I really like this video. It appears that this young man hands off the camera to his little brother and then demonstrates formidable flying skill. He reports that he made the front weight from scrap copper wire. I now advise people to start with the Jagwing because the Baby Bug is more complex; but this young person got it right--perhaps an aerospace engineer in the making!
Category: Blog
An Update from Dr. Tim Swaits
Dr. Tim Swait just sent this video of Korean students beginning to fly walkalong gliders.
He wrote:
Slater, still getting lots of use from your walkalong gliders! Here’s a group of Korean students we gave them to. I find that it works well if you want to introduce a competitive element to run a relay race. Split the group into teams, every person has their own glider but one board per team. The board then acts like the relay baton that they pass on at the end of the room. If people want to be competitive then they can add extra weight to increase the wing loading and make the glider fly faster! It was interesting to do a comparison between a glider trimmed for min sink rate (minimum possible amount of weight as far forwards as possible, min possible washout), one trimmed for max glide (a little more weight but not so far forwards to maintain a slightly rearwards CG position still with min washout) and one trimmed for racing (much more weight and max washout), not very efficient but very stable and if you can run fast enough to keep up with it then you’ll get across the room most quickly! –Tim
More about Dr. Swait and walkalong gliders.
Fabrice Flies a Walkalong Glider with his Forehead
Here is a new video about Fabrice, a French performing artist. You can see him flying a walkalong glider with his hands and forehead. He also juggles paper airplanes!
Whimsical Remote Control Flying Balloon Object
Here is a video of Hanetama (lit. “Winged Sphere”), a RC flying balloon object with flapping wings, from Tyoukogatalabo’s (loosely translated as “Micro Flying Object Research Lab”) YouTube channel. He says he used 4 servomechanisms and controlled it with a TARANIS transmitter. He has also uploaded videos of all sorts of other fun flying things, like a cat-shaped ornithopter. (He loves cats.)
A Package from Gakujinsha
We received a package from a Japanese non-profit Gakujinsha. It was full of fun traditional Japanese toys. One of the toys is Daruma Otoshi. It demonstrates Newton’s first law of motion. Check out the video to see it in action (originally from Gakujinsha’s website http://bit.ly/2A8EGUe).