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11-27-2011, 04:19 PM
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rude, crude, lewd, and unsophisticated
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Puddle City, Cascadia
Gender: Male
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
This thread gave me the push I've long needed for a trip on a quiet holiday weekend to nearby McMinnville, where the Evergreen Air & Space Museum is located. This is now the home of Howard Hughes' "Spruce Goose", the flying ship. The Evergreen people, along with flying despots to exile and helping the Conspiracy with their 'extraordinary rendition' transit needs, now run this growing air & space museum. They just opened their latest innovation "Wings & Waves", with a waterpark, complete with tubular waterslides bursting out of the body of a Boeing 474 mounted on the top of the new building.
Even though we didn't do the waterpark bit, it was fun. We didn't climb on the tanks or watch the R/C folks fly their prizes, either. We still got a half day of wandering amidst the grounded birds, indoors and out.
If you're passing through on a north-south run (it's SW of Puddle City and north of Salem), or on the road to the coastal beaches, it's worth the $20 entry fee if you've a half day to spare.
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11-27-2011, 05:33 PM
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Stoic Derelict... The cup is empty
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: The Dustbin of History
Gender: Male
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
That's a decent web site, Godfrey. Interesting post, hope you enjoy all enjoyed the trip. I like air museums too. I got to the one at Wright Patterson in Ohio. They had an SR there. It was low enough to the ground and the partition close enough to the aircraft that you could have reached up a little and touched it. Then they put a sign right there, keep your nosepickers to yourself. Man, it was such a temptation to touch this thing that has been flying at Mach 3 at 80000 feet. The spruce goose calls to mind another WIG. I think it looks pretty sweet. I don't know if this was just a crazy idea or something in development, but here is a graphic of it.
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Chained out, like a sitting duck just waiting for the fall _Cage the Elephant
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11-28-2011, 12:26 PM
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nominalistic existential pragmaticist
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Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Cheeeeseland
Gender: Female
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
If any of you are passing through the Hammandsport, NY area, I highly recommend the Curtis Aviation museum. It's a small museum dedicated to Glenn Curtis et al. and his motorcycles and airplanes and life work. Been there twice myself, because the old-timey boats, planes, and motorcycles are really interesting.
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11-28-2011, 07:05 PM
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Stoic Derelict... The cup is empty
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: The Dustbin of History
Gender: Male
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
Hi Chris! Great suggestion. It would be great to build a model of one of those old Curtiss pusher props one day. So many planes, so little time!
Hey ceptimus, thanks for the picture of the Lanzo. My friend had a later Lanzo out on Saturday. We had the usual mish mash of planes out. The little knot with the foam biplane was my crew for the day.One guy got a decent flight on a discus launch glider, which was a feat, as thermals were hard to come by that day. You will see his Lanzo, it's the one with the diamond fuselage. On Sunday evening I flew the ME-262, it was windy right up to twilight. One guy had a runway emergency. The club Prez squirted it with the extinguisher just for lols. Cruel.
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Chained out, like a sitting duck just waiting for the fall _Cage the Elephant
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11-28-2011, 07:08 PM
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Fishy mokey
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Furrin parts
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
No gratuitous kitteh?
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11-28-2011, 07:27 PM
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Stoic Derelict... The cup is empty
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: The Dustbin of History
Gender: Male
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Watser?
No gratuitous kitteh?
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Oh, thanks for the reminder, almost forgot this really important thing I need to tell you. Last summer I bad landed the 262 and ripped a nacelle off, so I retired it for the summer because of the long grass on the runway. It was a clean break, it could glue back perfect, no touch up needed. Enter Catus Destructus. Sensing the grievous injury to the wounded bird, it gnaws away at the hapless victim throughout the summer. It at part of an aileron, a flap, and chewed around the nacelle fairing, so I did a rush job repair before flying the Schwalbe on Sunday evening. The victim and the culprit. This is my second 262. The first one blew a speed controller at speed and altitude. It spun around in midair like a Chinese firecracker for a few seconds before plummeting straight down.
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Chained out, like a sitting duck just waiting for the fall _Cage the Elephant
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11-28-2011, 09:41 PM
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puzzler
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: UK
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
Nice pics!
I want to buy a discus launch glider - the idea of hand launching a glider from a flat field and then thermalling away for a flight of fifteen minutes or more is very appealing. So far I've managed to resist - I keep telling myself that I have several other uncompleted projects to finish before I'm allowed to buy one!
I have several gliders that I normally fly from slopes - of course with those it's easy to hand launch and stay up for several hours if you wish - but it's the wind blowing up the slope that does the work - flat field hand launching is a different kettle of fish altogether.
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11-29-2011, 12:08 AM
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nominalistic existential pragmaticist
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Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Cheeeeseland
Gender: Female
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
My dad used to launch his RC glider (8-ft ws), with a really big rubber band. Is that old school or is that what a discus launcher is?
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11-29-2011, 01:42 AM
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Stoic Derelict... The cup is empty
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: The Dustbin of History
Gender: Male
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
It is old school, and it is still widely practiced. We still use them for large unpowered gliders occasionally. A few of the guys also use them to launch electric ducted fan jet models. We used one last week to launch that red Meteor, which is prop powered. It is ridiculously hard to hand launch, but the bungee handles it nicely.
@ ceptimus, I'm in the same boat on the DLG. I find that the more I fly gliders, the more I like to fly gliders. It's slow motion addictive.
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Chained out, like a sitting duck just waiting for the fall _Cage the Elephant
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12-02-2011, 05:51 AM
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Stoic Derelict... The cup is empty
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: The Dustbin of History
Gender: Male
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
This is either awesome or insane, depends on your definitions. Presented for your entertainment, a Polish jet powered crop duster biplane, the M-15 Belphegor.
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Chained out, like a sitting duck just waiting for the fall _Cage the Elephant
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12-02-2011, 12:06 PM
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nominalistic existential pragmaticist
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Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Cheeeeseland
Gender: Female
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
Jet powered!
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12-02-2011, 09:18 PM
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Astroid the Foine Loine between a Poirate and a Farrrmer
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Join Date: Feb 2011
Gender: Male
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
I must have one!
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12-02-2011, 09:18 PM
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Astroid the Foine Loine between a Poirate and a Farrrmer
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Join Date: Feb 2011
Gender: Male
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
Wicked 262 by the way!
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12-03-2011, 08:05 PM
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rude, crude, lewd, and unsophisticated
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Puddle City, Cascadia
Gender: Male
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
For the top gun types, this seems to be the toys to play with:
Top 10 fighters
Impressive creds F-22 STOVL
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12-04-2011, 04:05 AM
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Stoic Derelict... The cup is empty
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: The Dustbin of History
Gender: Male
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vivisectus
Wicked 262 by the way!
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Thanks, it's cheap thrills. One of my buddies took a good take off pic today.
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Chained out, like a sitting duck just waiting for the fall _Cage the Elephant
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12-13-2011, 01:48 AM
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Stoic Derelict... The cup is empty
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: The Dustbin of History
Gender: Male
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
Quote:
Originally Posted by ceptimus
Hi all!
SR71, the weather was good for December yesterday. Definitely flyable. I was intending to go to the Long Mynd to fly my Tragi 702 in a friendly slope-soaring race.
The Long Mynd
Tragi 701 and 702 gliders. (mine is the same as the yellow one, except it has blue tips instead of red).
But I was too tired and I also had some work to catch up with, so I decided not to go.
I feel much better today, and the work is done, but it's been raining all day and now it's getting dark.
880,744
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Copied this from Countdown because it is so thread worthy. I would love to fly slope gliders one day, but so far have not found any slopes. That is some lovely terrain there, ceptimus. Are those 4 meter gliders? What would a race involve?
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Chained out, like a sitting duck just waiting for the fall _Cage the Elephant
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12-13-2011, 01:58 AM
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Stoic Derelict... The cup is empty
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: The Dustbin of History
Gender: Male
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
It rained a good bit last week, so I had mud puddles to Rise Off Water from. Unfortunately, my only sea plane was borked. My assistant and I worked feverishly into the morning hours to repair the horribly mutilated craft. The next day, there was a suitable puddle indeed. We had a blast. Free Gratuitous Kittehs!
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Chained out, like a sitting duck just waiting for the fall _Cage the Elephant
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12-13-2011, 09:25 AM
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puzzler
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: UK
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
Quote:
Originally Posted by SR71
Are those 4 meter gliders? What would a race involve?
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The tragi 702 is a fraction over 3 metre span - that's 118.5 inches. These gliders usually race at well over 100mph when conditions are good. The race is described in the section below.
The slope racing of these kinds of gliders (the competition is called f3f) is a time trial rather than a race. There is only one glider in the 'course' at any one time to eliminate the chance of mid-air collisions; it usually takes less than a minute to fly the course and then the glider is flown back and landed while the next competitor is gaining height ready to enter the course. In a competition there may be around twenty people, so you usually get to fly the course about six times each. Then your worst times are discarded and your score is worked out based on the times of your best runs.
The course is 100 metres long, parallel to the edge of the slope (so crosswise to the wind). You stand and launch from the centre of the course. The two end points each have two flags stuck in the ground. These line up like rifle sights to give two lines perpendicular to the edge of the slope that mark the ends of the course.
There are spotters at each of the sets of flags and these people sight along the two flags (like a rifle sight) and press a button when the glider passes the line. The button is wired to a buzzer at the centre of the course next to the pilot, so when you are flying you hear a beep as you pass the end of the course. When it's not your turn to fly, you help out by working the buzzers or keeping note of the times, etc.
So, each time you fly (called a 'slot') you launch and have a set time, often one minute, before you must enter the course from one end. If you don't enter the course within the specified time, the clock starts anyway!
Then you have to fly ten lengths of the course (so that includes nine 180 turns).
The skill is to get as much height as possible during the minute after launch, then dive vertically to gain speed and enter the course before the clock starts anyway. The course is ten lengths of 100 metres - so one kilometre total - but you fly extra distance around the turns and you have to go beyond the ends of the course to avoid 'cutting' so a typical flight distance is probably over a mile. Unless there's virtually no wind, we almost always complete the course in under a minute (60mph average) and on a really good day we can go twice that fast!
Think of a glider, close to the ground going over 120mph and whipping around a hairpin turn every three seconds. The turns have to be kept tight to avoid flying extra distance so these gliders pull well over 50 G in the turns!
The way we fly the course is to roll inverted along each length and then pull a (downward) half-loop at the ends to reverse direction. The extra G on the glider as it turns tends to slow it down, but this is compensated by the fact that the glider is diving vertically as it pulls the highest G. You then have to climb a little as you fly back along the course to gain enough height for the next turn while rolling inverted at the same time.
If you wait to hear the beep before beginning a turn, then you fly much too far, so you have to anticipate the turn and hope to hear the beep just as you're half-way around the turn. If you turn to early, you don't reach the flag line and you don't hear a beep. This is a 'cut' and unless you correct it that run is disqualified. So if you turn early and cut, you complete the loop and put a flat bit on the top the next time round so as to stretch it out to reach the line. If you still don't hear a beep the second time around then you have to do a second loop and so on... but you'll have wasted too much time by then, so that run will probably be a 'discard'.
There's no limit on the size of the gliders for an f3f competition (other than any national rules about what's the largest heaviest models you're allowed to fly). We've found by trial and error that three metres is about right - bigger gliders can fly even faster along the length of the course but take longer in the turns.
When the wind is strong, it pays to have a heavier model (again faster in a straight line, but slower in the turns). So these models have provision for adding ballast. I can add up to four pounds of lead into tubes inside the wings of my Tragi.
Usually at these slope racing events we also have a 'man on man' races where we do race several gliders in the air at the same time on the same course. Mid air collisions are common, so we altered the rules a few years back to ban fast, but expensive, 'crunchy' carbon fibre gliders and instead we race 'foamy' gliders made from EPP and limited to 60-inch span. These don't go as fast as the crunchy gliders, but the course is shorter and as it's a real race it's even more exciting. I usually fly my sBlitz in these races. Again, ballast can be added when conditions are good.
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12-13-2011, 09:42 AM
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puzzler
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: UK
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
Love the pics of the seaplane!
I found this old thread where I posted some pics of watercraft (including a dragon!) that my friends and I fly off a lake in Wales.
But although that thread is still there, the server where I hosted the pics no longer exists I'll try to dig out the photos and put them in this thread.
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12-13-2011, 10:06 AM
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puzzler
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: UK
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
Here's some f3f action from Taiwan. You can see how the guys set up the course, and a little bit of racing! You'll find plenty more f3f video on YouTube if you search.
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12-13-2011, 10:37 AM
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puzzler
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: UK
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
We also fly similar gliders in a method called DS (Dynamic Soaring). This is done on the back (downwind) side of a ridge, and is the fastest known way to fly models - the world record is over 460mph - faster than the jet turbines!
There's lots of YouTube video of DS too, but mostly the gliders are going so fast that you can hardly see them. Here's a decent film of a (relatively) slow flight - but in this one you can actually see the glider, and hear it , most of the time. Ends with a crash, which is all too common with DS.
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12-13-2011, 02:14 PM
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Stoic Derelict... The cup is empty
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: The Dustbin of History
Gender: Male
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
__________________
Chained out, like a sitting duck just waiting for the fall _Cage the Elephant
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12-13-2011, 02:30 PM
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Stoic Derelict... The cup is empty
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: The Dustbin of History
Gender: Male
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
Hi ceptimus! I am absolutely in awe at your explanation of slope glider racing. So many things going on at once! It must be something you have to practice at in stages before you ever enter your first race. Seems like it would demand a good deal of dedicated practice, perhaps more than pattern flying or 3D aerobatics.
Quote:
Think of a glider, close to the ground going over 120mph and whipping around a hairpin turn every three seconds. The turns have to be kept tight to avoid flying extra distance so these gliders pull well over 50 G in the turns!
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That is intense!
The fact of the great speeds attained by the dynamic speed slope soarers is just incredible. Definitely not a sport for the faint of heart. Thanks for the excellent description of the F3F event, I really enjoyed it.
ETA: Did you gaiz read cep's Post #93? Where are the thanks? Please go back and thank that most thankworthy of posts. We can not have an inequity of the Thankses here.
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Chained out, like a sitting duck just waiting for the fall _Cage the Elephant
Last edited by SR71; 12-13-2011 at 03:41 PM.
Reason: A miscarriage of gratitude
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12-14-2011, 01:27 AM
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Coffee, tea, anti-Nazi
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Atlanta, GA
Gender: Female
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
Dear model lovers,
I am trying to find a plastic model (unassembled) of the plane my dad flew in when he was in the Navy. It's the Grumman S-2F Tracker. The only one I've found so far is this one. I want to see if any of you guys have a better source or better Google-fu than I do. In return I'll see if he'll let me have the squadron pic of them on the carrier. Hell, I'll probably do that anyways.
Thx,
curses
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12-14-2011, 02:04 PM
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Stoic Derelict... The cup is empty
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: The Dustbin of History
Gender: Male
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Re: Ze Plane! Ze Plane!
No french fries here. Seems like the Kinetic kit is the only game in town. Also you seem to have found the best price I came across.
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Chained out, like a sitting duck just waiting for the fall _Cage the Elephant
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