Steve Wendt at Blue Sky (www.blueskyhg.com)
in Manquin, Virginia uses a 50cc 4.5 hp Yamaha scooter for instructional
purposes, especially at the beginning. He wants to keep students safe and near
the ground while they learn the skill of weight shifting for pitch and roll
control. They also learn the new skills of launching with angle of attack
control and landing with a flare. Tow after tow after tow adds up to practice (http://ozreport.com/10.097#2).
Now the next step here at Blue Sky is the 125cc scooter which can get you up
high enough to make an approach, setup and landing. Do this a few hundred times
and you can land any where.
After that students can get pulled up higher with a platform tow (truck tow) set
up and/or they can learn to aerotow. Now one problem that Steve has run into is
that often when it is quite flyable, his truck tow road is still wet from the
recent rain and not passable. Steve wanted to come up with a way to get his
advanced students high when the truck tow road wasn't working.
Now Steve has a good sized ATV (a Yamaha with an automatic transmission - a very
key issue for smooth towing) that he uses to pull around a deck mower that he
uses to mow strips on his hill launch site a few hours from Manquin up in the
western hills of Virginia. But the ATV is a little too big for his trailer,
taking up too much space, and he purchased a new smaller ATV that he used at the
scooter tow clinic in February at Quest Air. Now with an extra ATV he could use
it as a tow vehicle, just like his stationary scooters. So he did.
The ATV has a 450cc engine, nine times the size of his instructional scooter, so
it seemed like it would have plenty of power to get pilots up high. But now he
had to set it up and it wasn't like one of his scooters. Here's what it looks
like:
Click on above for higher resolution version.
Check out the higher resolution version to see some of the cool details. Notice
the rack for the front wheels. You can drive the ATV right off the hundred
dollar trailer after you put the back wheels back on and use ramps.
Steve had the aluminum spool made and attached to a wheel that would normally be
used on this ATV. He build a little stand for the left side of the rear axle and
just Velcroed the axle unto it to keep it from jumping out. The right side is
held up by a jack stand.
Click on above for higher resolution version.
Steve found that while there was enough power there was not enough speed on his
spool. The 8000' of spectra line goes out 3,200' to the pulley and back to the
pilot who is on a cart. Steve took all the spectra line off, and put on 3/8"
poly line to build up the interior diameter of the spool. After that he had
enough speed to haul pilots up high.
Click on above for higher resolution version.
The ATV tow system has solved his too wet truck tow road problem, but so has the
drought that has visited the southern US. As I write this I hear the thunder
from the afternoon storm to our west.
If you have any questions about Steve's ATV tow system you can contact him at
<blueskyhg>.
In the next article I will deal with the over/under bridle that is used with
this ATV tow setup, as the simple truck tow bridle can't be used.
Nice fight by Jean Souviron, Gil's brother, on May 30th from
Poitiers to Tarbes, 341 km. Aeros combat. A true flex wing man! I hate to think
how far the brothers Souvirn would have pushed each other had they together.
The goal is the European record, and the Pyrénées are the problem! More
information on this flight can be found (gotta read French) on
http://www.unilim.fr/lec/vollibre/.
I now fly a Styl+ from Ulteam/Icaro. It is excellent easy glider with
mast. It weighs 29 kg and is easy to set up (somewhat similar to an Icaro2000
Orbiter with a few added tricks by Xavier Verges of Ulteam in Grenoble). My back
likes it, and, yes it is not as fast as the VR, even if the climb rate is really
good.
Thierry Parcelier in his ATOS can turn around me and get up a little faster! Yes
, it turns with muscles, not with spoilers! That being said, it was great to see
the rigids at the Worlds, and you know the French like to think that US money
can't buy everything (half true I guess).
All morning there was a heavy overcast and the satellite pictures indicated that
it was widespread and thick. Some pilots can't imagine that we would be flying
today. But the RUC and Dr. Jack say that we will have 530 fpm at four PM and
zero at five PM. Looks like they are predicting cu-nimbs to block out the sun
later in the day. Funny, Dr. Jack and the RUC don't show much chance of over
development or convergence.
Given this forecast we called short tasks, merely thirty six miles for the Open
Class and nineteen miles for the Sport Class. The tasks are pretty similar in
length to the tasks on the first day but with a light north wind we've chosen
triangle tasks. Hopefully the wind forecast will be right.
It was not until almost noon the the overcast sky began to break up and the cu's
began to have spaces between them. The cloud base was only 1,700' at 12:40 PM so
we waited until 1 PM to start launching. We were hoping we can get the task done
between two and four PM.
Bo was off first and I was a pilot or two behind him. Just as I came off the
cart the rope detached from the tow plane (not one of the regular Dragonflys)
and I was floating along one foot off the ground. It felt to me that I was in
for a skidder. Then suddenly I popped up a couple of feet (prop wash?) and I
could get up on the down tubes and run it in. I told them to give me any other
tug, but that one.
I got towed up to Bo and we hung around for the next hour finding lots of light
lift to 3,100'. There were thirteen of us at cloud base as the two PM start
window opened and it was a squadron heading out to the north to the turnpoint at
Barcly nine miles away. The cu's were congested and the ground was shaded ahead.
It looked like we should be very careful.
I was out in front and heading for a spot of light where I found 100 fpm at
1,700'. Six pilots had followed me into the light. Bo had slowed up and stayed
high and found better lift a half mile behind. I went back and joined him and so
did the others soon after but below.
Bo left at 2,800' and I was soon after him, the other were left to climb in the
weakening lift. Bo found the next thermal 2.5 miles from the turnpoint and I
joined him. We climbed to cloud base at 3,100' and then glided to the turnpoint
through a slot in the clouds.
Bo wanted to shade over to the left toward the sun but I headed back to our
thermal which was now occupied by the pilot behind us. It's only 55 fpm, but it
kept us long enough to make it safer to head to the left toward the sun and the
pilot floundering around over there. The lift there was in fact better at 125
fpm, but we were still only getting up to 2,100'.
I could see the pilots behind dropping out and landing. I drifted down the
course line, as Bo went back to find more lift, coming over Rich Cizauskas and
three vultures, but Rich was too low to get up in what they were getting up in.
I'd seen a number of birds so far and they would play an important part in the
flight.
I could see sunlight on the ground another mile away with a black cloud over it.
There was light lift all the way to it and when I got there it was 200 fpm to
3,300'. the highest so far. I had left the shaded area behind that would claim
almost all the pilots.
I was able to glide to dark clouds and sunlight at Greensboro and with the help
of a few more vultures, I was able to climb up from 1,700' to 3,100'. but it
took fifteen minutes. The second turnpoint was in the middle of Denton, a fair
sized town seven miles away, but there were plenty of clouds and sunny spots on
the way. Still I came in 1,200' and knew I'd have to race to the dry fields,
sunlight and black clouds past the turnpoint first in order to get up.
I felt around until I was down to 1,000' before I spot the three vultures low in
a corner and climbing. As soon as I came over them I find 450 fpm to 3,800'.
Thank goodness cloud base was higher here.
The wind was 7 mph out of the north and I was thinking that it might be a hard
slog back to Ridgley against the wind but it looked like there were chances for
lift along the way. As soon as I got to cloud base I headed back to get the
turnpoint over the middle of Denton and as soon as I did I switched to the final
glide screen on my Flytec 5030 (which I could have done earlier if I had thought
about it) and noticed that I had goal by 1,350'. It was only six miles away and
I was at 3,000'. There were no problems gliding into goal first for the day.
Bo did get up and was able to make it in twenty four minutes later. We were the
only ones at goal.
So it turned out to be a very small difference that made all the difference. Bo
slowed down on our first glide and found better lift behind me and I joined him.
We got up a little better then the other pilots and this got us ahead of them.
Bo found better lift to cloud base 2.5 miles from the turnpoint and this got us
four miles ahead of them. This made it so we could escape the shaded zone.
Check out the results at David Glover's results page above. David is the meet
director and scorekeeper.
The meet is being run quite well and everyone is having a great time especially
in the pilot's lounge. It is very cool here and in the air. The area is so
incredibly beautiful and it is so much fun to fly slowly and smoothly over it.
No one made it back to goal but J.D. came within two miles. The Sport Class is a
big competition between the Aeros Discuss and the Wills Wing U2. You can see how
things are going on the results page.
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