Shark - Single piece printable glider

Made for the Printables ‘make it fly’ event.

A flexible glider design with multiple variants, designed to print flat at standard size on any printer 210x210 square or larger (with diagonal orientation). 

Instructions for use:

Print solid for optimal weight distribution. All testing was done on solid prints, and stability may be reduced when using less infill (although it may still work.)

Designed for ABS or ASA plastic →  For any glider craft, this material is your best bet due to its high impact resistance and low weight. Test models survived repeated impacts with pavement, buildings, rocks and other hard objects. Standard PLA is not recommended (but reinforced PLA+ or PETG may work.)

Printing requires no support structures and should not require brimming. The lowest level of the plane is kept flat and was not rounded to improve bed adhesion.

Finally - the Shark is designed to fly inverted! While you have the option to throw it normally, the spinal flap acts as a pinch hold to throw the plane, and stability is improved by centering mass under the wing, but printing a high wing aircraft in one piece would otherwise require a bunch of support material and a lot more work. The Shark prints completely ready to use with less than 18g of ABS plastic when printed solid!

Included models:

A) One model incorporates bendable flaps, which can be used to camber the wing manually based on desired lift and flight orientation.

B) Two models incorporate gurney flaps on the trailing edge, which help raise pressure under the wing and generate lift. For inverted flight only

C) Finally, an extended wing model is provided with no extra lifting devices, this may work best in high wind to avoid excessive instability, try it out!

The elevator has a notch cut to enable bending the tab at the end of the horizontal stabilizer. This may separate layers on the tailplane, but this is not a problem because the diagonal sections will easily support the elevator.

See it in action here!:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/hMVSRg0svF8