If the room be too short for a
glider to finish its flight, the elevation at which it strikes the wall is
the measure of its efficiency.
Out-of-door flights are impracticable with these very frail models when
there is the slightest breeze blowing. On a perfectly calm day, however,
much better fun can be got out of doors than in, owing to the greater space
available. A good glider launched from a second-floor window facing a
large lawn should travel many yards before coming to grass.
Large gliders of the types detailed above can be made of very stout paper
stiffened with slips of cane or bamboo; but the time they demand in
construction might perhaps be more profitably spent on a power-driven
aeroplane such as forms the subject of the next chapter.
XXV. A SELF-LAUNCHING MODEL AEROPLANE.
By V. E. Johnson, M.A.
This article deals not with a scale model--a small copy of some
full-sized machine--but with one designed for actual flight; with one not
specially intended to create records either of length or duration, but
which, although small details must perforce be omitted, does along its main
lines approximate to the "real thing.
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