Mark,

Great list!

Thanks for putting it together.

Some more additions as well as revisions to the list. See the Notes section at the end. There are now a total of 215 entries on the list. Thanks to everyone for the input and corrections, and keep 'em coming!

Mark

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Happy Leap Day!

Here is the latest update to the Rocket-Boosted Gliders: Past and Present Comprehensive List. I added the three glider kits from Shecter Rockets. The total number of kits on the list is now 218 (whew!).

(And I thought that it was pretty much done when the list had only 164 items! It all seems so long ago now... )

Enjoy.

Mark

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Leap Day Update #2: Extra Value Meal

No junk food here, though. Only high quality, highly nutritious fare. And in this restaurant, you'll actually like the additives.

Added entrees from Caveman Rocketry, Neubauer Rockets, PDRocketry, Sheri's Hot Rockets and the Contest Flying section of the NAR website. The new total is 242 kits!

Mark

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I've been busy today, making several additions, deletions and corrections. Added kits by Aerotech and Zitnan, a couple of BARCLONE designs, and the Estes Sky Dancer r/c design from 1970 (I think) that was never produced. Also deleted a couple of entries that were not gliders, after all, and revised a couple of dates.

I also added a hyperlinked footnotes section. Clicking on the footnote symbol (a superscript numeral) in an entry takes you to the actual note. Next to the note text is a [Return] button that, when clicked, brings you back to the list entry.

We are now up to 245 entries.

Attached is the new list.

Mark

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One more update for today. Added G. H. Stine's 1963 EagleRoc rear-engine boost glider design and the 5 Estes ColdPower gliders from the mid-1970's.

I hadn't added in the coldpower gliders before because I thought that they would be a duplication of the Vashon line. I decided to include them because Estes had made some minor changes in the design (making them different from the Vashon gliders) and to show the years that Estes carried them.

I also slightly reformatted the list to make it easier to read.

Total entries = 251!

Mark

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Mark:
in 1964 G. H. Stine also had his "Spit-Roc"; this was an elliptical winged/flatcat dual tail design that incoporated some of the first pop-pod; and of course don't forget the Unicorn-25 in Model Rocketry mag; the Jiska from Otakar Saffek in Model Rocketry; there are several others. like Doug Malewicki's RC glider ( he had another RC glider that looked like "Snoopy" at NARAM-11. , Bob Parks Flop-Wing Dove 3,etc

And lest not forget the worlds 1st pop pod BG; the Renger Flamin'Go! with pop-pod #1 design and then #2 design pop pod.... nor the original Renger Sky Slash 1... Gordon Mandell had literally score's upon scores of rocket gliders back in the day; the XBG-47 won 2nd place behind Rengers, Flamin'Go in 1 Estes BG contest.

in the 1965 an dperhaps later HMR by G. H. Stine, there are photos of some east euro B/G's along side his unicorn; a pic of the Renger Sky SLash 5 ( which Renger told me was never named that) and a Gordon Mandell experimental model that was a modified SkySlash with canard control.

That Estes RC glider , the Sky Dancer was also a Renger design by the way.

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"Old Rocketeer's don't die; they just go OOP".....unless you 3D print them.

Oh, good, shockie -- I was hoping that I would hear from you!

Thank you very much; this info is hugely helpful.

I started this list because I was just becoming interested in building gliders, and wanted to learn about them. It started out as just a list of glider designs that I wanted to build, but it has very quickly blossomed into something that is quite a bit more elaborate (and ambitious). And when I looked around for a list of glider kits and designs, or any kind of summary or history of the development of the boosted glider in model rocketry, I couldn't find any, so I decided to make one , starting with a simple list.

There was, and is, one major problem with this plan, though. My knowledge of model rocket history, let alone the history of rocket-boosted gliders, is quite sketchy. I was a very avid and very obsessed young rocketeer (with not much in the way of resources) as a teenager for 4 years in the late sixties, and then suspended my rocket flying for a what I had always intended to be just a brief and temporary period, but which turned out to be for 33 years. So consequently, I wasn't around for practically any of the developments in glider theory and technology. It's OK, though; now I'm a very avid and very obsessed "old guy rocketeer" (which, BTW, is not the same thing as an Old Rocketeer), and I'm learning about them now as I go along.

All of this is just a long and roundabout way of saying that I can use all the help that I can get.

Since I don't have a storehouse of memories and a cache of old rocketry magazines and newsletters stretching back to the dawn of time to draw from, I have been relying on online resources. I have scrounged together what I have on the list so far by gleaning information from the catalogs at Ninfinger, the resources at YORP, YORS, BARCLONE, JimZ's site and EMRR, supplementing it with a little sprinkling of info from the oldrockets and rocketboostgliders Yahoo! groups. I must confess that I have also committed outright theft from the Classic Kits List at Semroc's site. Oh, and last but certainly not least, the project has also benefited from comments and tips from members of this forum, too.

I would like to limit this list to rocket boosted glider designs that were put together and sold (or given away) as kits (even if no plans are currently available), and to designs that were printed as complete plans in some "mass-circulation" publication (such as, for example, Model Rocketry) or were readily available from a publisher (such as NARTS). I am also including plans published in certain customer newsletters (like Estes' Model Rocket News or Centuri's American Rocketeer) that were widely available and which almost every model rocketeer received at one time or another. Basically, what I am looking for are gliders for which some documentation actually exists (either copyrighted or in the public domain). I don't want to try to track down and list one-off designs, such as something that someone remembers seeing someone else fly once at some regional meet a long time ago, or something that the Soviet team once flew at Internats, where there are only anecdotal accounts and no other documentation.

I have skimmed through all of the issues of MRN that are available online (through early 1972, I think), but I confess that I have not yet begun to plow through the back issues of Model Rocketry (which are all from approximately the same era as MRN) that are available online. I don't have access to any back issues of Model Rocketeer magazine, American Spacemodeling, or issues of Sport Rocketry that were published before I finally joined NAR in July of 2006. I would greatly appreciate any help with identifying glider designs that were printed in any of these publications, or with any designs that were printed in modeler enthusiast magazines from the 1950's and 1960's.

As far as commercially-produced kits go, my only sources of information are the very large number of historic catalogs published at Ninfinger and at YORP, plans published at YORP or at JimZ's, the kit lists at YORS, and models reviewed at EMRR. As comprehensive as this combination of sites is, there are no doubt manufacturers that are not represented, and kits that were listed in catalogs from years that are not online. The list currently has kits and designs from 47 different commercial kit producers (out of 51 total sources), and I am not sure that I even have all of the kits from these companies listed.

I have quickly skimmed through, but haven't really studied, George Gassaway's excellent site yet, either.

So, shockie, to finally get back to your post, where would I find information on Stine's Spit-Roc, Doug Malewicki's designs, Bob Park's Dove, and the designs by Gordon Mandell and Renger? You mentioned the others as being in Model Rocketry magazine, and I will begin sifting through the issues that I can access online. I should also probably start combing through the archived threads of the rocketboostgliders group, too.

Thanks again - Mark.

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Big update coming...

Mark

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Here is the latest updated list. I have added 18 new entries, and the list now has a total of 269 entries.

From here and there I have been able to pick up little bits of information about a few of those big mid-power R/C rocket gliders, like the Aerotech Phoenix, for example, but it has been like finding diamonds on the beach. Are gliders in that class really that rare?

Mark

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