We have held aerotow training sessions over Easter and last
weekend. I have posted a short clip from Saturday
here. Right click this link and click Save Target As.
The pilot in this amazing video of a launch with the cart attached to the glider
is a very skilled aerotow pilot. At first we were stumped as to what had
happened, but it became clear later when the same thing happened to another
pilot. What happened was this: the glider was put on the dolly and the pilot
then attached his instruments to the base bar. He ran the Velcro attachment
straps around the dolly rope, which is close to the base bar on this dolly, thus
very effectively attaching the dolly to the glider. Velcro is tough! First time
I've seen that one, but one to be aware of though.
At the end of the video it's a bit hard to see, but as he goes below the horizon
he kicks the dolly free at the last second and it drops about 100'. The pilot
then puts down okay, out of view, although you can see his wing tip in the
bottom left hand when he lands. The dolly was bent up, but was back in service
later that afternoon. The main castor wheel pivot bolt was bent and necked, so I
took the front steering bolt from my trike to replace it with.
You should definitely take a look at this video. This problem
happened twice during their weekend. Something similar happened here at Quest
Air last spring with Curt Warren. He ended up with a destroyed Flytec 5030 and a
destroyed cart, but he saved his life. He was even told that something didn't
look right with his instruments.
Then another situation happened here at Quest Air this spring. You can read
about it
here. Quest has pulled all the ropes off their carts and replaced them with
with hose/handles (I'll have pictures later). These are working great so far.
Today I had an interesting thing happen to me down at Wallaby Ranch. I was
taking my second tow on a new Wills Wing T2 - 144 (see below) on one of the
special green carts that they have at Wallaby that are setup for Talons and
similar gliders with long down tubes. A few seconds after the cart started
rolling the rope flipped up over the front and top of my base tube. As I came up
off the cart I brought the cart with me until I flipped the rope off the base
tube. The ropes are very loose fitting at Wallaby, just like they use to
be at Quest Air.
My instruments were on the base tube, but in the corner and did not get tangled
in the rope.
I had an opportunity to take two demo flights on the new Wills
Wing T2 144 this afternoon at Wallaby Ranch as a prelude to the Wills Wing Daze
which starts tomorrow. I thoroughly enjoyed flying the new glider. The first
thing I noticed was how easy it was to tow. With half VG I towed with no hands.
The winds were light and it was 4 PM, but there were thermals and I later
climbed to 4,000'. I was able to tow with one hand while zipping up the harness
with the other, which I really appreciated. I have been towing the Icaro2000
Relax, which as a single surface glider requires that I pull in a lot more and
therefore it more difficult to tow off the shoulders (ironic, isn't it?).
I had spoken earlier with Steve Pearson and Rob Kells about the glider. The two
T2 models (144 and 154) have the same sizes and planform as the previous Talons,
but the air foil is much flatter. A quick comparison of Talon and T2 battens
will show this. The top of the camber is in the same spot.
The VG is now a haul back mechanism as opposed to a cam mechanism at the
outboard ends of the spars. The spar-leading edge junction has been redesigned
and beefed up to add rigidity to the sprog connections. With more rigid and
longer sprogs (due to increased double surface) the T2 has a better pitch curve
than the Talon and the sprogs can be lowered for better high speed glide
performance without reducing safety.
Steve and Rob are still working on the final tuning of the T2, although four of
the gliders are down in Brazil being flown in the first meet of the Brazilian
National series. Rob was concerned that mine might have too little bar pressure
at full VG and high speeds (60 mph) so he asked me not to pull the VG on full
and at the same time not fly fast. Actually I didn't go more than half VG and
only 50 mph. The bar pressure seemed reasonably light at this configuration.
I had no problems thermaling the glider in steady lift and it was easy to keep
it in the core. It flew straight with no desire to wing walk at higher speeds.
Later I flew in really light lift (50 fpm) that was broken up at about 900'. I
had to continually bump the glider to get it to follow the lift, but my
technique may have been completely off. I did out climb a U2 type glider
that started next to me.
I had two landings and unlike previous landings I've had with the Talon, they
were smooth and uneventful with no tendency for the glider to drop one wing. I
used my monkey bar technique and had no problem controlling the glider. Both
landings where in about one mph head winds.
The T2 seems to be closer to the handling characteristics of the U2 than the
Talon was. The top surface of the sail was very smooth both with the VG was off
and when it was on. It looked like a fine glider.
I'll report more when I have a chance to fly it at greater length and after
Steve and Rob have made further adjustments. We'll also have six or seven of
them flying in the US Nationals in ten days at Quest Air. Steve and Rob said
that they were serious about building up a competition team.
I received my registration packet from Lisa Tate for the King meet
yesterday. The packet came with the route guide CD which I looked at last night
and this morning. All I can say is WOW. My thanks to John Kangas. It is
Fantastic!
Coupling the pilot point of view photos with the views from space give pilots a
complete picture of each route. It's an amazing tutorial for pilots that fly the
area. The images are beautiful, helpful, thorough, clear, accurate, etc.
Route 2. Above and Beyond Aerial Photography. Click this image to download the
higher resolution version available on the CDROM.
For new King pilots, the images will increase safety by showing a pilot point of
view of where to go. For returning pilots, the images bring up memories of
flights that they've had at King, where they've landed, and what's beyond their
flights.
The images have made me look forward to the meet that much more.
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The Oz Report, a near-daily, world wide hang gliding news ezine, with reports on competitions, pilot rankings, political issues, fly-ins, the latest technology, ultralight sailplanes, reader feedback and anything else from within the global HG community worthy of coverage. Hang gliding, paragliding, hang gliders, paragliders, aerotowing, hang glide, paraglide, platform towing, competitions, fly-ins. Hang gliding and paragliding news from around the world, by Davis Straub.
