First kit sailplane was a Javelin ~ 1972 (??). Rolled plywood fuselage, built up D-tube wing, standard class. Designed and kitted by Bob Boucher of Astro-Flight (I think). Got Levels 1 and 2 and then flew it away over the mountains out at SBDO at one of our early ISS events. Great plane and very rugged.
Most 'fun' first plane was flying the 1st Gentle Lady prototype built by Al fredricks. Al, Dave Fredricks, Carl, Hi Johnson and I all took off one afternoon and found a little arroyo near Sun Valley for the first flight. (I think Paul Trist was working on the other prototype but couldn't make the outing that day.) The plane worked great and we passed the sticks around. No one had any idea it was going to be as successful as it proved. We were just a bunch of guys having fun that day. Al had told Carl the balsa vertical stab support was too fragile and should be changed out for spruce. Carl said he was already tooled up and couldn't change it. After about 7 successful flights, we snapped off the vertical stab in a ground loop and went home. Carl never changed to spruce. - Dave R Jeez - that means I'm the only living survivor of the first flight of the Gentle Lady? That's kinda depressing! 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.
