As it turns out Wild Wing is a pretty good place for a model plane meetup. I went there for a drink after flying catapult gliders.

I also tested the Sparrow I built yesterday. In a nutshell, it flew great. I needed the entire ballast. It worked better launching it banked right. Got some amazing flights.

The other Sparrow, Lloyd Shales gave me flew great too. The tail boom/handle broke off. Interestingly I discovered an alternate way to launch it. I made a splint to help repair the fuselage and it was thicker and acted as a handle. So I used that to pull it back on the catapult. Seemed to be easier except the tailplane would often brush releasing hand and was getting a bit of wear.

I brought out the Hammer Down Catapult Glider by Bill Khul as well. The plans are at his ScienceGuy site. It worked great as a hand launch glider. It seemed to pitch up quite a bit during a catapult launch and seemed to unhook from the catapult early so it wasn’t getting a full push. I will have a look at that.

Here’s another video from another session: