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Bill
insists that we should "not make too much of my efforts at Jetex duration designs;
many of them were not too successful." As evidence, he cites his experience with
Firebird's successor:
"There was a Firebird 2
designed and built for the 1953 International Jetex contest. This model was the
same basic design as Firebird 1, but used geodetic construction on the wings
and tail. The finished weight, less motor, was 1.1 ozs. compared to 1.5 ozs.
for Firebird 1. It qualified for the International and was proxy flown for me
(I had left the UK for Canada) by my Grange club mate Tony Brooks."
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"Unfortunately, I had carried the weight saving too far and the model broke up in the windy weather conditions.
"Another difficulty with this design was that the motor position was too close to
the launch holding point, creating considerable problems to achieve a good launch.
This became critical with Firebird 2, with the resulting break up when trying to
hold it into the wind."
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