Future Aviation Events

[jander14indoor]

What are you using for a catapult? What kind of rubber band? How wide, how thick? How hard/far are you pulling back? How high is the ceiling? What glider design are you using?

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI

[illusionist]

Just so I can start considering for next year, what thickness of rubber is generally used to launch in say a 25ft room?

[science8]

Nevermind i tested it today and its all ok now thanks anyways

[jander14indoor]

Just so I can start considering for next year, what thickness of rubber is generally used to launch in say a 25ft room?

As usual, it depends. But less so than for Helicopters or Wright Stuff. Your goal is to put just enough energy into your glider to get it to the ceiling. You can use a short fat rubber or a longer skinnier rubber or vice versa. But there are some practical limits. The first being how long your arms are. The second being how strong your glider is.

The first limit is obvious, your arms are as long as they are, if you have to stretch a particular band beyond that to get to the ceiling, you lose. Make the rubber shorter or thicker.

The second isn't so obvious. To get a long glide portion of your flight, you need your glider as light as possible. Problem is, that makes it weaker (all other things being equal, you can of course build a weak heavy glider, but why?). So how do you launch so as to minimize the forces on your glider allowing it to be as light as possible? Select a rubber band that will be at your full stretch when it just lanches your glider to the ceiling. Think about it, do you want a short, high force launch, or a long low force launch. You can get there by a longer fat rubber or a shorter thin rubber.

Hmm, lots of words, not sure that's much practical help. You don't need to tailor thickness near as much as WS or Helicopter, so I'd say have a selection of 1/16, 1/8, 3/16 and maybe 1/4 inch rubber would more than cover it. Smaller side for shorter ceilings like your 25 ft. Tailor the length to the glider and ceiling height to just get to ceiling with a full stretch launch. If you can't get to full stretch without breaking with shorter thinner rubber, try a thicker longer one.

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI

[illusionist]

Just so I can start considering for next year, what thickness of rubber is generally used to launch in say a 25ft room?

As usual, it depends. But less so than for Helicopters or Wright Stuff. Your goal is to put just enough energy into your glider to get it to the ceiling. You can use a short fat rubber or a longer skinnier rubber or vice versa. But there are some practical limits. The first being how long your arms are. The second being how strong your glider is.

The first limit is obvious, your arms are as long as they are, if you have to stretch a particular band beyond that to get to the ceiling, you lose. Make the rubber shorter or thicker.

The second isn't so obvious. To get a long glide portion of your flight, you need your glider as light as possible. Problem is, that makes it weaker (all other things being equal, you can of course build a weak heavy glider, but why?). So how do you launch so as to minimize the forces on your glider allowing it to be as light as possible? Select a rubber band that will be at your full stretch when it just lanches your glider to the ceiling. Think about it, do you want a short, high force launch, or a long low force launch. You can get there by a longer fat rubber or a shorter thin rubber.

Hmm, lots of words, not sure that's much practical help. You don't need to tailor thickness near as much as WS or Helicopter, so I'd say have a selection of 1/16, 1/8, 3/16 and maybe 1/4 inch rubber would more than cover it. Smaller side for shorter ceilings like your 25 ft. Tailor the length to the glider and ceiling height to just get to ceiling with a full stretch launch. If you can't get to full stretch without breaking with shorter thinner rubber, try a thicker longer one.

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI

That does help, thanks. I wasn't sure if I needed to go buy rubber that wouldn't commonly be used for Wright Stuff/Helicopters like the 1/4 or thicker.

[science8]

what place do you think a 2 second flight get you in nationals this year?

[fishman100]

what place do you think a 2 second flight get you in nationals this year?

I'm not sure what a 2 second glider will get or what the winning time will be. First off the ceiling is ~30 feet (IIRC) which means that the max time anyone should be getting is around 30 seconds if the glider drops 1 foot per second. However I'm not sure if any teams will be hitting 20+ seconds because some AMA gliders achieve that sinking rate...and I don't think that we're on the same "level" as the AMA. That being said, there might be "that one team" who manages to get ~20 seconds...but given that this is a trial event, "that team" might not even participate. So, I'm clueless.

The winning time at the WSU Invite was around 4 seconds combined, which means 2 seconds per flight. But this is Nats, so I'm sure most gliders will be better than that.

Also, if you have a 2-second glider, don't worry...you're not the only one

[science8]

Why does my plane do loops not circles? How do i get circles?

[chalker7]

Why does my plane do loops not circles? How do i get circles?

You really need to give us more information. We have no idea what your glider looks like, how you are launching it, what the flight profile is like, etc.

[fozendog]

So is the time they record the combined time of both of your flights or just the single flight?