Back In The Day, Part 3 - A Man of Many Boost Gliders

In looking through the scrap book of photos and flight log records spanning my early years in the wonderful hobby of model rocketry, I found that a good number of my model fleet consisted of boost gliders or models with a gliding component. A full 25% of them, in fact!

The majority of these gliding birds were built for NAR competition events. Many were of my own design.   I experimented with nearly all aspects of boost glider technology prevalent in the day – standard front engine pop pods, variable geometry rocket/gliders, parasite gliders, ejectable flex wings, you name it.  There were even a couple of commercial sport glider models thrown into the mix:  an Orbital Transport, a Scissorwing Transport, and an MPC Lunar Patrol.   The only variety of boost/glider I didn’t build was a rear engine Space-Plane-type model. That design was pretty much passe by the time I started diving into serious B/G competition.

This collection of gliders ran the gamut of various degrees of success.  Some crashed and burned on their first flight, while others performed wonderfully.  Some glided like streamlined bricks, while others fluttered like feathers. A couple were lost to engine CATOs right on the launch pad.  There were a few ‘Red Barons’.  The best ones were lost when they were ‘thermaled’ away into the wild blue beyonder, never to be seen again.  A few even won some meet ribbons and garnered NAR contest points.
For me, this whole collection of balsa, spruce, plywood, and sheet plastic represented one of the most gratifying facets of model rocketry.  There is nothing quite like the sight of a well-built glider model climbing straight up, separating, and wheeling in lazy circles.

Today, as a Born Again Rocketeer, I have so far limited my new model rocket fleet to small, 13mm-powered standard birds, but I have been certainly eyeballing a lot of boost/glider models, designs both past and present.  Since my first BAR boost/glider just recently came off the work bench,  I thought I would post a montage of some of my ‘old fleet’ B/Gs and R/Gs.  Most likely, some of my future rocket projects will be re-makes of some of these old glider faves from years ago (1975-1984).

Oh, and I think it’s high time that I get around to building that Space Plane, too…..