Rocket Plane Glider Set

thingiverse

This is a distinctive design that pairs two gliders into one Unified Rocket Plane. This actually flies and works! A completely original work, the unique design of the inverse nose cone holds the two gliders together during initial take off and allows this system to launch as a single rocket, and fly back to earth as two separate gliders. The two gliders configured as one rocket fly straight up due to the aerodynamics of the unified configuration but separate into two individual gliders configurations. You can use these two gliders to replace a nose cone on any rocket of the same diameter, or mount atop a bottle rocket as we have shown here (it’s a lot cheaper if you have access but remove ordnance or you will be replacing a lot of gliders). We are currently testing several designs and this is Gen 3. After you print each glider half with each nose cone half, you glue the inverse nose cone into the body of each half of the plane just above the middle almost to the top (leave a little room for adding weight). Depending on the material and the print quality, as well as other factors, it is necessary to use clay or other material to add weight to the cavity space between the inverse nose cone and the tip of each half, and they must be equal (as shown in pic). Some tweaking is required and we recommend several test flights by tossing the gliders and balancing the nose cone to make the best flight possible. Both gliders should weigh the same, and each half of the nose cone must be in the exact same spot so they line up to create one Rocket Plane. Hold glider halves together and insert model rocket or bottle rocket of 1-inch diameter into the center, pushing the body of the rocket onto the inverse nose cone inside which holds the two halves together (while standing upright or during launch of course). Print Settings Printer: XYZ Pro Rafts: No Supports: No Resolution: Any Infill: NA Notes: You should try to print with the lightest materials possible, we are testing with ABS. A good weight to have is about 1 oz total for a b class rocket engine (B6-4). How I Designed This 3D Printing Makes Dreams Possible This design goes back a long time and has been tweaked for over a decade in my head. Until recently I had no way of producing some of the more intricate designs due to material and construction limitations. 3D printing gave the perfect, if not only way to realize the design. The objective is to have a simple way to launch gliders and reuse them quickly and have them fly the same every time. This has been done many times of course, but this design is unique in that it basically replaces the nose cone of a rocket in the form of two gliders that together have the aerodynamic property to fly straight like a rocket, but when no thrust is present they separate as two gliders that have altogether different aerodynamic properties. Testing Our Design! Test Flights and Design Changes We are continuing to fly and test designs and are making videos to show on Thingiverse. The latest tests confirm it will fly but must be perfectly aligned otherwise it flies of course. We have only done low power tests with an A equivalent engine at about 50 to 80 feet altitude using a bottle rocket with no fireworks. Here are a couple of the poor videos we were able to get...we will do better next time :) Note that when we misalign the gliders the rocket will veer in the direction of the glider that is lower. We are working on a better design that will slightly indent the inverse nose cone halves and lengthen the slope so that the two gliders are forced to automatically align as a result of the acceleration. Nevertheless, the glider do not glide well and it is more of a controlled decent, but still cool and easy to fetch as they do not go far.