Chuck glider plans for a young child to build and fly?

[DbleDuce]

My neighbors kid was looking in my garage as they were walking by and asked his mom if he could see my planes. He's curious about planes and I figured it would be a nice thing to give him some plans and foamboard and invite him and his parents over for the build.

Can someone recommend an easy chuck glider that a 7/8 year old can build?

 

[luvmy40]

Look at Nerdnic's chuck gliders. https://www.nerdnic.com/chuck-glider.html

 

[SSgt Duramax]

Look at Nerdnic's chuck gliders. https://www.nerdnic.com/chuck-glider.html

I was going to post this too! I've only built the F-16 and the P-51. I like both but I think the F-16 does a little better. They are both great.

 

[McGoogle Industries]

Do yourself a favor and get a 3D printer and some lightweight foaming PLA from colorfabb or e-sun -- there are probably a hundred pretty cool chuck gliders and other flying toys on thingiverse.

Also this guy from wooden shoe aviation has some totally radical stuff including miniature ducted fan capacitor powered planes. The little F-104 is super super cool.

https://www.aviationtoys.nl/c-5403555/products/ (wooden shoe product website)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/aviationtoys.nl/ (wooden shoe facebook)




and, last but certainly not least: White Wings Gliders

If you can find them on Amazon or Ebay then go for it, otherwise there's this 30-pack containing 30 of the same planes, good for classrooms or parties or whatever

"
Materials to make 30 Sky Cub II racers. -
30 sets of easy-to-understand student instructions, A teacher’s manual with target game to fine tune the finished gliders. The teacher’s manual features a well-designed lesson plan that groups tasks into easily digestible stages.
A complete Whitewings lesson covers everything from basic aircraft vocabulary and flight principles to assembly, tuning and launching. "

https://www.acsupplyco.com/aerospace/whitewings-wwag5000-competition-glider-30-pack


These White Wings Gliders will teach you so much about trimming and flying a plane, and their performance is completely unbeatable.

 

[Gray Harlequin]

Look at Nerdnic's chuck gliders. https://www.nerdnic.com/chuck-glider.html

I will third this suggestion. I built the F-16 for my nephew's birthday. He loved it. Easy build and flies great. The F-16 seems to hold up better to abuse than some of the others.

 

[ennobee]

I must go back deep in memory, but around 1991, there was this craze for that new hobby material called rubber foam. So I tried to use it for a chuck glider because unlike Balsa it didn't hurt when it hit your little brother and unlike foam board, you could glue it with your regular all-purpose glue (UHU for those in Europe). Because the rubber foam sheets are floppy by design, it seriously limited the wingspan available, so I ended up with a semi-scale 1944 German 'Stummelhabicht' which was a beast by design in real life (read the Wikipedia article) but as a model actually flew pretty good and looked even better. In foam board, it you can even try the original Habicht wings on it (gull-wing bent optional) and get a real capable glider

Otherwise, I would say that every balsa chuck glider you find on the internet can be easily adapted to be cut out of foam board. So look for some semi-scale 1930's to 1960's gliders for inspiration and go from there.

Other than gliders, my perpetual favorite was the WWII Russian Il-2 Sturmovik. With its large and broad wing and almost oversized stabilizer, it made for a real smooth scale glider. I built several out of balsa, typically about one sheet size (29 cm/12 in.) for span and they flew so good, I actually put a tow hook on one and tried glider-towing it. Off course it's a Russian design so in today's climate you might just as well paint an ISIS flag on it and call it Brandon. Still.....

I'll see if I can recreate some of my old plans.

 

[ennobee]

Update: I went and redrew my old plans for the German DFS Habicht. I made a long wing version out of foam board

And a stub-wing version out of rubber foam.

The rubber version was cut out of two sheets of about 1/16' foam rubber from a craft store. With the sheets being letter-sized, this limited my fuselage to 10 in.

Unfortunately 1/16' is a bit thin for the wings, so the larger ones tended to bend upward and flutter at large speeds. Back in the day I had foam of 3mm thick, which worked a lot better. Still, with the small wing it is a nice though fast sailer. And you can use it indoors as it bounces back from walls, flower vases and little brothers without leaving damage. I might see if I can find some thicker foam somewhere.

The foam board version also flies remarkably well, but I used Elmer's foam board of which I had to peel off to the paper for weight reasons and found the remaining inner foam plank a bit too thin and (for the wings) a bit too easy to bend. So I had to reinforce the wing with a balsa rod. At 10 in. length and 15 in. span it's rather small. I will try again with a bigger model (20-25 in ) and see if I can use Dollar store foam board that does not need peeling.

Ps... My plans/templates for the rubber and fsfb versions:

Rubber foam....

Dollar store foam board. After some trying I gave up on the gull-wing of the original and used the two straight half-wings glued in at an angle. The one-piece wing should work for Flite-test foam board, but was too thin on the peeled Elmer board I used.