Thursday, August 10, 2017

Dynomite, Jetstream, Retro Gnome, and CO2 Nats 2017

I am finishing up with brief descriptions of flying these planes at 2017 Nats.  The start of the hand launch event started with drizzle and rain. This year I had barely flown my Dynomite DLG at all, concentrating mainly on flying e36 planes at home. I did a few test flights before the event but that was about it, there was a small repair to do before contest flights. I wanted to fly even in drizzle in case it was an all-day rain, which it wasn’t. On the two official launches I released too late and had bad height with the glider down in 20 seconds. I tried another launch and the glider came apart in the air, it was way beyond a field repair. 

Dynomite Blew Up


Paul Bradley and Don DeLoach launched my Jetstream glider for me a few times and after adjusting the turn it appears to tow well and transition into a glide. If the glider went left in the glide it seems to tighten up in the turn. More work is needed but I really need a launching stooge so I can spend more time launching without having to take another flier away from their flying. Classic Towline was held on Friday and I left that day so did not fly it in competition. I really need more time working with the glider before contest flights.

Jetstream After Completition
On a couple of days I flew my hi-start Retro Gnome glider, at least I could fly this without assistance from anyone. The tall grass was a pain with snagging the line but it made for softer crashes.  It appears you really need to launch straight into the wind because if the glider gets a little crosswind the hi-start will pull it into the ground. One flight it flew for a fair amount of time and landed in a crushed rock parking lot. Somehow I spaced out when the contest was held and never entered.

Retro Gnome Hi-start Glider

I brought along the CO2 powered plane I had been flying this year in hopes I could talk to people with some experience in CO2. The problem I am having is filling the tank to get a consistent run; I usually get one flight out of cartridge and waste the rest. Saturday evening I had a couple of fair flights but not anywhere as long as some flights I have had. I talked to Ralph Bradley about CO2 and learned much, such as there are cartridge holders for the longer CO2 cartridges. 

My CO2 Powered Plane
Saturday Evening Flight


On another day at least a couple of people tried to fill the CO2 for me and they did not have good luck either. This plane has a fuse DT so between fiddling with lighting the DT and getting a good fill on the CO2 it was frustrating.  On one flight the motor started backwards and I launched it. For a short time it did fly around wildly backwards, Larry Davidson got a kick out of that. I had brought a limited number of CO2 cartridges so I gave up when all were used up.

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

Related Links

http://scienceguyorg.blogspot.com/2016/05/dynomite-tip-launch-free-flight-glider.html

http://scienceguyorg.blogspot.com/2017/04/jetstream-a1-towline-glider-build-report.html
http://scienceguyorg.blogspot.com/2016/12/building-retro-gnome-ff-hi-start-glider.html
http://scienceguyorg.blogspot.com/2017/04/my-start-in-co2-powered-free-flight.html


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