I had for many years as hobby flying kites. I built many designs, modern one as well as historical, from a nice book. I also designed a feature myself which ensures that the kite will stay nicely up in the middle. One of my favourites became the Rogallo kite because of its simple design that’s so well adapted to the airflow. The best experiences I had with the large yellow one I built were when there would be a bit of warm rising air that would lift the kite up until above my head where it would start slowly circling around. I also built so called box kites which historically evolved into some of the first attempts to build a man carrying plane. At some point I discovered a model passenger jet made of foam. It was extremely light weight and I decided I could have it fly like a kite. I soon enough found out that there’s a fundamental difference in design between a kite and a plane, because it kept on crashing as long as it was kept on a rope. Where a kite needs a rope to have it stand in an angle to the wind so the wind will push it upwards, a plane needs no attachments to Earth other than gravity, because basically it flies in an extended fall, moving forward along the way down. The push from a propellor makes the fall even more extended so we actually get to our destination haha.
I got interested more in the design of planes and bought a kit from which I built the wing. Because the wing holds the magic, which is the flat bottom surface and the curved top surface, which creates lift. I tried to have the wing fly like a kite, and to free fly, but had no success.
I gave up on the hobby for some years, until I cycled by two kids who were flying a small dual engine cargo plane. They didn’t succeed very well, but I could see that the plane’s design worked. I asked them where they bought it and soon I had one myself. In the following months I learned to fly small foam planes from the toy shop. I came to understand some of the principles involved to make it fly well. Added a little weight here or there, bent the material a bit up or down or sideways etc. Living in a rural area I had plenty of room to practice. One day I was cycling, made a tour to discover new roads and paths and came around a small hill and there I saw a field of short mowed grass with small model airplanes on it. I couldn’t believe my eyes!
Next time more on my finding of the model airplane flying club!
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