UMX Radian for Thermal Flying

After dinging up my UMX Radian from slope flying from a concrete wall with iron posts I decided I would purchase another UMX Radian to use just for thermal flying and try to keep it in near perfect condition. After picking the new glider up last week and quickly sliding the wing in, I went out flying. Lately I have been on a quest to find more types of places that I can fly this glider from.  There was a small park on top of a large hill that came to mind but there was no parking close by.  Not far from there was an empty lot in an area of new construction, it was on the edge of a hill so I thought maybe thermals would come up the hill or there would be slope lift farther out.

New UMX Radian

Flying at One Edge of the Vacant Lot

The highlight of flying there was that the little Radian caught a thermal low right in front of me that I was able to keep the glider in for the perfect corkscrew path upwards to a climb that was fairly high for a small glider.  As it was drifting over trees near an area of active construction I headed the glider back for a hand catch landing. With some time left I decided to try flying from a school yard that was at a lower elevation to see how the lift was there.

UMX Radian Gliding High

Looking Down the Hill

Dense Trees and Construction on Behind Me

At the schoolyard I found some good lift also but wasn’t able to get the glider to climb from such a low altitude.  I had flown the old javelin launch RC gliders from this site before but really not room for much larger gliders.  One flight I hit lift up fairly high but when the glider is already high letting it climb much higher it is soon a tiny speck.  To me the thrill with the UMX Radian is finding as many thermals as possible and climbing for a relatively short time before finding another.

Flying Out of Schoolyard

There was a young boy at the playground carrying around a non-flying model of what looked like a B-17. His mother was not far away working in a garden plot so I thought it was alright to talk to him when he came over.  It is not very often that I find young kids – guessing maybe 8 years old that are interested in airplanes. He said he had a model drone that was broken; I wish I would have had a free flight foam glider to have given him.  I patiently answered all the questions he had many were about all the switches on my transmitter and what are they used for.

Fun afternoon but it was time for supper.

Bill Kuhl
http://www.ideas-inspire.com


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