Check out the Jet I flew today!

A couple of weeks ago it was my 3 year old neighbor's birthday, so my wife and I picked up a present for her at the Dollar store. We figured we'd get her 6 year old brother something, and whaddya know, my wife picked up a styrofoam glider for him. I looked at and thought, dang, I could harden that airframe and bolt an engine on it, so I grabbed one for myself, $2 bucks.

I hung the bag up in the shop for a rainy day and hadn't thought much more about it until today when the boy came over with his glider which had a broken stab. I can imagine his Dad saying Take it to Rusty, he'll know what to do.  

I almost cut a light balsa stab, but figured I'd give tape a try, so after a few strips of blue painters tape, and some more under the nose to counterbalance the repair, we took to the sky. I tried to explain balancing to him, but I may as well have been talking to a speeding racquet ball. I had to teach him to find the wind and only throw it with a tailwind, else it would just turn up and stall. Back and forth to the shop to try some more balancing and it was better but not good. He finally got bored with my advice and intellectual discussion of aerodynamics and had to run off to go do... something, and left me alone with his glider, heh heh heh!

After a few tries, I punctured the underside of the nose and plugged a tiny bit of lead in it, gave it a toss and it flew all the way across the yard. When he came back a little later I showed it to him and started talking as he turned his head and started talking to his sister.    Anyway a while later I hollered at him and threw it his way and it sailed right to him. We played catch with it for a good while after that. I told him if he got tired of my giving him advice to just say so and I'd quit. He did. I did... sorta. Anyway, we had fun.

I don't know if it's a Lear or a Gulfstream or what, I'm not up on my civilian business jets but here it is:

Makes me wish I had a PeeWee, but I can outfit mine with an .049. It's not going to be as easy as I originally imagined though.


Here's a picture of it in flight:



And the owner with his jet plane:


Fun, but I didn't get much done in the shop today except hooking up the newly made linkages on the Yak, which work marvelously smooth, free moving and perfect.
Rusty