Da Vinci Glider

Made from Baltic Birch and Mira-cloth. Some details of the design are linked here.








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Beautiful!

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Wow! That’s so cool, beautiful, and amazing!

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Beautiful work!

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Amazing! One of my idols!

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Awesome! Now that is inspiring!

I was thinking about trying Da Vinci’s unbalanced wheel.

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Just curious… Will it fly?

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Lol, that’s the first thing I tried. Didn’t glide unfortunately.

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Now that’s one pretty project, excellent recreation!

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A bit of design thought and you might find it able to act as a kite going where Da Vinci was thinking, with the added knowledge he had no way of knowing, (Thinking silk instead of paper as an example)

It is really pretty just as a shape hanging around hpowever :heart_eyes:

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Fantastic.

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Beautiful!

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Very nicely done!

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That is gorgeous!!

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Yes that would be interesting and fun.

I am just getting into making balsa wood models of RC planes. Trying to figure out a way to do some design changes to convert model plans into a laser cuttable SVG.

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It was 68 or so years ago that we got off the boat in San Francisco with our 1950 Plymouth Station Wagon and prepared to drive to Rockford, IL stopping at all the National Parks we could fit in. To assuage boredom my parents stopped in at what I guess was one of the larger hobby stores in San Francisco, and there, hanging from the ceiling were some of the largest RC planes I have ever seen :heart_eyes:

I was quite small, so perspective would be relevant, and unversed in Aerodynamics, so weight would be an issue I did not consider, but I swore that I could have ridden one, and begged my parents to buy one for me to ride.

As one gets older, early life experiences resolve to small vignettes, usually of higher emotion, and all these years later, that one still sticks out. :grin:

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Well done!

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I had a similar experience in a hobby store at age 12. I was in awe and dragging my jaw on the floor. Just loved the look of the stick frames hanging from the ceiling. Those precious memories never fade. They come back to haunt you when you buy a laser cutter.

This is the site for the free plans. Aerofred. Search using CAD and a ton of plans show up. Most are vector PDFs, DFX or DWG files.

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Few finished plans but a vector drawing system that automatically makes the mirror side while you work and then lays out surfaces at the actual shape when unfolded and does some math about balance and resistance.

It is made for designing boat hulls, but aircraft or other vehicle that is bi-symmetrical it does just as well :grin: I used it to design a fairing for a tricycle among other things.

My trike fairing try 15 …

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Nice, thank you. Will try it.

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