Hello fellows!
I am currently trying to broaden my horizons with a glider build to make me relax from all the gasoline stuff that's filling my hangar. The plan is to build a fast aerobatic one, powered by a JETEC E90 fan that's already in the house.

The reason for me writing this is that I don't have any deep knowledge of gliders. I like the looks of the semi scale ones like the MDM1 Fox and the Swift S1, but that's about it. As for flying I want it to be fast and agile, and able to do some "serious" (for a glider) aerobatics. If it's mostly made of composite it's a plus, since I think it looks great.

As for wing span it would be nice to have it somewhere between 3 and 4 metres.

Do you have any suggestions on where to start looking? Any advice on the subject is most welcome and highly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

//Ted

to me a glider is just that a glider....relaxed flying like having a sail boat, its using the wind around you as the power....you want speed than go all out with planes made for speed.......true a glider if handled rite will have speed but not with a motor,,,,,,,,theres a sport in ca. called whiping,,,,gliders hitting over 200mph........no motor......just my thoughts

i do not think there is a one size fits all for what you are looking for.
for serious acro look at slope gliders
the aresti by hammond and the rcrcm dorado come to mind.
or maybe jaro muller espada line





https://www.soaringusa.com/Slope-Aerobatics/
https://alofthobbies.com/aresti-80.html


for pure speed look at dynamic soaring
https://www.soaringusa.com/DS-Planes/
https://alofthobbies.com/aircraft/gl...c-soaring.html


if you can get a hold of one of the dynamics you can get 250 mph up to 500 mph pending on which one you can get and the wind speeds that day

The Maiden Flight Of The Dynamic 130 inch (4 min 7 sec)

i think hammond is out of the uk with his aresti planes

your edf plan makes things a bit more complicated. most hotliners(speed and strong) and or the high speed slopers dont have a big enought fuse to house your battery.. then you get into the more scale ships and they wont handle the high g loads with the weight of a strong enough motor and battery to make them fast.. the key to speed is a thin wing. that leads to composite and that runs to the thousands in cost.. my last full carbon 3.5m ales ship costs 1800 for the bare airframe then another 8-900 to outfit it. so you need to think how fast and how hard you really want to fly, then how much you want to spend.. and in the end i have more fun aerotowing with a fun cub and a 2m glider i dug out of a buddy's trash can..

i would look at the forums RC groups as there a quite a few guys messing with edf conversions. and if you really have fly fast and hard the CARF 1/3 scale dg800 with a turbine would be my first choice.. i have been itching for a turbine glider but there have been many many wing failures as very few can take the speed and loading.. i think the CARF would take it, but the two piece 6m wing makes transport issue for some and its way bigger than your 3~4m requirement.

Getting a bit of a laugh out of opinions from folks that have never tried it.

I've seen both big EDF's and small turbines on big scale gliders, they handle the G's just fine. The E-Flite 4.3m Blanik I've seen both EDF and turbine and a number of other scaler's.

Thanks for the replies!

As I live quite far from hills and slopes I think I will continue on the EDF-track. As it looks now I will go for a Swift S1 from FW Models. It seems to handle a EDF unit fine and when reading about it I can almost only find good reviews, except regarding the price tag, but that's something I think I can live with.

https://www.fw-models.de/content/modelle/swift.php

The CARF looks awesome, but then I have to buy a new car I think, and that's a bit over my budget.

I realise that powered gliders is not for everyone. When i started to look at gliders I thought the only way up was behind a towing plane (which also seems fun by the way), but when I saw the flying below on a meeting in Germany I immediately changed my focus. When thinking about it now I don't se any drawbacks worth mentioning, except maybe the weight. But that's something I think I can learn to live with. And as a bonus it can be towed as well.

//Ted

EXTREME 3D AEROBATICS WITH TURBINE MODEL GLIDER CIRRUS K / Euroflugtag Rheidt 2016 (3 min 46 sec)

Hey Ted, did you buy any of the gliders ? I am also looking for an Aerobatic Composite Glider, but Electric Motor powered instead of EDF/Turbine. So far i have only been able to fing a Tomahawk MDM Fox glider. If you have found any other choices and if you can share that would be very helpful.