Kyosho Swing v. Great Planes Fling RC Gliders HLG

My first RC glider was the Great Planes FLING and I battered it properly. Superb fun, even the crashing! It's still airworthy, but now rather heavier than when new (it's all that fibreglass repair patching!) I like to think of it as having a "slightly higher wing loading" for more speed and better penetration on windy days or the slope.

Soon after, I noticed that Kyosho made a glider of similar size and shape called SWING. It seems to be less well known. I bought one but have yet to assemble a fly it. It seems better quality and lighter than the Fling.

It made me wonder: which came first, and is one a "copy of" or "inspired by" the other?

Here is instruction manual of the Great Planes Fling, and the manual for the Kyosho Swing.

These are a good read, but I found the copyright notices on them interesting: the Swing manual is (c) 2003, whereas the Fling is (c) 2004. This would seem to indicate that the Swing came first and the Fling about a year later.

I think the reasons for the Fling's success compared to the Swing are:

• Great Planes had the foresight to include a high start bungee towline in the Fling package
• Colour of the covering: rich and memorable mauve on the Fling, but bland transparent on the Swing
• For these models, Great Planes' marketing, in Europe at least, is much stronger than Kyosho's

I'll post some pictures of my models later.