It has been a week since the annual Poway get-together. Thought I'd send my
views on the fun. This year showed the largest change in gliders and
performance, probably as much or more than the rest of the years combined.
Tip launch is here to stay.
As usual, the TPG club put on an excellent event. The contest ran with the
precision that is now expected from the organizers. We were quite fortunate
(in my opinion) that the wind was predominantly from the south for Sat/Sun,
which made the hill east of the field almost unuseable for slope lift. The
altitudes achieved by tip launch make it simple to get to the hill now. You
can even get to the hill from the front of the field, which is amazing to
me.
My worries as to how tip launch was going to change the event were somewhat
unfounded. It even made things somewhat easier in that people didn't crowd
up as much as they have in past years. You can now pretty much make it to
anywhere on the field without having to run, which is a good thing.
In the weeks preceding the event, I was quite discouraged, as my launching
was not nearly as good as the local fliers. John Ericson, Brian Buass, as
well as Lex Mierop were all easily launching considerably higher than I was.
After getting to the Poway field on Thursday afternoon, I proceeded to work
on figuring out the launch. In the evening, I made a small break-through in
my launch, and my heights were getting a little more in line with the high
guys. I was quite pleased, but the real revelation was on Friday. I
finally found what works for me. All of a sudden, I started to get the high
launches, as well as the raw fingertips. I was launching like John Asplund
or Phil Barnes. It turned out that I was trying to use too much
arm/shoulder power, which took away from the power available.
The planes on the field, in large part, were working very well. A few
aileron planes had flutter on launch, which could really hurt the launch
altitude. Flutter ran the gamut from Chris Adams aileron toy which had huge
flutter, to my Encores, which showed a little buzz only when I really nailed
the launch.
I had a large arsenal for the contest, which included:
2 Encores (~9 oz)
2 Raptor polys (~9 oz)
1 Raptor FullHouse (FH for short) (~11 oz)
1 Ionosphere (more for fun flying)
All were using various airfoils that I'd cooked up. I had the most time on
one Raptor poly, with a few weeks of practice on the Encores, and a few days
practice with the FH. They all had slightly different design philosophies
behind them. The Raptor airfoils were designed for Poway conditions from
the outset, optimized for launch and penetration, with a little cost to
minimum sink. The Encore airfoil was biased a little bit more for thermal
performance. Both the FH and the Encore airfoils were designed for trailing
edge camber usage. One of the Encores had a fairly high dihedral angle,
which allowed me to set the optimal TE position, and in light air, primarily
use just the rudder for turning. In my opinion, the latest Encore is
probably the best thermalling HLG that I've ever flown. I was continually
amazed as to how well it stayed up. It also had very benign handling
qualities, nicer to fly than the older versions.
The FH is the highest throwing HLG I've ever had. This is due to the very
low ballistic drag coefficient (very low drag and low wing area, coupled
with a moderately high weight of ~11 oz). Having separate flaps and
ailerons is a cool thing, bringing in the plane for a fast turnaround catch
is a bit easier now. It flew just like a little open class plane.
I ended up not using the poly during the contest only because I was worried
about the turnaround time without glide path control. It probably wouldn't
have been an issue, but I hadn't really practiced enough to be comfortable.
In the lighter conditions on Saturday (yes, even Poway has light conditions
sometimes), I used the Encore, and for a few rounds on Sunday when the wind
was blowing, I used the FH. The higher launch of the FH pretty much makes
up for the higher wingloading, but I had a bit more time with the Encores,
so I used it more often. Its thermal performance had me giggling on the
field at times, it just didn't want to come down in the light air. Did I
mention that it thermals well? :-)
Some of the tasks in the event probably should get changed. Many of the
tasks don't really measure much anymore. What I call the "add-em-up" tasks
don't measure much except turnaround time now, so the point spread is only
about 30 -50 points. Tasks like the 5 x 2 or 1-2-3-4 show a much higher
point spread. The first day showed this, as the top ten were only separated
by about 60 points or so. The harder tasks of Sunday did a better job of
separating scores. Of course, the conditions were more challenging on
Sunday as well, which helped.
This year, the non-Californians made it be known that they know how to fly
HLG. Oleg ended up in second by what I call a statistically insignificant
amount of points. Bruce Davidson and Phil Barnes were making a run for it
as well.
I'd like to thank Phil Pearson/Don Peters of Mapleleaf Designs and and Brian
Buass of Raptor Aerosports. They worked with me on the maturation of the
various designs, and I think that they both have made some really cool toys.
I feel quite fortunate to work with people of their caliber.
Joe
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