I've been flying power R/C on and off since I was a kid, but I can't remember when I've had a bigger grin on my face while flying! Took my Sidewinder DLG out for second time today. The first time was on a cloudy, almost foggy, morning just to try discus launching, which works great.
Today was almost solid cloud cover (in eastern PA) with a few breaks here and there but the wind was very low, so I decided to go out to the local park and practice my throws. Surprisingly, even with little to no sun, I was getting some lift off the parking lot and had quite a few 4-5 minute flights. Heck, I was happy even with that. Then, on my last flight, I worked that lift enough to get up over the treeline and over some new terrain. I saw some hawks circling and headed towards them. Then I hit a strong thermal. I could literally see the glider accelerate up. I went into a sharp turn and spiraled up until I reached the point where I was concerned that if I took my eyes off it, I'd lose it. I flew straight to leave the thermal and flew into and out of more lift quite a few times. Finally brought it down on purpose because I was concerned about my RX battery. Extremely satisfying fealing! Anyway, enough rambling. On to the tech question. I've been reading as much info as I can find on trimming gliders. I believe I'm a little nose heavy. With the Sidewinder trimmed to glide nicely (elevator is up about 1/16"), I have to add a considerable amount of down elevator when I throw it. In the middle of my flying session today, I even added 15% of down elevator to the preset, which helped alot. My conclusion is that I should take out some of the nose weight which will bring my glide elevator trim down and reduce the excessive pitching up during launch. Am I heading in the right direction? Thanks, Randy RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
