Edmonds Aerospace Deltie

Edmonds Aerospace - Deltie {Kit} (DELTIE)

Contributed by Neil Thompson

Length: 16.50 inches
Manufacturer: Edmonds Aerospace
Skill Level: 1
Style: Glider
Rating
(Contributed - by Neil Thompson)

Rocket Pic Brief:
This is a very nice kit by Edmonds Aerospace. The pop pod comes back on a streamer, and the deltie glides back.

Construction:
The kit contains:

  • 1 tube and a lot of little balsa parts, all very neatly laser-cut.

It was very easy to build, fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle. Everything fits together nicely, and everything was laser-cut. You just have to have a little glue and an hour or so.

Finishing:
Rob Edmonds recommends you use markers, so I did. It looks very nice with orange, yellow and green highlighters. Do not use paint.

Construction Rating: 5 out of 5

Flight:
I flew it 4 times. Once it separated at apogee, but the ejection charge had not fired; so the pop pod tumbled about 100 feet, and then popped. I used half a square of wadding, but that is all you need. Once I forgot it entirely while half prepping the glider, half keeping those idiotic 5 year olds from stepping on my rockets. Those kids were crazy. Once I had to rip my modified Echostar out of the hands of one of those mental little kids; and there had to be 3 dozen of the little devils. The RSO and the RCO were yelling over the loud speakers "DO NOT TOUCH THE ROCKETS".

Then my modified Echostar flew, and that demented little kid tried to race me to get to my own rocket. I do not think I have ever run faster than when I was trying to rescue my rockets from these un-supervised morons. I do not know where their parents were. Once some kid grabbed some super-detailed scale model and started running with it. He almost tripped over the parachute, but luckily the unfortunate owner grabbed his model and took it off him. WHEW! Anyway, my deltie flew straight every time I launched it, and once it caught a thermal and flew all the way to the parking lot and hit a car!

It was packed there, it was Space Day 2003, and the rocket landed right in the middle of the cars. I would have wasted half the day looking for it, if some nice stranger had found it sitting next to his car!

Recovery:
Flew well every time. I always had my eye on the glider, so I had to search for my pop-pod after every flight. Every time, though, somebody found it next to their chair, or where they were looking for their rocket, or just sitting in the field waving its little streamer.

Flight Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary:
Great rocket. I cant wait until the 18MM version comes out.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5

Other Reviews
  • Edmonds Aerospace Deltie By Jack Hydrazine (June 20, 2015)

    A boost glider using 18mm motors. Components All the components were used.  Great laser cutting of the pieces. /h2 Building was very easy and straight forward.  Because they were laser cut balsa the pieces fit very well together. Finishing Did not finish it to keep the weight to a minimum.  Just make sure you balance the glider with the ...

  • Edmonds Aerospace Deltie By Kris Henderson

    Brief: This is a boost glider that literally takes minutes to build and isn't all that expensive. Construction: The kit comes with a body tube for the engine and pop pod recovery device (streamer), three main body pieces, balsa nose cone, and clay for weighting one fin down to enable it to circle around your launch site instead of taking off a couple miles down wind. The ...

  • Edmonds Aerospace Deltie By Paul Gray

    Background The Edmonds Deltie is one of the most popular boost gliders, and with good reason. The glider is well designed, and it has a nice style to it. It can be assembled and ready to fly in a very short period of time. Considering the fact that the glider only weighs around five grams, it is capable of staying in the air for a long time. Construction The glider portion of this ...

  • Edmonds Aerospace Deltie By Alan Rognlie

    ( Contributed - by Alan Rognlie)  I am extremely impressed by this kit. Good materials and excellent laser-cut parts yield a fast-building sport model with very good competition potential.  The glider itself is made up of only eight pieces of 1/16" balsa - wings, elevon, fuselage, tip plates and nose reinforcements. The pieces are almost self-jigging and go together ...

Flights

Comments:

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D.K. (October 1, 2000)
Spread newspaper on your building table when assembling this model. That way, if you do glue it to something, it's the paper (easily removed) instead of the table. Rob Edmonds recommends not painting the glider to save weight, so I didn't. I did, however color the booster with markers. I'm glad I did, because a booster this small is hard to spot even in short grass. I colored it bright red, and had no trouble finding it. This was also my first boost glider. The directions were very easy to follow. Per directions, I did not sand the balsa, and I got a 60 second glide on my first flight.
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N.P.T. (August 16, 2003)
instead of newspaper, i used waxed paper. this worked well, as it would come right off. leave the little red plastic thing that holds the rear piece on right on for 12 hours at least.
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H.W.H. (February 22, 2006)
I built a Deltie in January. Flew it Feb. 21'st , waited until late afternoon when the wind died down. My 6 year old son pushed the launch button on the first launch with a 1/2A4-3. Great boost, we got so excited trying to time the glider we lost site of the booster, and when I glanced at the stop watch and looked back up the Deltie glider was gone too! My son had picked up an over-flying light plane and thought it was the Deltie! After about 20+ minutes searching the big cow field we found the glider due to my son's imaginative magic marker color scheme! Then on the walk back to the pad we stumbled upon the booster! (must be living right) Two more flights thiw evening with the same engine. The second one gave a 40+ second glide in beautiful slow circles over the field. On the third flight something happened upon ejection and the booster and glider appeared to be coming down together, but in a second or two they separated with the glider pointed straight down! It quickly swooped to nice level flight and resumed it's beautiful big circles for a good 32 second glide! Fun~! PS: Deltie Thunder under construction ...stay tuned~!

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