milw said: Which would you say is the best flier? 

How 'bout I just give you a rundown of each design? I haven't played with Photoshop in a while so this will give me an excuse. 8^)

This design on the Hornet seems to give it awesome climbing traits. Plus it's  fast and allows for quick turning. However it also seems fairly unstable. If a stray gust of wind hits it the wrong way the Hornet will take an unrecoverable, super sonic nose dive.

This twin tail is just a product of trial and error.  It's not working out so good. It's kinda heavy so it slows down the DF a bit, PLUS it is rather unstable.  Unpredictable.  Ok, it sucks. I figured it would but that didn't stop me from trying.

The disc tail started out as just a silly idea. Novelty type of thing. But it turned out to have some interesting aspects. It REALLY slows down the DF's flight. A LOT. I mean, with this tail it's almost like flying a blimp! The DF just, ever so slowly, lofts throgh the air. Kinda neat. Great for indoors. Only downside is it also seriously hinders the turning ability of the DF.  You have to predict your wide sweeping turns well in advance of any walls.

This tail, unlike the other 3, is a replacement for the stock DF tail. The previous tails were all attached to the stock DF tail.  But with this one I needed to completely remove the original foam tail.  So I replaced it with this flare design.  I really didn't even like the design, but smaller tails weren't working out so well.  So I tried something bigger simply out of frustration.  To my surprise this tail performed unbelievably well.  The very first flight I lofted the Fly into the air, hit the throttle, and it didn't come back down to Earth until the battery was low.  And every flight since then has had similar results. This tail is so amazingly stable, [shrug] I don't know what else to say about it. It just works. No porpoising AT ALL. Just level or climbing flight patterns. Awesome. 

But it's large so it must slow down the DF, right?  Wrong. I guess because I replaced the original tail the weight of the DF is probably even less than stock. Because when I removed the original foam tail I also removed a few of the plastic clips that held it to the tail rod.  So NO, it's not slow at all. This DF is quick, turns very well, and is as stable in the air as it would be if you set it down on a wooden shelf (well, practically). ;)

If anyone attempts to recreate any of these designs be sure to pay close attention to the subtle shading on the tails.  All the designs were fabricated from lightwieght styrofoam plates and I often used the circular edge of the plate so it could smoothly raise or lower the back end of my tail designs. (Does that makes sense?)

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