Butterfly 2 (oz10527)

About this Plan

Butterfly 2. A 20in span hand launched glider. Consistent competition winner. Free plan with Aeromodeller September 1986.

Quote: "Here's Mick Page's winning design. Build one from our full-size plan, follow his advice and see if you can beat him! Butterfly 2, by Mick Page.

THE NATIONAL HAND LAUNCH GLIDER Trophy, kindly donated by 'the master' Phil Ball has five names engraved on it, these being: J Buskell (1980), D Edmondson (1981), P Ball (1982), M Simms (1983) and myself (1984 and 1985, with '86 to be added). Dave Edmondson's name may not be as recognisable as some but one of the nice things about HLG is that every now and again someone comes along to surprise the experts. Dave was a Country Member who flew only once a year - at the Nationals - so if he can do it, so can you.

Some models will win just in the hands of their designers, but this is not the case with Butterfly. My companion Mark Benns has had sucesses with it (he was second at the '84 Nats) and several members of the Peterborough club - most of whom are C/L fliers -have also built them. All fly well. The design is stable and will recover from a bad transition before hitting the ground. At many rallies I have found beginners who do not believe this. When this happens I hand them the model and tell them to have a go. I have yet to break a model this way.

Eyeball or accuracy? I expect most builders make their models by eye. When I started I certainly did; the wing section was sanded without being checked, squareness of alignment was not verified. I could not understand why America's ace chuck glider flier, Lee Hines, uses a set square, let alone a micrometer when building his Sweepette; but then I was the beginner.

Nowadays I wouldn't dream of building a HLG without the aid of a 0-1 micrometer. The reason is that in the course of a normal year I have at least five flyaways, which means I have to replace at least two models, and the new models cannot be just any old HLGs but must be exact replicas of the lost
ones. The keyword is 'accuracy'. You will notice from the plan that certain dimensions are given tolerances; if your model is not built within these limits it will have different characteristics to mine. Take note of the various warps and duplicate them accurately, for you will then have a model that will fly off the board, leaving you with the job of trimming for the weather conditions on the day of the competition - quite enough on its own.

Fuselage. Two main parts here. The rear consists of a carbon Ronytube and the front is made up from 1/4 x 1/4 in spruce. Sources of supply are shown on the plan, even for the spruce; your local model shop may sell only radio gear! Cut to length and epoxy together, roughening the surface of the Ronytube if it is one of the old glass-cloth type..."

Note a plan showing a larger 27 inch version of the Butterfly is available online at http://www.peterboroughmfc.org/membersmodels2014/06-DLG-MickPage.htm

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