I love it! Think carbon over aluminum frame swing-wing ala Estes Falcon boost glider with an aluminum T-section tailboom. Lets talk. I've got a whole crap load of carbon and Kevlar sitting here with nothing better to do.

With a J350, it'd have to be a swingwing or similar folding setup. Full width wings will be confetti regardless of carbon! Let's kick it up a notch with a J570! 😈

This would be a nice twist from all the 3FNC's lately.

-Ken

Question:Warren, was that a typo, and what was actually meant was a swept wing, aka Estes Falcon? The only time my Falcon was a swing wing was when I failed to build it strong enough. I did upscale a Falcon a long time ago. Three foot wingspan with a cluster in a BT-60. "D"s did not exist yet. Really glided great. Was beautiful to see. I called it the "Condor". Unfortunately, the ignition of the cluster was a magnificient failure, and the resultant impact left the bird in less than flyable condition, never to be resurrected, in my first rocket life. 😥

I meant something that boosts as a swing wing, then when the booster pod detaches, a swing-wing type deal deploys the wings so that it flies like an old Estes Falcon...

The other option is to do something like the old Maxi-Manta style. Big issue in either case is protecting the glider from the forward booster pod exhaust.

Another option is to deploy a glider from a 4" or 5" airframe using a piston. I'm thinking on it...

I'd like to put together a team to do something like this. I don't know jack-shit about gliders, but I do know composites and v-bagging... This thing doesn't even need electronics - although that would be cool too.

I'm off for a week in the wilderness, if you've an interest in being a part of a project like this, PM me and we'll start talking when I get back the 18th or thereabouts.

W

If you like the Edmonds Ecee Thunder rocket glider (aka Flying Lumberyard), I have vector drawings from the laser cutter. I was originally thinking of upscaling to 29 or 38mm and making it with honeycomb sheet instead of balsa.

Mine always boosted perfectly, but never got the perfect glide that everyone says they will do. Re-kitted itself on the last try. I just glued the pieces back together to make a display piece. Maybe I'll do another.

The Edmonds Cici boost glider worked great, glided perfectly, until a head-on with a tree trunk. The subsequent repairs threw off the balance and it was never the same again.

-Ken

I like the idea of targeting something sized for a J350... I have 3 or 5 or maybe more of them in the magazine as well as a couple casings. Heavy duty construction... Anyone, anyone?

I would certainly be interested in participating, in a group project, if you would have me. I live in Wellington, so logistics may be difficult. I always thought an Estes Nightawk would make an interesting upscale project.I think if the wing root joint and spars wire adequately designed, maybe using tubular triangles for the spars, or should that be tubes shaped like triamgle cross sections, made out of a balsa or spruce, lamanated with carbon would work rather well. Or do it like they do on a C-5 Galaxy or the C-130 Hercules; they both use box spars for strength and weight reduction. Also a boost glider called the Bumble Bee with eliptical wings like a Supermarine Spitfire and all in all, was somewhat low drag, so the airframe might hold up, would be a good upscale. Warren, have a great trip. Yampa, Green, Colorado? 60,000 cfs? Shouild be quite impressive. Have a great, and safe trip. SP Boss. (Show Pictures)

I've been toying with this idea myself; I even got a couple of 4" blue tubes when they were on sale recently. I figure with a couple of carbon-over-foam 4" chord wings, that swing outwards from the back end, someone could get a workable glide ratio to get the rocket back to the pad, with plenty of speed to overcome even jet stream level upper-level winds. I think a couple of elevons mounted in the wings is all you would need for control. I know a guy who cuts custom foam cores for wings all the time. I'm working on a model airplane autopilot, too. I'd love to send a big rocket out of sight and have it come cruising back into view above the pads before blowing a chute for landing. With a heavy glider with small (for a glider) wings, opportunities for flight testing and trim adjustment sans rocket would be pretty rare. But some days when the wind come roaring down Clear Creek Canyon you could fly a brick off the W side of Mt Zion (where the M is) from the lower set of switchbacks.

Feel free to take over the idea Adrian, I defer to your far greater professional experience in aerospace.

I hope my interest in this doesn't slow anybody else down. There's a good chance that I'm never going to get the round tuit needed to complete the project. It's fun to think about, though.

Also, my job isn't much help with this, but I'm picking up some RC glider skills that could be of use. Building and flying different planes gets you into the right mindset.

I wasn't very clear before, but what I'm looking at would have the wings internal to the rocket, with slots for them to rotate outward. I have looked a little at a scissor wing like the Estes scissor wing transport. That has a simpler 1-piece wing, a simpler deployment mechanism, and a wing that's nice and symmetric after deployment. The trouble with it, though, is that it's hard to get the CG far enough forward after deployment, for a rocket with a decent-sized motor. The wing compartment also needs to be almost twice as long as it does for individually-rotating wings that deploy from the back of the compartment. So my fantasy solution is to have two overlapping wings that each pivot sideways. Viewed from the front, the wings wouldn't be on the same level, but I don't think that's a significant problem.

A bigger problem is that with centrally-mounted wings and a symmetric rocket, there isn't really any natural roll stability for the glide. The autopilot would be a lot easier if the plane naturally trims out into level flight on its own, and all the autopilot has to do is steer it via GPS and maintain a descent rate via a baro sensor. I may be able to curve up the tips a little bit, but not much without running out of room when they're stowed. Now that I think about it, though, I wonder if the deployment axis could be tilted forward a little bit in the stowed configuration so that when the wings rotate out, they also rotate up to make some dihedral angle. Hmmm.

If you could have the wings swing out, where they fold forwards and swing backwards at activation and the pivot is at the rear, then you could have swing wings out like on a tomahawk cruise missile. That should solve the stability issue also.

As I've said before, I'm a complete amateur with nothing more than rules of thumb and an empirical approach. I'd very likely take a stab at building a foam wing glider that glides well and then overbuild the shit out of it to take the thrust - say carbon spars, carbon and kevlar over foam wing, etc. Perhaps an aluminum spar for the fuselage. Might take a while to experiment and find the right balance.

I'm not particularly interested in the electronics side or the autopilot issue - just the classic boost, pod pop deployment, wing deployment and then spiral recovery. Just getting something to hold together and cleanly recover would be enough of an accomplishment for me.

If you could have the wings swing out, where they fold forwards and swing backwards at activation and the pivot is at the rear, then you could have swing wings out like on a tomahawk cruise missile. That should solve the stability issue also.

I think we're describing the same thing. I couldn't find a description of the tomahawk wing deployment, though. Do you have a link?

I will see what I can find. I can find photos all day that show the slots in the lower fuselage where the wings came from. I used to machine wings for them and saw wing deployment in slow motion from videos a number of times, so that is my source of information, but again, I will find some info and get you a source.