A Snipe in His Luggage

When you go on vacation and have loaded your gear and your favorite glider into the car, it becomes hard to find room for your wife and three kids. Divorce then becomes inevitable. It’s a shame, though—after all, we’d brought along that little hand-launched glider that’s only… 1.50 meters long!

Hand-launched gliders are expensive per square decimeter but allow for countless aerial maneuvers while offering astonishing performance, and it would be a shame to go without them. To make his DLG glider more compact for transport, two competition gliders offer a version with two-piece wings while retaining virtually the same flight characteristics and weight as the competition version with one-piece wings: the Snipe and the Vortex—and now a third. PierreWets opted for the Snipe with the two-piece wing, which features a wing joint offset from the fuselage axis. The wings are connected by

a rectangular carbon key and are aligned using a centering pin. The two wings are simply joined and secured with adhesive tape and screwed to the fuselage. Another small feature is a metal rod connecting the right and left wing control horns to facilitate the rotation of the aileron control horns and reduce play. The weak point is not at all where you’d expect it to be. It’s good to be able to remove the wings easily, but it would also be nice to find a way to detach the tail section from the fuselage for transport. It’s possible, but not without risk: To access the elevator linkage, you have to remove the control wire at the servo (!) to pull out the tail section and disconnect the elevator control. You’re then left with a control wire—

A loose wire that’s no longer attached to either the servo or the elevator. If you’re unlucky enough to pull on this wire, one end will disappear into the fuselage—and good luck trying to get it back! Perhaps one of you has found a simple solution to the tail assembly problem. Thanks to the solidarity of Modellflugsport readers, we’d love to hear your suggestions.

Pierre Wets has also built a small, compact, and practical carrying case, though it requires him to disassemble the tail section for transport. Carrying a high-performance, space-saving hand-launch glider in your car offers many advantages. Plus, hiking enthusiasts will also appreciate the ability to easily pack a compact glider into a backpack for unforgettable flights… while, of course, leaving room for their wife and kids. ■

T. Ruef, CLAM