Monday at Forest Park
Hi Flyers: On the spur of the moment I went to the Park this morning. I was able to persuade Chris to join me. It was not difficult. It was predicted cool with low winds. It was cool, some sun, but the winds were a lot higher than I wanted. There was a lot of lift but the air was really turbulent. Or, as Chris says, "rowdy".
Hand launch was fun with the strong lift and bouncy air. I got up high plenty but never went far downwind as I feared not getting back. If Brendan had been there we would have probably seen him test the penetrating ability of his DLG by flying down to the Jewel Box again. Today even Chris did not venture to far downwind with either his DLG or his big plane. Landings were occasionally scary so we decided to switch to the big planes.
Chris was flying his Supra and I had the Organic. With 4-5 hundred foot launches we could find lift easily. Once we both found a large area of sky that was all lift. The area was huge, I'd guess it was nearly 1/2 mile across. I could do loops, rolls, dives and zooms with victory rolls repeated and gain altitude with even these maneuvers. And it lasted until I got tired. I bet we were in that huge lift area for 15-20 minutes. Later I was quite far upwing and got to about 1 1/2 tree height. When, once again, my plane did a lock out. I did the run fast and hold he transmitter high thing and got the plane back under control. Darn! I'm getting tired of the Organic not wanted to work right. I had range checked it after another antenna installation and I got an "ok" range check. That is it worked at 90 feet only if the plane was held high in the air. At about 91 feet it started to lock up.
One event was really interesting. Chris had put his Supra on the ground by the winch. I was standing about 20 feet away with my back to his plane and I was holding my Organic. Chris was facing me and we were talking. Suddenly Chris takes off running past me and I find myself barely able to hold on to the Organic. Chris had seen the leaves spinning around indicating a dust devil approaching us which. The dust devil then lifted his Supra off the ground and was quickly carrying it off. By the time Chris got to his plane it was flying at least 6 feet off the ground and steadily gaining altitude. He made a leaping grab for it and got it under control. That was a real artery clearing blast of adrenaline.
Another fun day flying.
El Roberto
Brendan Miller: 
So I was bored today, so I went down to the basement and fixed my loose flaperon servos in the XP. Went out to our retention pond and threw it a few times and some how found some lift. I then decided to go out to a local school that has a reasonable open area for flying, so I headed out. When I go there I saw a few cars which meant the field was being used, luckily it was only one of there fields, I got the plane out and got some funny looks from people passing by. I threw the plane up a few times and did some up and down to get some hand catching practice in. Then I started with the full throws getting some good height out of it, and wouldn't you know it I found lift, and strong lift at that. On my last flight I got some nice lift, and kid with his dad were watching me fly, the kid comes over and asks what I am flying I told him a glider, he then asks how I get up so high and I say I use rising air, he said you don't use a motor? I say no and he has this very shocked look on his face. He says it looks boring, I then tell him to watch the plane, I put it into reflex and go flying down wind turn up wind then do a stall turn and take a dive suddenly the kid screams your going to crash! I told him it got it pull up and go screaming over our heads do some high bank turns to burn off speed and hand catch it. The kid says that was the coolest thing he ever saw, he left to watch his sister play some sport and I was kicked off the field by some people practicing. Over all not a bad little flight session.
Brendan
April 14, 2008