Grown-up kid building gliders

[xplanematt]

Hi all,

Long-time airplane guy here. I've started back into "paper airplanes" and thought I would see who else is into the stuff. This all started one Christmas when, as a kid, I received one of the fabulous Whitewings kits by Dr. Ninomiya. I built most of the planes in that kit, as well as the models in a few other kits later on. In my teen years, I decided to try my hand at designing my own gliders. My first build was an F-104 which did not quite look right, but flew very well...too well, in fact. After a day or two of fun in the backyard, I sent the little glider rocketing out at about a 60* angle, and the resulting turn/descent put the plane in our woods, never to be seen again!

I also fly the real thing, and I build and fly RC models and flight simulators. You could say I have been bitten by the flying bug. Unfortunately all my scratch-build templates from my youth are long-gone, but I drew up an Aermacchi MB339 a while back, and started working on a Super Decathlon yesterday after I got inspired by a paper airplane my little girl brought home from church.

The main difference between my old designs and what I'm doing now is that I've graduated from pencil-and-magic marker to a computer for my designs and art. I'm assuming there is probably some really cool stuff people are doing now with these types of gliders, so I'm looking forward to seeing it and meeting fellow builders/flyers!

Matt

[elliott]

Hi Matt! Welcome to the forum. Thanks for joining. Nice gliders you've made there. Looking forward to seeing more of your work. We're glad you're here. Welcome aboard!

[Vermin_King]

Welcome, Matt. Looks like fun

[The Mole]

Hi Matt,
I like to do paper gliders also. Have you looked into these paper gliders?
Flyable modern jets realistic 3d paper airplane models

[Wulf111]

hi Matt,

welcome to the forum. there is a great thread on paper gliders that may be of interest to you.

Quetzalcoatl high-performance all-paper glider

[xplanematt]

Thanks guys, yep I did see that Quetzalcoatl thread, looks kinda like the traditional Whitewings gliders I used to build, except more fancy! I'd love to build that one.

Mole, I'd not seen those 3D gliders, that's incredible! Have you flown any of them, do they fly OK? Looks like they would be very high-drag.

The Decathlon is finished. It does fly, but came out a bit tail-heavy. I also need to figure out a better landing gear setup (I do appreciate the retractable-gear models, one less thing to worry about...). This one will be my "testbed", later I can build a version 2 with all the fixes and updates.

Already thinking about the next plane....I think I'm going to try to remember how I built my Pitts biplane years ago. It flew surprisingly well, and looked really sweet.

Matt

[mbauer]

Hi Matt,

Great looking gliders!

Notice that you're using plenty of dihedral, have you tried adding a couple of degrees of incidence to help them fly better?

What program are you using to design with? Great graphics on both!

Forgot to say, "Hello, and Welcome to the forum!".

Mike