I was thinking about his when I built the IronHand....concept was to flip the IronHand over(wing on top, intakes on the bottom) and make a new tail and voila, Arrow sort of....In reality I had to modify the wing shape for CG and appearance, and lengthen the intake plates, but it turned out fairly nice homage to the Arrow, and it was quite simple to make kittable.

Dynasoar Rocketry Arrow Rocket glider Kit flight (3 min 10 sec)

From sketch to Flight test in 6 hours....


Yesterday afternoon, i found I had two spare servos, some extensions and a receiver laying around without a home, I also had two 2" estes white tubes and a coupler. I borrowed an interceptor cone from one of my other models and got to doodling. I basically grabbed an F-4 phantom wing and tail, with some side plates to mimick engine intakes. I used my template for the SST to trim the rear at an angle. Drew it up and did some initial CG calculations, moved the wing foward till the CG was right at the coupler joint since I knew my component/cone/motor weight usually averaged out at that point in the model. Drew it up on a napkin at 3:00. Got home at 5 and started cutting using some of the curved depron 6mm foam sheets I have sitting around, put some carbon in spots to help straighten/stiffen it.

For the wingtips I just cut a V groove and pulled them up and glued them in place after sanding the edges round.

Mounted the wing on the bottom of the tube, installed the tail and motor mount and did some indoor confirmation of the CG location. Installed electronics and had it ready to go by 9pm. Turned out I needed 1/4 ounce of tail weight, so I could have pushed the wing forward just a tad but it's pretty darn close to perfect.

Flew it this morning and it was great. Wing loading is similar to my deltas, boost needed just a hair of down trim, glide was spot on about 1/4" up trim. Really beautiful, nice thick smoke trail this morning with pure blue sky, glide took very little control input for turns, I came on approach at around 100 feet at the end of the runway and it just settled hands off till just before flare. Really nice. I was easily getting over 1 minute glide time in dead air.

I'm calling it IronHand.

38" long, 26" wingspan, 11.5 ounces ready to fly. 5.3 ounce/sq foot wing loading.

Dynasoar Rocketry IronHand RC rocket glider flight (2 min 8 sec)

Here is another kit prototype rocket glider, using parts from a Cosmic Interceptor rocket kit, inspired by the XB-70 Valkyrie. I used some pre-molded panel lines in the cone to use my rotary cutter to cut slots for the canards, just to keep them straight, since they are lower than center on the nose cone, they angle down slightly but I like the look. Depron wing with turned down tips. Tail surfaces moved forward to clear the elevons. 38" long, 26" wingspan, 11 7/8 oz rtf. In keeping with the nordic theme but avoiding any copyright laws, I'm callign it the Valhalla.

Just a touch of downtrim was needed for vertical boost, glide was very nice with no bad tendencies. Waiting for decals to arrive to finish her up. Also is a video from last weekend in Kent, WA at the raceway with The BEMRC club flying all of my kits plus the bomarc prototype.

Dynasoar Rocketry Valhalla Kit flight (1 min 51 sec)

All Dynasoarrocketry Kits in action, plus a bomarc!! (7 min 57 sec)

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Here is a kit version of the tube based Interceptor I did, the Interceptor III, a 2" tube based rocket glider styled after the Estes Interceptor kit. 38" long, 24" wingspan, 12 oz rtf.

Dynasoar Rocketry Interceptor III RC Rocket Glider Flights (3 min 3 sec)