From: "James V. Bacus" Date: Mon, 10 Nov 1997 21:53:36 -0600 Subject: Re: [RCSE] Another fine HLG in my quiver At 02:00 AM 11/8/97 -0600, James V. Bacus wrote: - -----8<-----[Some Stuff Snipped] The weather will be nice around Chicago for once tomorrow and I hope to try it out. If you would like to see some pictures of my completed Wizard, check out the On the Work Bench page of my web site. I did take the first flights on my Wizard this weekend, and they were a total success! My flying partner and I planned on traveling to check out the Chicago land S.O.A.R. northern winter flying field on Sat. morning, and I brought a couple of HLG's including my brand new Wizard. We met a great group of friendly guys, and I met two more RCSE people face to face, and got to fly with them. (maybe more are on RCSE, but two for sure) There was a reservoir at the back end of their field that was large enough to slope soar HLG, and I soared it for 30-40 minutes with my FVK 'Simply the Best' just to get a feel for it. I went back and got the Wizard, and Steve Schneider joined me with his Neon HLG. As we approached the slope, I was hesitating a bit, and Steve was coaxing me to launch pretty hard. (After all, here I am a new guy at a club field with a bunch of guys I just met, with a new model) He then asked if I had even thrown it around yet, I said "No" and we both agreed it would be a good idea. I walked back from the edge about 75 yards and gave a baby throw from shoulder height, and the Wizard glided straight and true, and traveled almost the entire distance, it surprised me how flat the glide was. It needed no trim adjustments, flew right off the board. First real flight was right off the reservoir slope and it handled great, I was very comfortable with it right from the beginning. I only launched it several times and flew the battery out. Up to now, this being my first season of HLG, I have only flown 2 channel polys. Now I have something that suits my flying style a whole lot better, I have been missing the ailerons! I went back to flying my STB for the rest of the day, since I am most comfortable with it. Tom Kallevang and I tried to hook some thermals from the field, but the sun was having problems breaking through the clouds and it was a little cold and windy. We threw them around for quite some time. Alas, Tom hooked one with his Climmax over a parking lot, and rode it up. He had been up in the same spot with his Emerald earlier... I went out Sunday to my local park by myself and just did HLG TD. I worked on optimizing the crow, launch and reflex settings. My first throw amazed me again, this sailplane goes and goes and goes... It's like you have been throwing competition quality Frisbees for a long time, and then throwing your first Aerobee... 8-) Very stable, no nasty habits I have detected yet, easy to launch up or launch out, but it does like to cruise faster than any other HLG I've flown, and I am still trying to get my timing down in that respect. If you would like to see some pictures of my Wizard, you can check out the "On the Work Bench" page of my web site. I also added some pictures of the flying with the Chicago S.O.A.R. club in my Photo Album page. What a great weekend, flying with new people and flying a new model!!! Jim Downers Grove, IL Check out JVB's R/C Soaring Page at http://www.mcs.net/~bacuslab/soaring.html Home of the "Fun locations to fly Hand Launch Gliders" page