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Post by sean on Mar 13, 2008 21:35:27 GMT 10
I certainly am Ken! Looks like the SEs are going to drop over the next week so the sooner the better I guess.
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Post by ezza on Mar 13, 2008 22:38:41 GMT 10
Boy you really are hooked Ken. Great to hear. Nice looking Reaper. Looks like you have positioned the wing further forward than standard, and hung the fuse spar out past the end of the epp? I'll bet she tracks well. Do you know the AUW? Did you install a ballast tube? I set my CG, bang on 46mm for the last one and it was perfect for ds. Really neutral. I used to fly with it further back around 48mm, but now I am really happy with 46mm. Eric
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Post by skyboyken on Mar 14, 2008 20:06:28 GMT 10
Thanks Eric, Hell yes I'm hooked! DS is the best thing since sex!! I've extended the fuse spar so the LE of the fin is about 190mm behind the wing TE, which I copied from Sean's Reaper. I don't know the AUW, but it feels a little lighter than Sean's is currently , so probably about the same as his when it was new! I certainly did install a ballast tube. I believe every high performance glider needs the ability to add ballast, and particularly a DS plane. I don't know where my CG is currently. I set it roughly to 45mm for initial trim, and have then set it by 'feel' from there .
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Post by atmosteve on Mar 14, 2008 23:56:32 GMT 10
Thanks Eric, I don't know where my CG is currently. I set it roughly to 45mm for initial trim, and have then set it by 'feel' from there . That sounds pretty good to me, when it comes to trim its best done by feel i reckon to, time enough for maths later. Glider looks really nice Ken, if its on par with Sean's Reaper then you are on to something for sure, i would love one. Go hard.
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Post by swoopdown on Mar 20, 2008 18:35:46 GMT 10
Quote form skyboyken "Hell yes I'm hooked! DS is the best thing since sex!!" LOL Another one bites the dust. Front side flying will now never be the same for you. Hahahaha
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Post by skyboyken on Mar 20, 2008 20:39:01 GMT 10
"LOL Another one bites the dust. Front side flying will now never be the same for you. Hahahaha" This from the man who leapfrogs over his JW when landing!! . And yes you're absolutely right - 'I feel the need - the need for speed' . Is anyone old enough to remember who said that line?
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Post by sean on Apr 18, 2008 16:52:02 GMT 10
We had an awesome day at Bryon yesterday. The weather was patchy - heavy showers coming through at regular intervals so we only got to fly briefy between showers. The wind was really up and down, Ken DSed his Reaper to begin with and looked very calm doing so - Ezza mentioned he'd never seen anyone so calm on their first laps at this spot , nice flying mate! ;D. Then I threw my Reaper out and did a few laps - lots of speed, got it over 130 within a few laps flying a bad line on a slower part of the saddle but it started doing the same thing as last time I DSed it at Byron - rolling severely in the top turn, and only full aileron could correct the roll and keep it in the air. So no point sticking at it, we figure there must be a structural problem because it only occurs up around 130ish, and I fixed the ballast bay so thet definitely wasn't the issue. One funny story was clipping the top of a tree at 130ish - it made a big noise but stayed in the air and kept on DSing! With the plane back on the ground there was no evidence of where the wing had hit the tree! Tough plane, but the old girl is clearly not up to these speeds so I won't fly it at this site again. That left me with only the Bird, so after waiting 40mins or so for a big shower to pass we threw it out. Ezza gave it a big throw and it just went straight up... then while walking the 100m or so to the DS zone I had to use crow to stop it gettting too high and out of sight - the conditions were MASSIVE! The back was working better than the last time I flew at this spot and speeds were immediately high. I just drove it round in big circles doing my best to just keep it in the air, the sound as it crossed the shear layer was just phenomenal, and as far as I can remember within only 5 or 10mins we recorded a 174mph pass accompanied by some pretty loud flutter. Dang! Forgot to tape the flaps so no point pressing on past this speed. One flap on the Bird has developed quite a bit of slop and really should have been taped for these kinds of speeds. Oh well, not to worry. The sun was just about to set anyway and it takes a while to land here so it was a good time for me to call it a day. Landing was harder than last time, it didn't want to descend so easily with crow - front side lift was ballistic! I eventually put it down very clumsily in the top of some soft trees about 4M or so from where I was standing, but the bush was so thick and tall it still took a good half an hour to find it with directions from a very kind spectator! I must have walked under it three of four time before I finally spotted a red tip of one v-tail. Before I found it, it was beginning to get dark and some heavy rain was approaching so I was getting a bit worried! While I was retrieving the Bird Ezza did some laps with his evil looking Reaper. That thing is built for speed - It was its first time DSing and he got a 158 pass with it despite control being a bit tough thanks to the CG being too far aft. Throughout the flight my Bird was solid, and I'm sure if it hadn't got flutter and we'd been able to press on a bit longer 200 would have been achievable. Thanks Ken and Ezza for such a good day ;D.
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Post by thevon on Apr 18, 2008 16:59:32 GMT 10
Well, that's upped your PB hasn't it! A long way to go for a relatively short bit of flying, but you got a result. There's nowhere else you can get conditions like that around here! All very exciting!
Sean, I reckon you're in the market for an Opus MC-T and lots of ballast!
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Post by sean on Apr 18, 2008 17:12:56 GMT 10
Yeah an MC-T would be nice!!! But realistically I'm probably not going to fly in conditions like this very often so it wouldn't get used much. Still, an MCT or something similar is definitely on my wish list .
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Post by thevon on Apr 25, 2008 18:35:00 GMT 10
Well it was the first Westerly of the year today, and I thought about heading to Sids Ridge near Dayboro, but after fighting a bad headache I wasn’t too keen, and we went to the Anzac Day service where my daughter Caitlin was giving a speech and singing etc, so the day got away. Then Jase phoned up and asked if I was keen and I weakened and in no time flat was bolting for Dayboro. Only a few hours of daylight left but there was wind and we’d get a bit of fun in!
Jase was there first and was chatting with Sid and Col, so when I got there at 3pm he put his Bee in my Outback for the drive up the ridge. Sid warned us that the weeds had “got away” on the hill. You have to drive up a little rise through a narrow gate and with the grass being longer I didn’t sus out the dip and bump, and crunch, put a good bash under the Subaru’s plastic bumper. Quite a mess. Had to back out and get up at the right angle. Going up the ridge, we were amazed how big and thick the weeds were! Couldn’t see a darn thing. Pushing them over with the car. Then we turned left to find the narrow rough track that goes up the ridge – could hardly find it. Last year the grass was so short but now it’s long. When we worked out the location of the track we realized that the earth had moved and opened up big cracks, and we couldn’t keep going. We needed Ding’s Discovery or Alan’s Jeep! Might have to go back out there and fill those holes with rocks sometime. We got out and walked, only a few hundred metres but in parts it was like a tunnel thru the weeds.
When we got to the top, there was decent breeze, but we were amazed how many big weeds covered the ridge! You have to find tracks thru them! And they're prickly!
The wind was dying off, W to SW and after several sludging flights I took the ballast out of the Reaper. Then got it carving nice circles and I tried both ends of the saddle, did some figure 8’s and so on. Had to work at getting the circles shallower and turning at the right time.
Meanwhile Jase had decided to have a crack at DSing his Bee, and as he walked over the back, he lost it over the front out of sight. I started to work the circles with better acceleration and started to get some decent speed – I guess only 65mph at best but it was amazing to get that when there was so little lift on front. It was really smooth too. I started to go deeper and suddenly whack, in it went down the bottom. Sometimes you can say “aah, I was too low, or I rolled too steeply, or something, but this time it was perfectly on track then a sudden roll into the deck. It’s the same exact spot it’s happened several times last year. Bummer. Tore the fuse right off the wing, and broke the tail (again).
I went down to help Jase. Turned out he had no model alarm. Darn. And he didn’t cross the sticks. Hmm. We spent ages looking, for the Bee. Getting covered in every type of burr and prickle known to man. It seemed hopeless. After a while I went back to fly the Bat. The wind got lighter and I was having trouble getting enough height to dive in, but whenever I did, it was rewarding to pick up speed and keep DSing. Then after a while I really couldn’t keep it up, so went to try some other sections of the ridge. Now I have to say that whenever I’ve done so on this ridge it’s been useless, and today was no exception. I got better height and dived in with more speed than at our “normal” spot, but the Bat got rolled and pushed into trees. Tried even further along and for a bit it looked good, started to crank, then it simply spun out of the bottom turn and went out of sight behind trees – I crossed the sticks and a few seconds later heard a thump – went to get it and it was waaaa-ay down the hill near the car! Aaargh! I left it there beeping!
Went back and spent lots more time with Jase, finally took a punt and walked way down the hill and found the Bee on the road! At least that was good. Decided enough was enough and we headed home! I was pulling burrs out of my socks all the way home and it was painful! Some of them are like needles!
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Post by laanguy on Apr 25, 2008 19:04:33 GMT 10
Yeah an MC-T would be nice!!! But realistically I'm probably not going to fly in conditions like this very often so it wouldn't get used much. Still, an MCT or something similar is definitely on my wish list . MCT is still in the process of getting a new slimmer fuse and different tail mount. Once these are done I will be getting one and they will also be available in the double glass version which is stronger than most carbon planes.
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Post by sean on Apr 26, 2008 18:16:05 GMT 10
Great report on Sid's Ridge Andrew, it's a shame to hear the weeds have got out of hand!
Thanks for the update on the MC-T Andrew, sounds like it'll be the version to get.
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Post by thevon on May 1, 2008 7:15:26 GMT 10
Yesterday the DS speed world record got broken again, but not by a bit ... it jumped from 316 mph (where it had stood for only 9 days) to 333 then soon up to 357mph. News is here: www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=857253Excellent conditions at Weldon Hill, Lake Isabella but also they have only just sorted out a radar gun capable of recording speeds reliably at that level, and the Kinetic which broke the record is a newer, stiffer, stronger custom build. That's 571kph, for a glider. For those who don't know a lot about dynamic soaring, the repeated crossing of the boundary layer between moving and still air adds energy at every crossing and by pulling circles to keep re-crossing the layers, acceleration keeps occurring. It creates energy which the plane can't reach in normal flight. If you put a good glider into a vertical dive from thousands of feet high it will reach its terminal velocity and won't flutter. But if you DS it in good conditions, it can rapidly reach the point where the flutter occurs, or the wings break in the turns. Many of the planes used in DS are destroyed in flight.
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Post by sean on May 18, 2008 19:25:51 GMT 10
Andrew and I had a fun day of DSing today in the first strong westerly of the year. We tried 3 different sites and thankfully the third place really paid off. It's a spot Andrew and Gerard found last year but had written off as no good because there's lots of thick bush on the front and it's hard to launch. But this time we were more interested in the back - it looked really good and the wind was coming up the front square-on, so we gave it a go. It was the first time either of us had flown here - there was plenty of power and we had lots of fun experimenting with different areas on the ridge with Andrew's Bat and Reaper. By the late afternoon we were both rewarded with some good speeds from our mouldies - Andrew with his Wizard and myself with my trusty Bird. Andrew set a new PB of 123mph with the Wizard - nice flying mate! He was also extremely generous letting me fly his planes for most of the day (my Reaper is out of action temporarily, my Skua was too light for the very bumpy conditions and we didn't want to get the mouldies out until we'd really sussed the place out)!
We had a couple of dramas with the Wizard - firstly while launching I did a dud throw while Andrew was at the sticks and it went behind some bushes out of sight. It went straight in shortly after this but on lots of soft grass and bushes so it was OK. The next launch was far more successful (thanks to a much better throw by Andrew). Later when it came time to land we found one of the flaps wouldn't come down - the thought of landing it in the strong gusty wind with no flaps was pretty daunting at the time but we got it down OK - just!
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Post by thevon on May 18, 2008 20:52:50 GMT 10
Thanks for the report Sean - I'm still buzzing (but super-tired as well!) - it finished off being a great and successful day. First we tried a hill up near Woodford - we had big hopes for it, as it's a beautiful grassy hilltop. We had fun pushing the Outback to the point where it was sliding and wouldn't get us any closer to the top! That bit was fun, but there was no DS effect - nil, zippo!
We made an executive decision to drive 35 mins or so to Kev's Ridge (these are all private farms, entry with permission only) and it worked initially then the wind must have gone a bit N and it stopped working.
So we decided (a bit despondently) to head for Sids, not looking forward to the weeds and burrs there. But I also wanted to check out another place that Nick, Gerard and I had been to last year. I've been thinking about it, it had great lift but I didn't know how to DS then. It didn't seem worth a revisit for frontside so I wrote it off coz we started using Sids for westerlies, but I now wondered if how it would look with some DS experience under the belt. When Sean and I got there we drove right into the paddock, threw out and in minutes were cracking over the 90's with my Reaper and Bat. Fantastic. Couldn't believe our luck! It seemed to be working everywhere we tried on that ridge.
Then we decided to explore a bit further up the ridge and it was even better as it had a big, deep, dead backside. Seriously good, I thought. But there was a wall of lantana on the lift side, and we had to find a good patch to look into the backside. I went crazy smashing down lantana for 10 mins or so to make a launch viewing "hole" thru the lantana! It was a case of one person climbs over the fence, thru the bush, launches then hands the radio back to the guy on the road.
I got 99 with the Reaper and Sean got 108. I got around 93 with the Bat, I think. Sean got an impressive 139 with the Bird - a few 134, 138 laps too. Once he got the line nailed it was really impressive. Despite being sick with nerves at the thought, with little time left I had a go with the Wiz, and got the 123 but being my first "serious" Ds with it, I was not keen to push it.
We need to do a bit of work clearing some lantana for the launches, but it's got great potential for DSing in westerlies -being a bowl shaped ridge, it offers a few options! The wind wasn't huge today ... I"m thinking on a big westerly day it would be pretty scary!
Actually I love watching Sean DS my planes! I learn heaps, and it's great spectator value! I had a hoot radarring.
Sean brought it in with the one flap - nice work, and thanks!
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