scott@opus.UUCP (Scott Wiesner) (11/20/84)
How low do you fly? As I gained more confidence in my flying abilities
(as soon as I quit screwing up..) I quit flying "way up there" unless I'm
doing something really unusual like inverted spins. My typical flying
altitude is probably somewhere around 50-75 feet, while other people in
my club seem to like to stay several hundred feet up.
One of the things I've been doing lately is full throttle low passes. Two
weekends ago I finally got up the nerve to do a full throttle touch and
go. It went pretty smooth, and I was so engrossed in watching the plane
driving along the ground that I almost ran out of runway before I pulled
off again! On my 4th touch and go, I lost the tire off my front wheel!
I use the solid rubber Kraft wheels, so I was really suprised to see this
happen. Fortunately, that Trainer 40 handles very well at low speeds, and
I was able to bring the plane in nose high, land on the main gear, and hold
the nose off until the plane had almost rolled to a stop.
Anyone else have this kind of thing happen to them?
--
Scott Wiesner
{allegra, ucbvax, cornell}!nbires!scottscott@opus.UUCP (Scott Wiesner) (11/21/84)
> How low do you fly?
By the way, the latest RC Modeler has a great planes ad for the Cap 21
that shows the plane doing inverted limbo! The plane is about 3 feet
off the runway! I just don't feel quite comfortable enough with inverted
flight to pull stuff like that.
--
Scott Wiesner
{allegra, ucbvax, cornell}!nbires!scottirwin@uiucdcs.UUCP (11/26/84)
How low do I fly, it depends on the traffic. If I am the only one, I do lots of low stuff, but if there are several guys flying I tend to stay out and up a ways to reduce congestion at the strip. I always stay up a ways if I am working with a new flyer, if he does the wrong thing, I will have time to get the transmitter from him and take corrective action. One tends to learn when the busy times will be and if I want to do low passes in excess (a few are accepted) I go out when I know there will not be many there.
irwin@uiucdcs.UUCP (11/30/84)
Inverted at 3 feet doing a limbo! It takes nerves of steel and an accomplished pilot. It also helps if the wind is not blowing! I watched a fun-fly one time where a guy did inverted limbos, and he was laying on his stomach so he could judge the distance better. His record was an 18 inch inverted limbo, with a Contender. Note that in a slow-flight attitude with tail low, that put the vertical fin about 6 inches off the ground. The gear had to clear the limbo ribbon, as he did not have retracts.
ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig) (11/30/84)
Well, I once saw an inverted airplane use its stabilizer to pick a ribbon off two 10-foot poles held alongside the runway, and then climb, roll upright, and land with the ribbon its tail. This was a real airplane with the pilot inside, not a model.
scott@opus.UUCP (Scott Wiesner) (12/04/84)
> Well, I once saw an inverted airplane use its stabilizer to > pick a ribbon off two 10-foot poles held alongside the runway, > and then climb, roll upright, and land with the ribbon its tail. > > This was a real airplane with the pilot inside, not a model. I've seen two real planes do this as well. One was Art Schoel's chipmunk, and the other was a Waco Bipe that had a long wire (at least 10 feet long) that he grabbed the wire with. To make up for the wimpyness of using the wire, he came in and brought the plane to a stop, engine at about 1/4 throttle, and tail still raised! Brakes kept the plane balanced! That was impressive. The great planes ad is even more wild than I thought. It turns out the Cap 21 is flying BETWEEN two streamers. One looks to be about 3-4' off the ground, and the other at about 1' off. It appears to be a fast inverted pass, because the plane is NOT dragging the tail as it would if it were going slowly. Al, you must have been there. Is this really what was happening? (and why don't you answer my mail?) -- Scott Wiesner {allegra, ucbvax, cornell}!nbires!scott