main wing snapped off in the middle, and snapped apart.

I do have it back together again, and this time, appearance be damned, the joints are loaded up with extra glue...screw smoothing out the fillets, I left those suckers nice and thick.

Now when I first finished it, I had originally thought of adding some wing weight and doing more trim tests trying to get it to glide in nice circles on the way down. But not any more. This thing is sitting in storage until the club launch, and if it glides out of sight because I didn't put any wing weight on it, so be it. I'll just have to make sure I capture it's flight on video.
 
My daughter launched her Swift yesterday on A8-3. I had trimmed it the day before and it was slightly nose-heavy despite being perfect a few weeks ago. My home is at high altitude and very very dry, so I'm not surprised if the balsa dried out a bit and changed the balance. Anyway, after minor adjustment, she was gliding really well.

Launch was good, separation was perfect, and the glider immediately righted itself. Despite my trimming, the glide was rather steep and tight circling. I mean it was fine, but not the graceful delicate glide I had expected.

The landing was rather gentle so I was shocked when my daughter brought it back in 3 pieces: the fuselage had snapped in two places. That was pretty bizarre for such an ordinary flight (especially considering we had tossed it 100 times during trimming). The damage is easily fixable, and we'll try again.

Geof
 
I've not built the Swift, but I have done a few BGs for regional contests. Just about any design can be a bugger to trim. I've had my best luck with a Turnup glider I downloaded from the NAR website contest plans. But it works better if you turn the wing around and move the wing back about 1/2".

If you want a glider to work well, paint is a definite no-no. To add some color to the wings, go to an art supply store (Blick's, for example) and look for the Sharpie Magnum markers I've found the black Magnums in office supply stores, but Blick's has them in red and blue as well as an off brand that works just as well. The Magnum is great because it covers a lot of area in a single swath. It adds color to the wing and tail without adding any weight. For best visibility, I like to color the underside of the wing and tail with black and the top red. A strip of silver mylar tape along the fuselage boom helps too without changing the CG of the glider (which should be about center of the wing root).
 
Back
Top