Back
in September 2012 I mentioned that I had bought an unidentified glider
and that I was waiting for the opportunity to fly it.
On 24th February 2013, my wife and I set off for a 2 day visit to
Landudno with the plan to let me loose on the Great Orme with a model or
two on the first day. My friend Tim Mackey lives in the area and I was
pleased to find that he was available to give me the benefit of his
experience.
We assesed the available lift with our foamies, Tim with a Wildthing and myself with the Fusion; it was good and
smooth but not massive. I checked what Tim thought the my control throws on the glider
and we decided they would be okay, so with nothing else to check up on
and no excuses left Tim chucked it off the Great Orme into the north
easterly. It started losing height straight away and a tiny over correction
by me followed as I found out how the model reacted to elevator inputs
then it just gently slipped out into the rising air. An absolute doddle,
a little trimming for that pitching down and a click or two on the
ailerons and it was sweet as a nut.
Exciting, well yes and no. A maiden flight of a model type I haven't
flown before is exciting and I'm thrilled to have another sloper at my
disposal. A resereved "no" is just that the available lift was decaying
and I couldn't get a lot of penetration to gain much speed for
aerobatics - I did do a slow roll but it was meant to be rather quicker
than it turned out.
No big issue but since I couldn't gain a great height to dive from
either I decided to save further exploration for another day and bring
it in for a landing. First attempt wasn't bad but I overshot and so on
the second attempt I went a little further down wind - a little further
downwind too much and landed short. No harm done apart from a bent
rudder push rod - a clear sign that a modification is needed.
Happy? You bet. I love my IC power flying but it's quite different
having on board thrust. Flying the elements with only pitch to control
speed is something else and I'm loving that too.
On
top off all this and with the helpof my friends at the
modelflying.co.uk website I now know that the glider is a "Sailplanes
International Secret Weapon" .
