Brian Jackson wrote: Chuck glider trim. You didn't say how far the Comet went Colin, hope you got lots of exercise. One trick I remember from long ago is to sand the fin/rudder to an airfoil section. This "lifts" the tail round without much drag. I saw from your photo of the launch that the model was held level. The trick is to trim the model to fly (for example) in left hand circles. With the fin sanded to an airfoil section to induce this, launch the glider with the wings vertical i.e tilt the model 90 degrees to the right, with the nose pointing upwards at about 45 degrees. The resulting launch should result in a rapid climb up and to the right, ending with levelling out and gently turning left. My very last chuck glider was called "Turbo Kid", a design by a member of the BMAS, Ted Horsley , it was trimmed as described. On a warm Sunday afternoon at Beaulieu, I hand launched it as hard as I could, cross wind so that the level out would be into wind, it picked up a thermal, stayed in sight for about ten minutes, and was never seen again. Perhaps trimming for performance isn't such a good idea after all.
Brian - Thanks for your comments - I've watched a couple of videos - searched " Catapult Glider Trimming " which were informative.
With a hard level hand launch my model glided in a straight line with a gentle descent so C.G was about right.
When launched with the catapult it climbed in a straight line till it ran out of energy then promptly stalled and did a great spot landing !!!
In the video they glued a "wash in" "wedge" to the left wing to induce a left turn together with a bit of left rudder.
I would guess that I need the model to roll left in the climb so it can transition into a gentle left glide - am I on the right lines ?
Thanks
Colin.
