My first eye opener, of flying this larger than typical thermal competition ship occurred at a NWSS Tournament in 1993. I flew my 2nd one at that event and had the experience of releasing under a gaggle of other state of the art ships. . .then mostly Dodgson Designs. . .and working up through and above all of them to be the highest of the bunch. I'd never seen that before.
Along the way, over the years, there have been countless occasions of going up when others were sinking in the same air and several occasions of working from 35-50 feet to sky out for a max, confirming that a larger, heavier, but clean and efficient ship can do very well in lift that might be considered more suited to hand launch machines.
Another fun maneuver I don't see others doing is to push the nose over to tuck inverted and fly around inverted at high speed.
What generates the real adrenalin rush, though, comes from being in great lift and trimming to stop gaining altitude and build speed. I remember an occasion last year where lift was everywhere. I faced a panorama of big, well-defined, busy, white cumulus from horizon to horizon and could rip a half mile right or left at speeds that got so high, I expected a big explosion at any moment. I expected to see a shower of hundreds of little pieces heading earthward for my reckless defiance of nature and the limits of the airframe. I just scared myself, but it stayed in one piece. My knees were knocking and hands trembling at the excitement of it all.
Another great satisfaction is the safe, controlled, true vertical descent possible from a couple of thousand of altitude, with properly compensated flaps, to come in for a soft landing by the feet.
Whew!. ..what a rush out of a $300 cost for such an amazing airframe. It's made even more fun knowing you did it yourself!
What? You don't know about the GENIE or the LT/S? You're expecting to have to drop $1,200-$1,500 on another euro-moldie? Really? See http://genie.rchomepage.com/.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Keith Love" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, November 26, 2004 8:42 PM
Subject: Re: [RCSE] Most fun plane
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:That's easy, Bob Dodgson Pivot. Would fly in anything. Flew it HL, slope,
thermal, etc. Started out about 18 oz, ended up almost 25oz after all the
repairs.
Agreed; I've had one now for 17 years, and it's still flying strong. Too bad they're not in production anymore...
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