It's nice to see all the reports of flying from all over today as spring takes hold in the US. Sailplanes did grace the skies over Illinois today, as well. The planned SOAR contest was a casualty of the morning showers, and then there was a slight delay as our sod farm hosts groomed the field for us, but flying commenced around noon. We (three of us) started out by doing some winch launches. As the wind increased to about 15, Rich B. put on a show by launching his new Wind without using the pedal. He stretched the mono about 30 feet behind the winch and then threw the plane, hooked over 'til parallel to the ground, stretched the line, straightened out, gained altitude, circled, stretched (repeat three times) and then zoomed to full launch height without ever touching the pedal. Very impressive! Ben R. invited me to try it with my Sharon and I politely declined. :) Not to worry though, we managed to temporarily bend the Sharon into some weird shapes when Rich's son came out and teamed up with Ben to do some two man F3J tows. We tried both with and without the pulley. Lots of horsepower either way. Lots of stuff happens in a very short amount of time! Tons of information to process, considering the plane going up the line and hearing the real time report on what's happening at the other end of the line. Very exciting! I even managed to tip stall the Sharon. I was off the line, going downwind in a thermal, and I must've slowed up at just the wrong place in the circle, and one wing dropped. It spun once, then again and I just let go of the sticks, let it get flying and then pulled out. Luckily I was high enough that the several hundred foot drop still left me high enough to get home. Again, very exciting! I'm still amazed at how strong these long wings can be, especially when they're stopping and dragging two men, fully growed, around at the other end of the line. All planes were returned safely to their boxes at the end of the day, and I think I can face the work week more contentedly now. Bill RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
