Citazione:
Originalmente inviato da manubrio  Hi Steve, Hi Peter
I love that method of flying, I seen the fish on the web and this ultra light version promise a lot of fun in light wind.
Despite Italy is a sort of navy carrier in the mediterranean sea, we Italians do not fly on cliffs. I believe we are missing a spectacular and fun aspect of our hobby.
Flying in steady lift in front of a sunset on sea...wow. I make a point to do it as soon as possible. Will ask on this forum if anybodody knows a suitable places and maybe want to join for a day.
Fact is we do not have those light specialized airplanes you use to do aerobatic. We do have EPP gliders but these mostly are Multiplex or Robbe, not designed for the task you are showing us with your video. Years ago I remenber an article about a model called Anabat, another cliff aerobatic plane, of completely different design. It had thick simmetrical airfoil made with balsa ribs covered with film (maybe the airfol section thichness was a couple of inches) about 60 to 80 cm (that's metric!) wingspan, very short tail.
Once upon a while (at least once per year) I come in California and always think I should visit one of your places and have a chat with a cliff sloper.
I can see from Costa Mesa cliffs that looks ideal. I have been in Santa Barbara and I would love to come back there, get an hotel somewhere on the cliff (I seen one to die for) one of those made by few cottages built in wood).
I promise to myself to go for a cliff flight session here in Italy and hope to be able to get one in California too.
Thanks for the video.
Fantastic.
Its one more thing to do in flying gliders.
ps:
The flight I usualy do, as my favourite, is on Alps with composite , high wing load aerobatic gliders. Few years ago everybody had a Fox, than we all moved to Swift S1, today the machine is the StingRay, designed by Giuseppe Ghisleri, with flaps and ailerons. Giuseppe is a prolific designer well known in the continent and the StingRay, amongst others, had articles on many magazines throghout europe.
Presently is series built by a couple of manufacturers, Wings and More in Germany and X-Model in Italy.
Preferred Load is tipical over 100grams per square decimeter, 120g or more.
On Alps we prefer places were the lift is not provided by wind but by thermals. The idea is to climb on a thermal at high altitude and from there dive to get high speed. Today is about normal with those machines to reach around 300Km per hour.
With that speed and thanks to the inertia, a long series of manouvres can be performed.
It is another kind of flight respect the one we do with wind and completely different from the dance you do on cliffs in your video.
Here a link where you can find an example, the Stingrays are those two that do high speed aerobatics. Both are X-Model.
These pilots and about ten others, including me, will not participate anymore to that event as the organization had a fairly ineducate approach with us this year on this forum.
There are plenty of places in Italy and plenty of meetings every summer were everybody is welcome even not flying for the official sponsor (which, at Euromeeting, is Graupner). ‪EUROMEETING - Aeromodellismo 2010 Full HD‬‏ - YouTube |
Hi Manubrio, thank you very much for the kind message!
Please, the next time you come to California, do send me a message and we will fly together over the cliffs if you like. My friend Peter is from Switzerland and understands very well the type of alpine conditions you describe. In fact he is the one who just recently developed the method of constructing my Le Fish design to these very light weights. My original prototype, built in 2006, weighed 1100g, and now thanks to Peter, my new prototype weighs 470g!!! It is truly amazing and lets us fly them in much less wind than ever before.
Peter also really understands the love for flying over the water. He especially loves to fly at Torrey Pines near San Diego, for him, it is the very best.
I am very familiar with the Stingray design and have followed its development with great interest. I try to stay abreast of all worldwide developments relevant to slope aerobatics flying and do my best to give them visibility on my website, SlopeAerobatics.com. Again I have no commercial interest, will never put any advertising on the website, only wish to make it a vehicle to share the joy of this kind of flying with as many people around the world as possible. Yes I offer shirts for sale if people are interested but that's only to help defray the website hosting cost
We have a mountain flying site in Santa Barbara as well, which enjoys pretty good lift in our winter and spring months. For me, aerobatics flying began in earnest with a Voltij from Aeromod, which I still have and love very much. Here is an old video - apologies for the low quality of the film, but it's very old now!
Also, I was privileged to have the first FlyBiWo Wasabi that came to the USA, and wrote the English instructions for it. Very fun plane!!
So yes, I love the "heavy" gliders, too. The main point for me is to have aerobatics gliders for all conditions, so you can have fun as much of the time as possible! That is truly the great thing about the new light gliders, as you see in the "Terranea" video, it is possible to practice traditional aerobatics in very little wind
I know the Italian aerobatics scene is very strong, and I would love to have more engagement with you all. Again my only goal is to help further the international enjoyment of slope aerobatics, so if I may be honored to share more of what you are doing in Italy - videos, photos, articles, new products - please consider me at your service.
Thank you!
Steve