doco on world comp for flying machines (rubber band powered planes that fly for an hour etc)

wow! i made one of these at highschool and i'm guessing the construction is still the same? the wings are made of the lightest slices of balsa and you cover them in film made of an amyl acetate mixture. the amyl acetate is dropped onto the surface of water and it spreads across the surface within a few seconds and hardens. you lift it off with a loop of wire and lay it on the balsa frame. it's slightly tacky to touch until totally dry. ultra, utlra light machines a sneeze would break them apart.

for someone observing who didn't understand what you were building, would have thought you were using detergent and wire loop to blow giant bubbles

ive never seen anyone build or fly them since the 1980's

what were the balloons for?

not sure. maybe to check air movement, because they require a literally windless environment to operate in

thanks hair cut. pretty crazy it all just comes down to surface area and weight. ive allways thought it odd that we know liquids and gasses act essentially the same but we dont try fly like the microbial little sea creatures

Seems the balloons are for steering.

Geez, nice find, what did you search to come up with that?

Edit- I didn't know rubber bands had a torque curve

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Chris6791 said..
Geez, nice find, what did you search to come up with that?

Edit- I didn't know rubber bands had a torque curve

got a few things im working on. makeing a kite for multi day big wall climbers so that they can take ****loads of euipment up there with them useing the wind energy also working on a kite thatll give there body a good 20kgs of lift so a 60kg climber would only weigh 40kg etc theres a few people that climb with no ropes etc etc and just with a base jump rig on there back so i kinda figure why not just use a kite to make you progressively weightless (well not to much)

but yeah... i dont know... just going to focus on the one that makes lugging up water and beers easier for now its all a bit half assed to be honest. just a shame we know EXACTLY how wind will act on the face of a big wall and not use it.

probably worth mentioning i flew stunt kites weighted vented indoor 4 liners etc for quite a bit before i got into power kiteing then kitesurfing and i had no idea about these little planes... i dont think i could handle anymore then a couple conversations with the people into this but **** if you can fly for an hour with a rubber band theres definitely something to learn from it