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updated 1/26/2004
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The X-21 is Centuri's answer to the Estes Space Plane. Centuri differentiated their kit with a payload section and canards. It is of the first generation of boost gliders called a rear engine ejection glider. The engine would eject and set off a mechanism that would move the elevons or elevators into glide position. This was soon to be made obsolete by the more efficient pop-pod glider. |
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The Swift is an example of the more efficient pop-pod glider. At ejection, the pod would come free and recover by streamer, leaving the glider to glide down without unnecessary weight. The Swift had competition style quasi-elliptical wings with a fairly high aspect ratio.
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The X-24 Bug (left) was a likable if lumpy glider loosely based on various NASA lifting bodies of the late '60s. Very draggy, but the base drag left a pretty broad and healthy smoke plume. It was also a unpredictable performer. At least in case where "it don't fly no good" many could get comedy relief by hamming up the "There's a blow out in damper three! She's breaking up!" shtick from the Six Million Dollar Man.
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The Mach 10 (right) had rugged good looks that evoked an old MIG or Starfire jet. It's unusual geometry (the stabilizing "elevon" on the rudder is really some sort of drag device, and the weighted nose ejected and caused a center of gravity shift) made it a tricky flyer. It was notorious among many who built it as a kid and then see it "St. Louis Arch" into the ground. Yet many have built clones as adults and have gotten respectable flights out of it.
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The S.S.T. Shuttle (left) was Centuri's knockoff of the Estes Orbital Transport. Although a bit less handsome, it did look more aggressive and recycled two sets of simulated jet intakes and nozzles from the old Quasar. However the upside down orbiter with the nozzle that stayed on the booster just never make the most sense to me.
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The Mini Dactyl (right) was a scaled down of the Enerjet Pterodactyl. This could be built in a one glider performance version, or a two glider sport version. The stylishly rakish little gliders were part canard and part delta, and had very respectable performance despite that. Years later, there are tales of people winning contests with 150% to 200% scale ups of these things.
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The Humming Bird (left) was intended as a boost glider for beginner. It had simple fiber-board construction with pre-printed colors and it ejected the engine.
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This Space Shuttle was based on Max Faget's concepts from the late '60s and early '70s. Centuri's interpretation wouldn't look out of place with the various artists' concepts and contractor proposals of that period. This was an interesting kit because after kicking out an engine core from inside the orbiter, both the booster and orbiter would separate and glide back. Centuri hucked it as "an air show by itself!" The orbiter had undersized wings and was hard to trim, and was often out glided by the larger booster. The early versions of this kit had balsa nose comes. The later versions had plastic nose cones and vacuum formed canopies.
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