Blatter SO

designed for the Science Olympiad rules

The Blatter SO design is an enlarged and strengthened version of the Al Blatter's Free Flight design. Paul Bradly reworked the plan a bit to conform to the S.O. rules. Likely it will be adaptable to the T.S.A. rules as well. This design is an excellent place to start for the rubber powered competition, and should offer stable and consistent flights. Here is a preview of the larger plan.

Blatter Preview
(click to view the full size plan or print it on a single sheet of 8.5 x 14 legal paper)

Notes from Paul Bradley: I haven't yet flown the model other than in my garage. Waiting to get access to a flying site. As a result, I can't comment on potential duration. My regular Blatter "40" would do 3 1/2 minutes in a high ceiling building. I would think the "SO" if built to the 8 gram minimum weight and with some good Tan II should be able to get near 3 minutes. The SO rules allow prop choices, so there could be some interesting optimization. It will be fun to see what happens with the Blatter "SO" in the hands of the students.

The attached plan is essentially a Blatter "40" scaled to give the 50cm wing span. No attempt has been made to enlarge the wing chord to take advantage of the 12 cm limit, or to enlarge the stab to the allowed 35 cm span. I'm sure that a little effort on the part of an experienced modeler could get a model built to the SO specifications to do quite well.


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