Mike, B and others interested in FES, Mike, I am simply amazed that in a recent post, you described the FES system as “Silly” and in this post, you seem to be implying that it would probably be much inferior to the same system if on a retractable pylon, Mike, all who have used FES describe the degradation of FES in the glide, even at high speed, as simply not detectable by any pilot flying one. You may or may not be aware that it is now the preferred “not land out” system offered by Schempp Hirth, who are now offering it for Discus 2, Ventus 2CX, and when it is certified, the new Ventus as Schempp call it, but already is known in the general gliding movement, as the Ventus 3. Tilo himself flew a FES equipped V2CX FES in a recent Grand Prix and was far from disgraced! And against other pure and retractable engine gliders. Mike, I have to tell you, and anyone else who is prepared to listen, that as an operator of a self launching Ventus 2CM, since purchasing mine in 1998, the first of two eighteen metre gliders to come to Australia, (twenty two years ago) that regarding reliability issues, it has not usually been the reliability of the two stroke power system, but the notorious UNRELIABILITY of the retractable engine system that is the important issue, Both with respect to safety, and even more so, maintenance issues, I had my first failure of the linear actuator, which raises and lowers the propeller pylon, when the glider was only about ten years old, and was forced to operate the glider for about two years as a pure glider with engine out, because Schempp, in there inimitable “could not give a shit about spares availability” were unable to supply me with either the linear actuator itself, (screw jack) or a new motor driving it. The total time then, of the whole engine and erection system was as I remember it, fifty miserable hours, Then total failure of the pylon erection system, and a two year delay until I was able to repair it, using my own recourses, with not any help from Schempp, or indeed probably worse than simply no help, a simple shrug of the shoulders, Their response? “Sorry, the firm making the actuator that we used in your glider is now out of business,so we are unable to help you” the reliability of the two stroke power system itself has had its moments too, but, overwhelmingly, it has been the unreliability of the erection system that has given me the most grief. After two years, I was again able to restore the linear actuator to working order with from memory, the third iteration of self sourced motors. Even then, the motor I sourced required much modification of shaft bushes to make it work reliably, with linear thrust loading on the shaft, which is of course what is required for a motor driving a worm gear, meshing with a screw drive on the linear actuation shaft of a typical electro / mechanical actuator of the typical motor or propeller raising system as used by Schempp and others. Almost all small 12 V DC motors of this size are designed for torque shaft loads only, As I found, it was quite impossible to find one designed to accept considerable thrust loading on the drive shaft as well. The only solution to this conundrum that I could come up with was to purchase a standard motor and modify it to accept thrust shaft loads as well as torque loads. By no means impossible, but certainly, would be for the average bear, including Shempp themselves, who were blissfully unaware of this vital issue. It was only my rather unique access to a glider pilot friend, who had such expertise as his kit of tools, after a career of forty years as a production repetition engineer. You too, of course know this man almost as well as I do, so that I was eventually able to work my way round a problem that even Shempp could not will probably be no great surprise to you. Would a simple hydraulic system as used I believe on an LS turbo erection motor be more reliable and less troublesome? Of course it would! Any engineer worth his salt could tell you that, but the miniscule engineering expertise of Schempp Hirth engineers twenty two years ago, with respect to engine installations,was such that they chose a linear actuation system from a company which went out of business in less than ten years! Am I just a little pissed off with the support provided by Schempp? You can guess! Woolly Pup 3, I do hope that with your incredible confidence in the Schempp Hirth product and ethic, you are reading this post! As you can no doubt tell, your opinion and mine on this matter are very, vert different! The retractable system in my twenty one years of operating the V2CM, would have killed a much less experienced pilot at least twice and in the case of the other V2CM, operated by the other DDSC member who you know well,caused a serious safety issue at least once. The owners son in law was flying it at the time and once again what happened could have had much more serious consequences for a n early hours motor glider pilot. Mike B and others, I can sincerely say that I will NEVER, as long as my bum points to the ground, ever again own a retractable power system, manufactured by Schempp Hirth..That of other manufacturers? I have no first hand experience with other manufacturers systems, so will reserve my judgement, but would certainly be a very cautious person if I was considering purchasing one! Mike B, in my opinion, you are completely missing the point about FES, which is this. You will be sacrificing a miniscule of glide performance for a system which will save you a land out, climb away at about 2 M/S even in an 18 M glider, and then allow you to cruise under power at least one hundred kilometres at better than one hundred KPH to either home, a safe airport, allowing a safe aero tow, or back to an area that is still thermic.. What could be better than that!
In my opinion, Mike, the system would be better named, KISS FES! “Keep it Simple stupid. Front electric sustainer ! “ Mike, you may know that Andrew Madocks is currently working at the Schempp factory, having training to return to Aus with all the qualifications to undertake all glider maintenance including major repairs, and approved modifications. He has been well involved with the installation of FES in new Schempp products. He has been briefed by me to return with knowlege of what is involved to retro fit FES to my Ventus 2CM, which would then become , I guess, my Ventus 2C FES!. I expect that this will be done some time in 2017, soon after Andrew returns to Australia. My extremely unreliable Solo motor retractable motor system which is now, at last, working perfectly and reliably, for the first time in eighteen months, (Due to another instance of Schempp saying, “Sorry, Mr Ward, the engine in your Ventus 2CM is no longer supported. We are of course able to support your airframe, virtually forever!” , will be then hung from a hook in my hanger! My self launching motor glider has operated in the experimentalcategory for the last year due to a failed mechanical water pump. Yes, you guessed it. Not available from either Schempp or Solo! It is now equipped with an approved modification, an electric water pump, for which the pump manufacturer claims a service life of from memory, twenty thousand hours! >From memory, the total engine system has less than 90 hours, on VH-GBW, for >about 2600 airframe hours. And all the bloody pain of owning a retractable >engine system for the twenty two years of operation! Mike you are aware that I rarely post on this site However, I chose to do so today, as I believe that you are on completely the wrong tram with respect to retractable systems and FES. My advice to you would be this. Please consider carefully before you again call FES a “Silly FES” In conclusion, Mike, I must say that I find it truly amazing that you, of all people, who for years operated a piggy back Top Engine on your Ventus C , and which, conservatively would have depreciated your gliders glide performance by say 20% or so, would be so concerned about the absolutely miniscule depreciation, on glide performance of FES, when considered along side its attributes, and its simplicity. And as I recall it, you repeatedly sang the praises of the TOP system! Mike, regardless of your or other responses to this post, this will be my only post on this subject! Please do not even try to draw me out with your usual invective. It simply will not work. I know you too well! My prediction, Mike, is that within 10 years, FES will out sell all other “lets not land out” systems. And it will be easily retro fit table to just about anything.! Lets just agree to wait and see if you or me is correct! Regards Bob Ward. From: Mike Borgelt Sent: Monday, September 19, 2016 10:40 AM To: Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia. Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] [gfaforum] DIana 2 LOL! Good point. You might need a Honda generator running most of the night. Yep, clean green motorgliding. Lange Antares has been around for a while. I think it was the first PRODUCTION electric SLG. Uses some Saft V44 Li-ion cells. 72 of them I think. Lots of very careful cell management is required. There are microprocessors all over the battery pack and they report to Germany via the cell phone network. Silent Electro uses the FES system. Someone should really put one in a Silent Targa 2 as a retractable installation to compare performance with the front mounted FES. Mike At 10:26 AM 9/19/2016, you wrote: Umm. I believe solar panels don't work so well overnight. Not in australia anyway ð Kind Regards David Holmes Sent from my iPhone 0439 734 646 > On 19 Sep 2016, at 10:24, DMcD <[email protected]> wrote: > > HA, > > There's an interesting article in the current S&G about a casual comp > done in Italy, flown with the Silent Electro. Was this the world's > first electric SLG? I know it proceeded things like the Antares by > almost a decade. > > Anyway, the innovation with the comp was that they were allowed to use > the motor during the comp and motor runs were counted in the overall > score. From memory, the Silent could do about 8000' of climbing with a > full charge (on new batteries no doubt). So this would mean one launch > and two or three retrieves which is pretty much all you need for most > comp or safari flying. > > With an ultralight glider, you could probably do all the recharging > overnight with Aldi solar panels. > > As far as noise levels go, the first electrics failed EASA noise level > checks because they did not appear on the scale. > > D > _______________________________________________ > Aus-soaring mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.base64.com.au/listinfo/aus-soaring _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] http://lists.base64.com.au/listinfo/aus-soaring Borgelt Instruments - design & manufacture of quality soaring instrumentation since 1978 www.borgeltinstruments.com tel: 07 4635 5784 overseas: int+61-7-4635 5784 mob: 042835 5784 : int+61-42835 5784 P O Box 4607, Toowoomba East, QLD 4350, Australia -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] http://lists.base64.com.au/listinfo/aus-soaring
_______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] http://lists.base64.com.au/listinfo/aus-soaring
