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Yesterday and today I flew with the North County Soaring guys, Ken
Lighthorse was my host for this past two days and we had a some sweet
soaring.
He flew his Sperber 5m electric, it is a fantastic giant sailplane set up
with the latest high performance li-poly battery pack and motor set up.
Its HEAVY and huge, yet he holds it up over his head, turns on the motor
and just gives it a heave.....the plane kind of just drops a foot in front of
him, the prop bites and then there is nothing but vertical. He can get
about 8 runs up to full winch height, but its ability to move around the sky and
thermal were something to experience.
I see now why you guys get addicted to the big scale planes!
And yes it was a fuselage and foam cores when he got it, bagged with
obechi, with a strong spar system that lets him do terminal dives and big
snapping pull ups. It really would make a fantastic X country ship.
Today I got to set up and fly one of Soaring USA's Thermic's. Big
plane, 95ozs, very gorgeous lines, that was no trouble to hand toss left handed
for it's check flight. The planes said to balance it at 4" and today
after I went at the slug of resin and lead shot in the nose, got it back closer
to 5", which really tamed it down. That weight and size makes it a
challenge for TD winches (line breaks, and motor effort) but I found it track
straight and true with almost no camber for launch on a F3B mono winch.
The owner put in over a one hour flight after he pryed the Tx out of my
paws and greased it in for a sweet runway landing.
A good time had by all.
Gordy Cape Cod tomorrow |
