RE: Handlaunch a Thermic 36?
Now this is my kind of thread - probably because I love the look of Frank Zaics beautiful gliders! He was truely an artist. I do not think that anyone made more beautifully drawn plans either.
The Thermic 36 kitted by Jetco in the late50's/early 60's featured a built up wing with a flat center section and a built up sheet balsa fuselage. It is actually a Bill Siegle design, and is not one of Franks (being designed after Frank and the company he founded parted ways). The weak point of the Thermic 36 is that there is no spar - with only the leading and trailing edges to provide wing strength. This "shortcoming" is in all the Zaic designed Thermic series gliders up to and including the Thermic 50 variations. This is not an issue if you are towline flying with a light weight free flight floater (as these were originally designed to be flown). With hand launch or high start it is a much different matter!
If you like the look of the Thermic 36, you might like to take a look at a Thermic Traveler (not a Zaic design, but obviously inspired by his style). It is a more recent design that looks like a Thermic 36 but has a 76" span. It was designed to be either an electric or a pure glider. It was originally kitted by Electric Model Design, and later by Aveox.
Both the Thermic 36 and Thermic Traveler kits show up on ebay from time to time.
Skybench Aerotech currently has a short kit listed for the Thermic 100. It is the post war "full fuselage" version. For modern R/C flying, the Thermic 100 has a rather weak wing. It has an undercambered airfoil and a shallow stick type main wing spar. An updated short kit by Hobby Horn had an improved full depth web type spar, but kept the original airfoil. The Hobby Horn kit included plans for both the full fuselage and the early pod and boom style fuselage. I do not know if the Hobby Horn kits are still available, but if I were contemplating building a Thermic 100, I would certainly want to build one with the improved wing...
Arlen