Ultralajt`s World of Flying

Last saturday I took my Guppy GS to aerotow meeting at Novo Mesto.

It was a beautiful day for soaring, but I made only one flight as I was not in the mood somehow...

Vintage R/C Scale Sailplanes meeting celje 2013

As traditionally, each late august we meet at Krsko aerotow.

I made couple of flights with my CIRUS HS-62.  For the first time I mount a camera into the rear cockpit, to make some inside videos. Unfortunately, homemade transparent canopy plastic with many tiny imperfections on the surface, prevented perfect visibility from that angle. Outside world is pretty distorted. Anyway, I will show you here a shot clip from one of my flights, where I do a looping and a roll.

Video clip..view from instructor`s seat.

Assembly of the model on the field at Krsko.

Close view of the cockpit area..pilot not yet in the front seat.

Connecting of towing rope to the tow hook at the glider nose.

Take off...

On the tow...

Soaring...

Diving towards the landing strip.

High speed low pass..

Sharp wingover at the end of the landing field and turning into final.

Air brakes out ...

Last rotation before a touch down..

Pulling the glider out from the landing fueld, to make space for the next glider to land.

Landing strip is free now, so lets hurry across it for another tow...

I believe, about 30 sailplanes and 5 towplanes were present at our meeting.

Hi guys!

Today I finally took some time to test HK Alti logger (actually it is Altitude permit logger) in role of ordinary alti logger.

And what a day! I manage to use thermals and soar my Marabu so high, that I starts to feel uncomfortable (bad visibility..moisted air) so I drop flaps and sprial nose down to "safer" height. Of course I was trying to thermal on that low height and was going up. As dinner was served on the table, and I was also impatient to see what will show the Alti logger on the computer, I landed.

This is the log:

Legend: red line:  power on, yellow line=motor off, green line=temperature

Before a peak height, I have 2 thermals with average 1,6 m/s climbing.

Not bad for a "box" as Marabu is!

I took six years old depron model Ultron 3D, that was crashed 3 or 4 years ago, by choosing wrong model on the transmitter.

Yesterday I repair it. I reinforce  the wrinkled nose section by balsa doublers, I made new horizontal tail, replace 3 servos, and install the landing gear.

It fly perfectly, even with some weight added by repair job.

And a short video of my beating of the air:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu112uZ2SQ0

I finished a video that show Livno Airfield both in 1964, when CIRUS HS-62 starts to fly there, and today in 2013, when my scale model fly at the same place:

Last Sunday at Precna airfield, Novo Mesto:

I made some movies from Livno:

See CIRUS HS-62 over the Livno Airfield! (click!)

Photos taken from on board camera video:

Some photos made by Foto Zog:

I`ve just returned from a short flying vacations in Livno!

Almost half of century ago, year 1964, a biplace school sailplane CIRUS HS-64 started to teach young pilots to fly in Livno!

This weekend, CIRUS HS-64 again spread his wings under the clouds of Livno, but in form of an RC scale model.

3. may, 2013

Made 5 aerotowings yesterday.

Even by fact, that weather prognose was pretty bad, overcoasted with possible showers and thunderstorms, we manage to make some decent flights, before the rain came over or field.

I fly twice with Guppy GS after almost 2 years long pause. I was a bit worried and on the transmitter I find, that I have two settings for control surface deflections, and 3 settings for the flight mode... but dumbo me..I forget already If I use normal or double rate deflections in past, and what are the flight regime settings.

So, for the first flight I use low settings of controll surfaces. Aerotowing went well, and I need only a few clicks of elevator and rudder to stabilise glider. As fuselage was broken and repaired, it was normal to expect some trimming of the tail surfaces. I set their neutral just by "eyeballing" so "fine tunning" was done "on the fly".

As I got feeling of Guppy lazines in flight,  set large deflections for the seconf light. After releasing from the towplane, I click flight mode (to unknown preset position and settings) and I was shocked as model rise the nose, stall, abruptly went to dive and on the pull up it went to left spin, I try to recover from spin, and model went to right spin... I was upset, worried, shocked, as model starts to spin uncotrolable.. for a moment I even think that I  lost the controll by malfunction of the RC equippment. All that was lasting just a couple of moments and suddenly a flash went trough my mind! I instantly turn both switches (double rate, flight mode) to previous state, and model was recovered from a last spin and starts to fly as there was noething special happens...  What a relief!  So, now I know that lower deflections of controll surfaces are teh proper one, and that I need to cancel all mixing of switch for flight modes.

It was fun!

Of course, now I know what kind of "saddle" need to make, to get safe tow of the small sailplane.

I will make it for further attempts.

Yesterday I was flying in an rather uncomfortable wind strength, but it turns out pretty well. Actually I did enjoy very much, and hardly forced myself to stop playing before some accident induced with joy and wind turbilence would happens..

Yesterday I made about 7 aerotows with Marabu electric plane. The sailplane was 2,5m wingspan, 1200 g RTF weight Pichler KA-7.  We found that ~700 W motor on the Marabu is only sufficient for a "scale alike" towing. For really fast climbing I should install larger motor in range of 1000-1500W.

Some photos:

Yesterday a friend of mine invited me to his local flying field, where him and two flying buddies were flying.

I load my Marabu model in the furgon and hurry to the field.. approc 10 minutes from my home.

I enjoy flying on a flat terain. Also starting and landing on a road was fun.

As a slight breeze was blowing almost all of the time, Marabu was able to fly flyps wown tih amazingly low groundspeed. Fun Fun Fun!

Some models awaiting to launch...  Guppy 2 (front), Oldtimer Bergfalke (left), Foammie Cessna (middle), Kosec (back)

Assembly of the Marabu.

STOL  (LOL)

"Low&Slow" is the best!

Speeding UP....

DUCK NOW!  The "packet" on the cabin deck is a mini camcorder, that unfortunately was on low battery....

Fly me to the Moon,

let me play among the stars.

Let me see what spring is like,

on Jupiter and Mars....

Let`s land...

Photos made by my friend A.Novak.

Yesterday, I visited airfield Moskanjci (Ptuj), where GPS Triangle Contest Eurotur 2012 was going on.

If you dont know about this type of competition, see attached video:

http://youtu.be/M_85M0BpD18

or read about here (click)