Best Glider for Guinea Pig

[To_many_planes]

Hey guys, I wanna start teaching my brother to learn to glide a plane. I figured since I have a guinea pig there’s an easy way to tow it up. What are some easy planes that the guinea pig can handle that are 3 channel? The Simple Soarer seems much to big and heavy to handle with the guinea pig.

 

[Charles16850]

i really hope you're kidding

 

[bisco]

that's your first post? not helpful

 

[To_many_planes]

i really hope you're kidding

What’s so funny?

 

[Foamforce]

The Guinea Pig has a lot of power, I think it could handle a simple soarer just fine. Otherwise, a Tiny Trainer would probably be a good choice. There’s a glider nose for that.

 

[To_many_planes]

The Guinea Pig has a lot of power, I think it could handle a simple soarer just fine. Otherwise, a Tiny Trainer would probably be a good choice. There’s a glider nose for that.

Since the simple soarer is so massive wouldn’t it be really hard to control the guinea pig if the person flying the glider dosent know what their doing?

 

[Shurik-1960]

I made this glider for my daughter in one evening when she was 6 years old. My daughter and I launched the glider with an elastic band, a simple rope. I also towed it behind the Cessna 150. The main thing is that the glider should be light.

 

[Foamforce]

Since the simple soarer is so massive wouldn’t it be really hard to control the guinea pig if the person flying the glider dosent know what their doing?

It has a large wing span, but it’s pretty light. Larger planes in general tend to be easier to fly than smaller planes. I would think that it would be easier in this case as well. I believe that the key is to make the tow string quite long so that the glider doesn’t affect the flight of the tow plane as much.

That said, I haven’t tried to tow a glider yet! It does seem like a fairly challenging way to start a beginner though. Is your brother already an experienced pilot, just not with a glider?

 

[Piotrsko]

I don't see this request as odd or one shot. Been done since I started back in the last century. Firstly you need a not defined amount of extra power to pull the glider. Flying fule scale, we were towed by either a Pawnee with an IO540 6 cylinder 250 hp or a IO360 180 horse piper cub. Hardly anybody preferred the cub even though it was tons cheaper per tow.

Yes the tow plane is nuclear overkill, but there's this mystical thing called a throttle that will limit the thrust to sane levels. Half throttle during flight ought to be enough. Gliders are generally more efficient than the towplane and 1/4 as draggy. If it's too draggy, full throttle wont be enough.

One of the fun parts of soaring is making the tow plane go where the glider wants by flying in different spots relative to the tow plane. Normal and common where nobody has a radio. Wanna go left? Offset the glider a bunch to the right. You'll go left. Wanna climb, go to low tow position. Repeat until you get fed towline or tow pilot gets hint.

While I am thinking about it, you need a towplane line release or a really weak link somewhere. And a really long towline. Full size were at least 200ft long or about 6-8 plane lengths, longer is better for dampening. Want a piece of 10# test fishing line somewhere between. That's a ballpark estimate, expect to go higher if the glider is heavy or above normal draggy.

I can go on, but you should get the basic point and be able to improvise the balance. Expect the line to break at any time. You'll be golden

 

[quorneng]

It depends on what you mean by "learning to fly a glider".
I can assure you that no RC pilot learns to fly by aero tow or any other launch technique. The first basic would be a hand launch down a gentle slope in calm conditions just keeping straight and landing smoothly. Only when a new pilot can do that reliably do they move onto a bigger slope and try gentle manoeuvres.
Aerotowing is not that easy as the glider and tug react to each other so you as the glider pilot have to get things under control before the glider upsets the tug to far particularly when close to the ground just after take off.
Have you thought of building a simple powered glider? You do the take off and climb. Cut the power and then hand over control?
A "buddy" RC transmitter system is even better as you can take over control again at any time.

 

[Tench745]

Hey guys, I wanna start teaching my brother to learn to glide a plane. I figured since I have a guinea pig there’s an easy way to tow it up. What are some easy planes that the guinea pig can handle that are 3 channel? The Simple Soarer seems much to big and heavy to handle with the guinea pig.

I'll throw in my two cents here too. I want to say up front, I have never towed a glider or been towed, so I can't speak to that aspect necessarily. I have done some slope soaring and hi-start type bungee launch with my simple soarer, so I'll focus more on FT designs that might suit your needs.
If the goal is to have fun towing things with your guinea pig and the gliding is secondary, I wouldn't worry too much about what plane you tow.
If learning to soar is the bigger goal, I would look for something controllable and relatively durable or easy to rebuild.

I think the Tiny Trainer, or Simple Soarer could be good options. The TT is more durable than the SS which has a relatively weak tail that has difficulty surviving hard landings. The FT Explorer shares a wing with the SS and can be a decent trainer.
I have also heard of people soaring the Sparrow, which is a lot smaller than some of the other options, but can be a bit twitchy.
FT also has plans for a WACO cargo glider that looks like a decent trainer but may be too draggy to tow up.

 

[Tench745]

Just realized I forgot one; the FT EZ Glider. 28" wingspan, only 6 parts to cut out. Apparently they've renamed it to the "Wonder Glider" on the store page, but you can download plans from the forum here: https://forum.flitetest.com/index.php?resources/ft-ez-glider.56/