Post by thevon on Aug 16, 2008 21:30:29 GMT 10
We left Wild Horse and after a 45 minute drive, a quick stop at the Dayboro Bakery and bumping over some rough tracks we got to Lemons near Dayboro and were encouraged to see a couple of eagles soaring high above the ridge. The wind looked nice, not strong but decent. Since we’d been able to transport the Erwin in one piece, Sean launched straight away and there was excellent lift. Next thing he was doing solid 110’s around the back, standing right next to the lemon tree. He landed soon after and it was a bad, rough landing on the hilltop but the Erwin’s tough.
Oh, and around now Steve (Drcuzo) and his wife Stef and 2 kids rolled up too. Either Stef is the first wife I’ve seen who’s actually interested in the gliders, or she’s a great actor. It was nice having them there for their cheerful enthusiasm!
Shane put together his new 2nd hand Caracho. I think this was its maiden flight for him and he and Sean launched it and wandered along the ridge trimming it out etc. It looked very good in the sky – a very efficient 3m plane. But I was preoccupied putting the Wizard together. I launched it with the 650gm ballast stick and it moved out nicely. Flew some acro on the front to check all was OK then decided to try a landing settle my lack of confidence at landing at this site. It didn’t help as even with full flaps I came in far too hot and did a cranky cartwheel just an inch off the deck, bending a flap pushrod. I have to learn to raise the flaps before touchdown! Anyway it was easily straightened. But Shane returned not very happy. He’d been landing and meant to plonk into the lantana but overshot and did a terrible crash into bushes, making a big hole the size of a small hand in one leading edge and crunching a bit of the other wing’s LE as well. Very, very sad. The Caracho’s wing skin does seem a lot more fragile than the Fazer’s.
I started DSing the Wizard and Sean held the gun. The DS conditions were really quite perfect. No scary rotors. With only around 15 knots of breeze the effect wasn’t powerful but it was smooth. I was getting around 100 and feeling too nervous. Sean took over to give me a rest and pushed the speed up to around 110 I think. I get a lot out of watching Sean DSing. I know this sounds daft but when I watch it, it’s sort of like music! I can get quite entranced.
My turn again and Sean noticed that when I dived deeper, the speed was always about 10mph higher so we focused on that for a few laps and straight away we were up around 120! Then I started flicking the top turn harder and got up to 126. Sean’s turn again, same deal. My turn and I pushed lower, stayed low, turned early and tight, kept it together for a few smooth laps and bang we hit 138!
We wondered how close we were to the high tension powerlines so while Sean DS’ed I walked down the steep slope and looked up at the lines. It was a bit scary! There were 2 very thin wires well above the big thick ones, and we hadn’t even seen them! When Sean pushed low he was close enough to worry me! It was rather mesmerizing down there in the still calm air, hearing the wind ripping over the Wizard’s wings at high speed just overhead. I went back up to give a report– Sean was a bit rocked that there were 2 lines there we’d not noticed! So we got out the little UHF radios and Shane took one and walked back down there, and we had a session where Sean tried different lines and Shane radio’ed back how close we were. The powerlines were on an angle to the ridge so Sean walked about 20m along the ridge below the lantana wall, where the lines were further away and lower. This focus on the line and position seemed to increase the performance and the speeds stayed mostly above 130 then he beat my 138 several times, maxing at 141! It was really great. I did more too but never got above the 138.
The Wizard is a beautiful plane. It’s like the Ferrari of gliders and with the ballast it’s like a beautiful V12 Jag, rock solid, smooth and fast. You have to feel it.
Getting late we packed up but left the Wiz together, carried it on the roof and we stopped at the “hump” at the south end of the paddock to try DSing the “bowl”. It was dusk, the sun had set and there was a huge full moon rising. It was amazingly good. The DS was totally smooth, and it was working well almost no matter what you did. The bowl was like a “school of DS” learner spot. You almost couldn’t go wrong. Despite the many trees around the bowl is actually a big DS zone and we were able to wind the Wizard up to 90+ in large circles really easily in the light conditions. With the twilight and the moon and the plane rumbling around it was all rather perfect. Sean shoo’ed the cows off the landing strip, I landed the Wiz at a speed that alarmed Shane, and we shook hands and wished we had more afternoons like that. Not the Wild Horse bit, just the last bit!
Oh, and around now Steve (Drcuzo) and his wife Stef and 2 kids rolled up too. Either Stef is the first wife I’ve seen who’s actually interested in the gliders, or she’s a great actor. It was nice having them there for their cheerful enthusiasm!
Shane put together his new 2nd hand Caracho. I think this was its maiden flight for him and he and Sean launched it and wandered along the ridge trimming it out etc. It looked very good in the sky – a very efficient 3m plane. But I was preoccupied putting the Wizard together. I launched it with the 650gm ballast stick and it moved out nicely. Flew some acro on the front to check all was OK then decided to try a landing settle my lack of confidence at landing at this site. It didn’t help as even with full flaps I came in far too hot and did a cranky cartwheel just an inch off the deck, bending a flap pushrod. I have to learn to raise the flaps before touchdown! Anyway it was easily straightened. But Shane returned not very happy. He’d been landing and meant to plonk into the lantana but overshot and did a terrible crash into bushes, making a big hole the size of a small hand in one leading edge and crunching a bit of the other wing’s LE as well. Very, very sad. The Caracho’s wing skin does seem a lot more fragile than the Fazer’s.
I started DSing the Wizard and Sean held the gun. The DS conditions were really quite perfect. No scary rotors. With only around 15 knots of breeze the effect wasn’t powerful but it was smooth. I was getting around 100 and feeling too nervous. Sean took over to give me a rest and pushed the speed up to around 110 I think. I get a lot out of watching Sean DSing. I know this sounds daft but when I watch it, it’s sort of like music! I can get quite entranced.
My turn again and Sean noticed that when I dived deeper, the speed was always about 10mph higher so we focused on that for a few laps and straight away we were up around 120! Then I started flicking the top turn harder and got up to 126. Sean’s turn again, same deal. My turn and I pushed lower, stayed low, turned early and tight, kept it together for a few smooth laps and bang we hit 138!
We wondered how close we were to the high tension powerlines so while Sean DS’ed I walked down the steep slope and looked up at the lines. It was a bit scary! There were 2 very thin wires well above the big thick ones, and we hadn’t even seen them! When Sean pushed low he was close enough to worry me! It was rather mesmerizing down there in the still calm air, hearing the wind ripping over the Wizard’s wings at high speed just overhead. I went back up to give a report– Sean was a bit rocked that there were 2 lines there we’d not noticed! So we got out the little UHF radios and Shane took one and walked back down there, and we had a session where Sean tried different lines and Shane radio’ed back how close we were. The powerlines were on an angle to the ridge so Sean walked about 20m along the ridge below the lantana wall, where the lines were further away and lower. This focus on the line and position seemed to increase the performance and the speeds stayed mostly above 130 then he beat my 138 several times, maxing at 141! It was really great. I did more too but never got above the 138.
The Wizard is a beautiful plane. It’s like the Ferrari of gliders and with the ballast it’s like a beautiful V12 Jag, rock solid, smooth and fast. You have to feel it.
Getting late we packed up but left the Wiz together, carried it on the roof and we stopped at the “hump” at the south end of the paddock to try DSing the “bowl”. It was dusk, the sun had set and there was a huge full moon rising. It was amazingly good. The DS was totally smooth, and it was working well almost no matter what you did. The bowl was like a “school of DS” learner spot. You almost couldn’t go wrong. Despite the many trees around the bowl is actually a big DS zone and we were able to wind the Wizard up to 90+ in large circles really easily in the light conditions. With the twilight and the moon and the plane rumbling around it was all rather perfect. Sean shoo’ed the cows off the landing strip, I landed the Wiz at a speed that alarmed Shane, and we shook hands and wished we had more afternoons like that. Not the Wild Horse bit, just the last bit!
. I felt on a real high driving home, without taking too much risk I felt like getting the Wizard up to that speed took everything we had, which is always a really great feeling. The only other time I felt that way was when I upped my PB to 138 with the Reaper last year at Bald Knob. Getting my current PB at Byron I felt a bit behind the plane, I know the plane could have done more.
Talk about ds junkie!!