Brent: I did the same thing at Nats with Paul's SB-XC. After his Level-V out-and-return, I launched and thermaled it up, thinking that we'd go back out on course. I hooked up and got into the wide-spread upper-level lift under some darkening cues that were prevalent. I went through 700 meters like a shot and at 750 I started getting that "it's not my airplane and I'm having trouble seeing it" feeling. Then I thought, gee, I could be into the bases of the clouds at any time, so as it went up through 800 meters, I deployed full flaps and down trim. It was still going up, so I started to fly away from the cloud base trying to get *out* of lift. I topped out at 850 meters, which is just shy of 2,800 ft. I could still see the airplane OK, but I'm guessing that my personal visibility limit is about 3,500 ft with the SB. My scale Gerasis ASW-27 and its white-bottom wings has a practical limit of about 3,000, based on the Muncie aerotow events and Johnny Berlin's monster tows. And then I always try to have it under cloud, or down sun. Blue sky and up-sun is a recipe for a vanishing act. As it turned out, we didn't have the battery to go for a lap-plus run, so I brought it down and landed. Lesson learned! XC is a blast! Even though we on the DARTS team crew didn't touch the sticks due to Paul's Level-V attempt, we are every bit as involved in calling air and helping to decide when to drive, i.e., when and how to shoot the 3/10ths blind spot through the trees. We "recruited" Jim Thomas for Paul's successful Level-V run and his XC experience was invaluable. Daryl is right about the fly-high advice -- we tend to limp along from low save to low save. The year that Skip Miller went 64 miles at Nats, he was skied every time we saw him. One word to the wise, if you ever do XC with Ed Franz and he brings jerky along, check it for claws before digging in! I came REAL close to noshing on road-kill on year! Also, beware of the guys from Torrey Pines Gulls, they pack heat! (squirt guns; Ron, Arthur & Don P-) -- Rudy Siegel, AMA 131126 CD Civis Aerius Sum
Subject: RE: [RCSE] how high really Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> I got dropped off at 2,000 feet with a scale ship, all white, on a dark blue sky day... I had trouble seeing it immediately. Took about 2 minutes to (and it hurts to type this) bleed off altitude to get it where I was seeing it again. I've since gotten 'scrip sunglasses in a reddish brown to help with contrast, but it's the first time I felt like I was over 40 flying... Just glad I had spotters to keep me from getting in trouble, hope that I'm better next time out. Bill's right, it's too stressful to not see a ship, especially something that big. Who's bright idea was it to make scale ships white, any way? Makes me wish I'd installed strobes on the underside (or found clouds to get under quicker)... Hats of to you all that can see as far as I'm reading here, it's sure not me. B. RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format
