Just one day after the MECA event in Oberbalm, Sunday the 2nd of June last year, we have met us again at Mühlethurnen. Sunshine, gentle breeze and pleasant temperature promised to be a nice day for flying again. Friends from MG Bern prepared the field for a “glider event” including nice starting winch.
I have brought one of my ESSO gliders to this meeting which fits perfectly into the flock of other vintage gliders like Pilot 4, Milan, Bird of Time, Jelmoli 3, etc.
The guys from MG Bern have prepared their field for glider flying. Perfectly cut the lawn and set up nicely restored winch powered by 30 ccm “sparky” which could bring up in the air all the gliders in a quite short time.
My newly built ESSO has only been flown a couple of hand launches and I was a bit nervous about the first winch-launch. I have asked Peter for support, as he owns one ESSO (the yellow one), to find out a “proper” C.G. and… to install a tow hook, which I could not find and thought of being forgotten at home (800 km away).
Meanwhile, other guys have already made a couple of flights and I was impressed by how fast and gentle the “winchman” operates his machine 🙂
Everything is prepared, C.G. “found”, tow hook installed and we could fly. And I can say the word: awesome, it flies. No trimming is necessary. We only have to add about 10g of ballast into the nose to achieve smooth glide.
There is one interesting point as I stated in the previous article: tail fin. I have built its size exactly as it shows on the plan – no enlarge or shape changes have been made. And of course, the glider reacts a bit “lazier”, but it is still acceptable. On the other hand, I am afraid this “setup” would not be sufficient for wave soaring, which is very popular in the Swiss. I guess I am going to build a spare (flying) tailfin.
The skies were not only filled with gliders, but Thomas and other brought their powered models too.
We have tried to fly together again. And again: this task is not as easy as it seems to be, even with a modern “inteligent” drones 🙂
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