The end of the soaring season is close here in Ohio, and the sun was out this morning. I had previously test launched my newly acquired 150" Aquila XL off of a histart made for a 2 meter (wimpy), but I thought today would be a great chance to try the bigger hi-start. Loaded up the car and drove to the club field. Range check OK. Walk WAY down the runway to stake down the end of the histart. I have only done a dozen histart launches in my life, and only 2 in front of anyone other than my dad and brother, so I am a bit nervous. I put about 60% of the stretch to try it out, point the nose at the horizon and give it a heave. WOW! I mostly let it do it's own thing, with very minor rudder corrections and just a bit of down elevator, it climbed in a nice arc. Don't know if that was right, but it felt good. Since I had not given it a full stretch, it ran out of pull before it had more that about 200 feet of altitude (guess) I did a lot of lazy circles (sun hid behind the clouds, and no thermal activity to be found with my meager skills) Landing was great, and the next launch was with full extension of the histart. Very impressive launch. I think that it was nearly over the stake before the line pulled off the hook. I played around, going upwind hunting, but there was no sign of lift, so I was back down in short order. 4 times in my RC career I have specked out my birds (Zagi wings and Dads 2 meter electric) so I can't wait to try it with this majestic sailplane! (plus it is bigger, so specking it will mean even more altitude!)
Sorry for the novel, but I am stoked. I know that this is an ancient design, but I was in heaven. Now for the questions. Our fish scale said I had 25 pounds of pull at full histart extension. Is this too much? Can I try for more? Without a zoom launch at the top, a 510 foot histart, and a mild headwind, am I really about 500 feet in the air? (I am trying to come up with real world estimates of altitude) Does it sound like I am doing anything wrong or could do them better? Our club is mostly nitro, with a growing electric presence, so there was not much sailplane guidance available (but a lot of willing help with the line) Thanks in advance, Vince __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com 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