Free flight rubber band airplane kit for 9 year old

Apologies in advance, as this is not quite RC specific, but it seemed the best place.

My daughter is asking for an airplane kit for her 9th birthday that she can build. She wants something that she can glue together. I think rubber power would be most appropriate for the first one. I'd love her to get into radio control airplanes one day, but that's not the stage we are at.

She has done the rubber band dollar store ones that are essentially slotting the wings and tail into the body. Something more advanced is required.

I have found the kits where the wings and body are basically stick built, then covered tissue paper, and doped. This seems a bit too complicated for her age. The box says ages 12 and up.

My local hobby store wasn't overally helpful. I looked at a number of online stores (e.g. Tower Hobbies, Great Hobbies) and while they have a lot of kits listed, no indication of age appropriateness is given.

Does anybody have any suggestions?

Thanks,

Allan.

Reply to
allan
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On 3 Aug 2005 07:29:08 -0700, snipped-for-privacy@yates.ca wrote in :

My dad bought me 5 Guillow's kits when I was 10 or 11 years old. It took me years to build them all, but I did it.

I would look for a purpose-designed rubber band plane (that is, non-scale). It should have the best chance of really flying when you're done with it.

Don't load it up with dope. Use colored tissue to make designs. You can do some nice things with pen over dope--or a little bit of acrylic paint.

If I remember correctly, we used to condition the rubber with banana oil. It also helps to concoct a prop winder. You can get a lot of turns into the motor in a reasonable time with that.

Here's an AMA page. It's got a rubber-powered models on it: .

And a link from that page to this:

Lots of other good links, too. I'm sure you'll find something that will work for you and your daughter.

Marty

Reply to
Martin X. Moleski, SJ

Sig sells a bunch of rubber powered free-flight stuff for all skill levels. I'd suggest the AMA cub -- there's just a few parts, you build it onto the covering material with white glue, and when you're done it should fly better than the stick and rubber types.

They go from there to built-up wings with tissue on stick fuselages, up to past FF rubber scale national winners (don't start on the Mr. Mulligan kit, no matter how cool it looks -- trust me).

Reply to
Tim Wescott

Perfect! These ideas are exactly what I was looking for. I'll pick at least one of them.

Interestingly, the guy behind rubber-power.com lives in the same city where I work!

Thanks,

Allan.

Reply to
allan

On 3 Aug 2005 17:02:27 -0700, snipped-for-privacy@yates.ca wrote in :

It's a small world after all!

You're welcome.

Let us know how it turns out. ;o)

Marty

Reply to
Martin X. Moleski, SJ

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