Re: [RCSE] Re: Beginner Sailplane recommendation
Wood Crafters 06 Grand Championship top ten results. Congratulations Guys. 1. Tom Tock 6700 2. Paul Wiese 6505 3. Marc Gellart 6291 4. Tom Sculley 6007 5. Ray Hayes 5823 6. Tim Wolf 5797 7. Bob Robinson 5773 8. Bill Friend 5743 9. Joe Albridge 5562 10. Bill Grenoble 5508 Ray Hayes http://www.skybench.com Home of Wood Crafters - Original Message - From: Ed Whyte [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Soaring@airage.com Sent: Sunday, May 28, 2006 7:46 AM Subject: Re: [RCSE] Re: Beginner Sailplane recommendation Ok, lets get down to the two standards of the industry for a trainer. First off it should be recognized that building the glider will teach the beginner most of the basics and give him or here the knowledge of what to look for in a future kit or RTF. The Lee Renaud / Airtronics Olympic II and the Olympic 650, I believe have been used to get more glider pilots started in the right direction. They are inexpensive easy to build fly great and can be repaired if something should go wrong. The Oly II is larger has better visibility and is a little more forgiving than the 2 Meter 650. The Oly II is available from Ray Hays at www.skybench.com the Oly 650 will be available shortly from www.aerosphereonline.com EW. Ed Whyte WHYTE WINGS 7207 Cornerstone Drive Caledonia, MI 49316-7879 616 698 8668 - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Soaring@airage.com Sent: Saturday, May 27, 2006 9:00 PM Subject: [RCSE] Re: Beginner Sailplane recommendation I see it now, the suggestions are going to keep escalating to higher-performing and more expensive planes. Forgetting that the user is going to be a youngster first-timer. And suggesting slope oriented planes for thermalling seems weird to me. Not that it's impossible, but because it makes little sense to me in the context of the target user. Very inexperienced newbies I know of tend to need lightweight gasbag planes, and preferably poly ships that are as stable as possible. You guys seem to forget that most of you are elite flyers and high performance ships are your normal stock in trade. I work the lower end myself, and am quite happy with 2-meter 2-channel poly floaters with inexpensive gear. I think that that direction is a good one for beginners as well. If you put an EPP nose on a Gentle Lady fuse and traded the GL wing for one with an EPP leading edge, carbon tube spar and main cores of styrene, I think you'd have my perfect trainer. RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send subscribe and unsubscribe requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format
RE: [RCSE] Re: Beginner Sailplane recommendation
Guys, I recognize that the OlyII and 650 are great first planes for getting started. My first sailplane back in 1977 was an Airtronics Square Soar. But today kids don't seem to have the time or gumption to build their own trainer. Perhaps it's too many competing priorities in their lives or that they've gotten used to instant gratification, or that their parents plan too much of their lives each day. Here's a fairly typical story in our area - one that I've experienced several times myself when responding to inquiries from parents and kids. Once I had a very nice woman come to our field with her son. They watched the sailplanes for hours and were entranced. The Mom: Wow, those are really beautiful, she says, my son would like to get into this. Soaring guy: I'd be glad to help. I'm with the Seattle Area Soaring Society. We have a trainer night every Wednesday afternoon. You should come down and we'll get him started. The Mom: Oh, that won't work, he's got soccer practice that day. Soaring guy: Ok, well, why don't we meet at the field on Thursday and... The Mom: Well, he's got a Soccer game on Thursday Soaring guy: Ok, how about Tuesday? The Mom: Well, maybe, but I'll have to check. His father has visitation that day. Soaring guy: Ok, why don't we meet up this Weekend. There will be a few of out here and we'll get out the traine... The Mom: Hmmm. Yeah, I don't know...we've got church on Saturday morning, then he has bible study afterwards. So that would be tight. Then Sunday he has this youth group meeting... You can just see the sunken, hollowed-out look on the poor kid's face. He's only 13 and already has so many obligations. He knows he'll never get a moment's peace to dream up his own fun (like most of us did). His whole life is programmed. Even his weekend is shot. That's just no way to grow up if you ask me. If he's lucky, he'll grow up to be a mid-level cog in some big corporation, reporting up through a dense and Byzantine hierarchy. That's the fate that awaits kids who are raised like this. One thing for sure is that very few prospective young sailplane fliers can be bothered to build their own plane. Our goal here is to get him/her flying. Maybe he will enjoy it enough to get more involved and cause his parents to reprioritize his schedule. The important thing is to get him in the air with some successful flights asap. One thing you can seem to get parents to do these days is to throw money at their children. So, the ARFs make the most sense. You give the parent a shopping list, which they will dutifully purchase, then meet during one of the rare few hours the kid has open. Hopefully, they have a good enough experience that they will keep coming back. --Jim - Original Message - From: Ed Whyte [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Soaring@airage.com Sent: Sunday, May 28, 2006 7:46 AM Subject: Re: [RCSE] Re: Beginner Sailplane recommendation Ok, lets get down to the two standards of the industry for a trainer. First off it should be recognized that building the glider will teach the beginner most of the basics and give him or here the knowledge of what to look for in a future kit or RTF. The Lee Renaud / Airtronics Olympic II and the Olympic 650, I believe have been used to get more glider pilots started in the right direction. They are inexpensive easy to build fly great and can be repaired if something should go wrong. The Oly II is larger has better visibility and is a little more forgiving than the 2 Meter 650. The Oly II is available from Ray Hays at www.skybench.com the Oly 650 will be available shortly from www.aerosphereonline.com EW. Ed Whyte WHYTE WINGS 7207 Cornerstone Drive Caledonia, MI 49316-7879 616 698 8668 - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Soaring@airage.com Sent: Saturday, May 27, 2006 9:00 PM Subject: [RCSE] Re: Beginner Sailplane recommendation I see it now, the suggestions are going to keep escalating to higher-performing and more expensive planes. Forgetting that the user is going to be a youngster first-timer. And suggesting slope oriented planes for thermalling seems weird to me. Not that it's impossible, but because it makes little sense to me in the context of the target user. Very inexperienced newbies I know of tend to need lightweight gasbag planes, and preferably poly ships that are as stable as possible. You guys seem to forget that most of you are elite flyers and high performance ships are your normal stock in trade. I work the lower end myself, and am quite happy with 2-meter 2-channel poly floaters with inexpensive gear. I think that that direction is a good one for beginners as well. If you put an EPP nose on a Gentle Lady fuse and traded the GL wing for one with an EPP leading edge, carbon tube spar and main cores of styrene, I think you'd have my perfect trainer. RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send subscribe and unsubscribe requests
Re: [RCSE] Re: Beginner Sailplane recommendation
Ok, lets get down to the two standards of the industry for a trainer. First off it should be recognized that building the glider will teach the beginner most of the basics and give him or here the knowledge of what to look for in a future kit or RTF. The Lee Renaud / Airtronics Olympic II and the Olympic 650, I believe have been used to get more glider pilots started in the right direction. They are inexpensive easy to build fly great and can be repaired if something should go wrong. The Oly II is larger has better visibilityand is a little more forgiving than the 2 Meter 650. The Oly II is available from Ray Hays at www.skybench.com the Oly 650 will be available shortly from www.aerosphereonline.com EW. Ed WhyteWHYTE WINGS7207 Cornerstone DriveCaledonia, MI 49316-7879616 698 8668 - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Soaring@airage.com Sent: Saturday, May 27, 2006 9:00 PM Subject: [RCSE] Re: Beginner Sailplane recommendation I see it now, the suggestions are going to keep escalating to higher-performing and more expensive planes. Forgetting that the user is going to be a youngster first-timer. And suggesting slope oriented planes for thermalling seems weird to me. Not that it's impossible, but because it makes little sense to me in the context of the target user. Very inexperienced newbies I know of tend to need lightweight gasbag planes, and preferably poly ships that are as stable as possible. You guys seem to forget that most of you are elite flyers and high performance ships are your normal stock in trade. I work the lower end myself, and am quite happy with 2-meter 2-channel poly floaters with inexpensive gear. I think that that direction is a good one for beginners as well. If you put an EPP nose on a Gentle Lady fuse and traded the GL wing for one with an EPP leading edge, carbon tube spar and main cores of styrene, I think you'd have my perfect trainer.
[RCSE] Re: Beginner Sailplane recommendation
How about something from californiasailplanes.com Their Eraser 60 performs very well and is easy to build. With more effort, their Redback 60" sailplane performs great and is very sleek for a foamie. Finally their U2 is a fast performer, though requires more wind than the Redback or Eraser 60. Who says foam doesn't perform? If you'd like something scale that still flies very well, check out leadingedgegliders.com which has gliders in a range from 48" to 72", and I can attest that they fly very well in a wide range of wind speeds. You can even have them expertly shape the fuselage for a small additional charge. I would recommend an EPP foam glider like these over Graupner's easily broken 'Elapor' foam gliders. Learning to fly is a lot more fun when your mistakes don't end the day's flying or require frequent field repairs. Besides, these planes will fly much better than the Easy Glider. Jeff Soaring wrote: SoaringSat, 27 May 2006 Volume 1 : Number 7705 In this issue: RE: [RCSE] Beginner sailplane recommendations -- Date: Sat, 27 May 2006 09:33:06 -0400 (EDT) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], soaring@airage.com Subject: RE: [RCSE] Beginner sailplane recommendations Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] I have assembled and flown both Easy Star and Easy Glider (non-motorized version) and recommend the Easy Star as a first plane to learn on. It glides very well and is much easier to handle and transport on the ground. As was mentioned by Ed Anderson, Easy Glider does not penetrate well unless it is ballasted and a hefty nose weight added. I put 2 inch long steel rod pieces in the spar tube and another couple of ounces in the nose to make it penetrate on the slope. For Easy Star, a beginner is likely to corkscrew the plane unwittingly. I helped a friend recover from one and the wing broke at the end of the spar. A length of fiberglass tape from the wing root to over the curved wingtip edge solved this weakness. I also like to dive the Easy Star full throttle on a brushless motor and found the horizontal stab lose authority in recovering from steep dives, resulting in my Easy Star taking a dunk in the Han River of South Korea on more than 1 occasion. This too was solved by adding a length of fiberglass tape on the bottom surface of the horizontal stab and the elevator. One more modification for a beginner Easy Star is to fix the wing to the fuse. I found the wing roots get loose after few insertions, removals and tumbles. Of course, having a minivan big enough to carry the fully assembled Easy Star is helpful too. I get fine directional control with the stock rudder - just have to be patient and wait for the plane to listen to your directional control input or anticipate the necessary change in direction by a few seconds :) Hee-Choon Sam Lee Seoul, Korea Member of RCCAFE, AMA 817622 Personally I'd recommend the Easy Star since it's electric, he'll get more flying time in per session. I'd recommend making the rudder 1/2-1" wider since the rudder is pretty small. I taught my brother-in-law to fly with one. gv -Original Message- From: Jim Laurel [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, May 26, 2006 5:23 PM To: RCSE Yahoo Subject: [RCSE] Beginner sailplane recommendations I know this has been discussed before, but wanted to get your current thinking. A co-worker hears me talking about soaring all the time and is asking about a sailplane for his son. Years ago I would have suggested a Highlander, but they are no more and there don't seem to be any really credible (i.e., decent performing) foamies. If you want a nice molded TD plane, I can talk all day, but when it comes to this kind of plane, I'm at a loss. I'm thinking about recommending the Multiplex Easy Glider, which is inexpensive and readily available from Tower Hobbies: http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?I=LXKHS7P=7 Any ideas appreciated. .. Jim Laurel Co-founder Twango Inc. mob 425.985.4849 ofc 425.883.1638 http://www.twango.com/profile.aspx?twangoid=jim RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to soaring-request@airage.com. Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to soaring-request@airage.com. Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format -- End of Soaring V1 #7705 *** RCSE-List facilities provided
[RCSE] Re: Beginner Sailplane recommendation
I see it now, the suggestions are going to keep escalating to higher-performing and more expensive planes. Forgetting that the user is going to be a youngster first-timer. And suggesting slope oriented planes for thermalling seems weird to me. Not that it's impossible, but because it makes little sense to me in the context of the target user. Very inexperienced newbies I know of tend to need lightweight gasbag planes, and preferably poly ships that are as stable as possible. You guys seem to forget that most of you are elite flyers and high performance ships are your normal stock in trade. I work the lower end myself, and am quite happy with 2-meter 2-channel poly floaters with inexpensive gear. I think that that direction is a good one for beginners as well. If you put an EPP nose on a Gentle Lady fuse and traded the GL wing for one with an EPP leading edge, carbon tube spar and main cores of styrene, I think you'd have my perfect trainer.
