After soaring largely on my own (or with power plane folks) for over a year now, I finally got around to attending my first Sailplane Fly-in in Prattville, AL on Saturday. I got an early start for the 145 mile drive down to Prattville. Arrived, introduced myself and got settled. Although winches were available, I wanted to use my highstart on the first couple of flights since I'm accustomed to it. Did a quick range check on the GL, everything was perfect. Pulled the plane back on the highstart, did a last stick push to make sure the radio was on and let her go. A perfect launch. Got to the top, gave a down-blip to release, and it didn't. Hmm, I thought. I waited a few seconds, and she released on her own. Right rudder, a little up-elevator, let's start a figure-8 and go looking. Nope. Plane went into an inverted dive from 500 feet. Got worse with most anything I tried. Finally was able to get her into a shallow inverted tailwind dive and held it here. Hit the ground, but not terribly hard: split the fuse sides, popped the wing-bolt blocks and crunched an outboard LE. What happened? Doh. A couple of night before I was setting up a new plane, and left the Tx on the wrong model for the GL. I ended up with reversed rudder and elevator. Although I did a range check, I rushed and didn't do a close visual on the control surfaces. Still, it was a good save. I flew all the way to the ground... Enjoyable Fly-in, all things considered. I just wish I hadn't bankrupted my reputation with the folks on my first flight... --Bill RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
