Sprogs

What happens in Brazil stays in Brazil (Francisco Grande, Casa Grande, Arizona)

Was there a language problem?

When I spoke with Nene on the practice day about what he did to change his Wills Wing T2C from stock he said that he lowered the outboard sprogs four turns and the inboard three turns.  Then he lined up the keel horizontally and wanted the outboard rib two fingers below the keel.

I asked him twice about this and did he know that Wills Wing already ships the glider with the sprogs down two turns relative to the T2?  He said yes.  And did he turn them down four additional turns (on the outboard sprogs).  Crazy.

I spoke later with Rob Kells.  He told me that Nene and Leo turned down all the sprogs two turns on the T2C's that they got here (again this is still with a pitch curve that provides for the required safety).  Then they flew them.  They felt that the bar was too "floaty," so they turned them back up one full turn.  This is still down one turn from the factory setting.

Rob thinks that they may go back to the stock setting.  Rob writes:

When they were flying the T2, they did sometimes turn it down four turns, but they always fly them first and make changes incrementally so their gliders are safe and have pitch pressure.

Because of the stiffness of the rear leading edges on the T2C and the carbon sprogs, we tune them from the factory 2 turns lower than the T2, which allows adequate bar pressure.  We don't want to advise pilots (who aren't extremely experienced/comp pilots) to tune their gliders lower, as each pilot needs to be very careful when making any changes to stock configuration, and to fly the glider before making any modifications to factory tuning.

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