Help a U.S. Team member go to the Worlds!!

UPDATE: Thank you for the great initial response from everyone! I am going to the first of the Brazilian Nationals series and I leave tomorrow morning - when I get back on February 6th, we will tally up what has been bid on and have the first edition of the raffles. Good luck! So far the carbon pod is the most popular item, followed closely by T2 fairing kits, then the XC clinics and Geko GPSs.

Spread the word! Put a link on your local forum or send me the address of your forum. I am thinking about putting all the donators back into the raffle even if they don't score on the first try, and have higher odds on cool smaller items - speedsleeves, etc. For those interested in supporting the entire team, visit the link at the right of this page to check out our site hosted through Flytec.

Thanks again!


So it goes like this:

I have a bunch of cool goods/services to raffle off in order to raise the necessary cash to make it to France this year. Anyone can see that a few weeks in France with airfare, drivers, lodging, and the rest of it is going to be insanely expensive. Rather than just look for handouts, I would like to sell chances at valuable items.

Simply use the paypal button on the right to purchase your chance at one of these items and make a note of which one you would like to shoot for. Or just make a donation, any amount is appreciated. Thanks!


Here is your chance to snake in for next to nothing...

- Chance at a one-on-one full day radio-guided clinic at Quest Air: $40 per ticket Odds will be at least one in ten, dates available from now until May.


- Chance at a slot in the 5-7 day group clinic/beginner's comp at Quest Air: $60 per ticket Four slots are available in the week-long group clinic(s). Odds will be at least one in ten, with enough interest more group clinics will be organized.

- Chance at a 6030/Geko carbon instrument racing pod, 3 out of 5 of the U.S. team members fly with one! A $329 dollar value, includes mounting bracket and zippered carrybag: $50 per ticket Odds will be at least one in ten. I make them for Flytec USA, check them out here- http://www.flytec.com/Products/racing_pods.htm


-Chance at a Geko to fill the pod you just won, the lightest, slickest comp backup GPS available... your chance at a Geko 201: $35 and for a Geko 301: $45 Odds at least 1 in 10.

-For Wills Wing T2 owners only: I am offering fairing kits through this raffle only right now. The full kit includes an apex fairing, VG cleat cover, and a pair of sidewire tang fins. They tape on and require some time and care when setting up and breaking down (basically only for drag weenies at comps), but they look effing cool and have earned their keep. A chance at a full set is yours for $40. Odds at least 1 in 10, can be black gelcoat or clear carbon finish.



One on one clinic days can be arranged from now through late spring through email and are held at Quest Air near Orlando, FL.

The group clinics date(s) will be announced very soon and will be adjusted to suit the majority. If you can't fit into the first one and there is enough interest, I will schedule a second.

My carbon pods are as good as it gets. The quality is top notch, they are the lightest available, they use a tool-less gps removal for easy download, and I include a mount that is custom made for your particular downtube or basetube.

If there isn't sufficient interest in a particular item to at least cover my costs, I will shift your donation to another item of your choice or give a refund, you decide. Thanks for your support!

Carbon Bling results in Cash Bling

The late news is that the mods worked a little too well. After enjoying a week in Guayaquil, the circus relocated to Canoa for a quick couple of practice days. Jeff, Daniel, and I only briefly joined up for some glide posturing but all seemed normal. Within seconds of the first day's start, I realized that my glider had something special and for three days of competition I was able to sit back and watch the race from above, making moves when and where I chose, and moving to the front position whenever I liked. The race is all about the glider and harness combo, no illusion there, so the lucky person with the most aero package takes it all. In my case, a month of work payed off big and some worthwhile tuning tricks were discovered.

Thanks to all of our great friends from Ecuador for another week of the best free flight on the planet and especially Raul for pulling off a monumental organizational masterpiece. Hope to see all our buddies and more next year for some more racing and relaxation. And don't doubt that I will again have the best glider.

Pics to follow.

Long Landscaping Revival

I have a good feeling about Zapata this year.

I was there the first year when we were static lining behind Davis's truck. When Dave Sharp flew the first 300 miler on a crappy blue day, I was in awe. I knew it was on.

I kept trying for years and forgave the place for it's many disappointments because I had seen the impossible. After just a little practice, several of us were cracking a hundred miles before noon....the place is amazing, but the mornings are when the magic happens. The over running is the hidden gem that looks so unassuming at first glance it's no wonder it went unnoticed all those years.

I don't even want the record, I want 500 miles and I know they are there for the taking. I'm obsessing over it. I know I will throw away some good days trying to ace the early start but I know that's what it will take to turn any sub-perfect day into the day. That and it needs to be blowing the earth sideways all day.

This time I have the glider for the job, a super clean harness, a radio that works, a driver and vehicle, and years of Arizona summers to think of when Zapata does it's best impression of 'hot'.

Sneak Peak

A project started mid-December of last year finally bore fruit. Six months of toil allows me to now construct these little beauties in one lay-up. They pop out of the mold exactly as you see here, already joined, already painted, and mirror finished. No seam to crack, no post-cure joining, just slap em in, pop em out. This is the most difficult project I have ever attempted and I am glad that I actually made it to the end. I test flew the pod today to see how the super-slick airspeed indicator works and I was relieved to find no problems with it. I landed as the sky overdeveloped and it hasn't stopped raining for the last ten hours. A completely unexpected bonus: somehow, enclosing the 6030 has created a speaker box effect and instead of using full volume on glides and 75% in thermals, I was using 50% on glides and 25% in thermals. Girls want it, guys want to be it; more on the pod later.

Ecuador pics

Just got back from the annual Canoa ridge race/Guayas rally tour. This one was even better than the last two. This year our group skipped all the peripheral distractions and headed direct to the beach from the airport. It was nice to miss the dirty air and oppressive heat of Guayaquil, but I think you can't fully appreciate the coastal flying without the obligatory toiling in town first. We managed somehow. The first day began with Jamie, Mike, Jack and me unpacking our wings in the grassy courtyard of Joab's hotel/boarding house.



It was slow going but after a breakfast of fish soup..mmmmmmm...we all got off the Cruzita launch, an eroded cliff launch about 30 cross to the prevailing wind set back from the main ridge in a strong rotor. Everyone made it off unlike last year and it was off to the races.




This was the pre-race psych out session where we sized everybody up for the upcoming race. The Canoa race is a course of calculation. You fly it correctly or incorrectly. Once you have got the tactics down, only your glider can make the difference. For some reason, once off the hill I could rarely find Raul or Mikey for a comparison.....



This was the first flight on my new glider and it flew straight and was almost where I wanted it just from the hasty tune at the factory. Cruzita was nice both of the days we flew there, a little cross but still great soaring and good decompression from the all night drive to get there. Landings were tricky at high tide and some ended up in deep surf but had a huge rescue crew waiting so there wasn't too much drama.

Here I am coming in right around high tide.



The next day we spent the entire day travelling to Canoa. This is less than 100km if you flew it but we waited around 5 or 6 hours for the ferry that crosses the inlet dividing us from the Canoa cliffs. The day was spent in shops and bars and eventually we were across and on the road again.





We settled in at the Sol y Luna hotel like the regulars we are, and from that night until the day we left a week later, there was not a second night or day that it did not blow onshore. We basically flew until we were tired every day including the race days. Most practice days and some race days ended with an extra twenty miles tacked on for a north cliffs tour. We were able to visit the lighthouse again this year which is the northern extent of the ridge, way, waaay into unretrievable beaches. The ceiling was 400 meters almost every day which made the trip less stressful than last year's. Our videographer once again had camera problems and the north cliffs remain a legend to all those who haven't made the crossing. One day early on we all slightly overdosed on tequila, not quite intending to. The double shot catches you off guard. There was at least one day that I was completely useless, and fortunately that doesn't seem to matter at the beach. There were several days of tandems on the beach with Raul Guerra's tandem falcon on gear and Raul Larenas' 582 trike that climbs like a rocket at sea level. Just enough each morning to loosen up the arms for the race. There were some great views over the cloud deck that I wish I had captured but that will also remain legend.






These guys really know how to hold a comp. The awards ceremony was all out of proportion to the size of the race. The comp is actually the Ecuadorian nationals but is no more than a friendly gathering on the beach when you see it.



We were all full of pilsener by the time we hit town on the last night and the double shots were going down unnoticed until around 3 a.m. when Eduardo Senior backed the Toyota into a "hole" in the road in town which swallowed his truck. He unded up on the roof with an engine comartment full of sand and basically a totalled body. This allowed our crew a few extra hours the next morning to short pack the wings while he ran a bunch of oily gas out of the engine and cleaned things up. There was no longer a windshield so the 8+ hours home was with goggles and a lot of luck. Night fell and he needed us to run escort since he also lost his lights in the incident. That night in the Howard Johnson was the best shower I believe I have ever had. Even payed to have the clothes washed since I was on about round 4 with the shorts and shirts by then.



Our group this year was by far the best ever. It was hard to leave new and old friends and I'm already plotting my next trip. Hope to see everyone soon.

classic but not flying related

http://tubearoo.com/articles/92137/Family_Guy_Stewie_Kills_Colin_Farrell.html?autoplay=true

Igrejinha video

Found this vid on you tube. I put this huge, heavy camera out at the sidewire to do a spot for this action tv station out of Brasil back in January. Thought I would never see the footage. There is more but I don't know where to find it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNKB87D5H6s&mode=related&search=hang%20gliding%20hanggliding%20flying%20drachen%20fun

Project

It's about 2 meters span.

Full length D-tube, flat center section, a bit of dihedral on the tips.

Here is the top view, left out the last center sheet until I install the radio.

After I left Brasilia and sold my wing two weeks ago, I picked up where I left off on a project started in June. My friend Matt had mentioned an airfoil plotting program he was using to make templates for foam core cutting and I took a look at it one day. It not only plots airfoils, but it allows you to basically build the entire wing in 3D with all the cutouts for spars, webs, sheeting, te, le, etc. I just started screwing around with it until I had this sweet looking planform and I just had to build it.

Well the *free* trial of compufoil is sort of bs, as you will find the moment you click print. One sheet of ribs will print on the 100% scale, while the next is purposely skewed to prevent you from getting anything useful, especially on a tapered wing like this where every rib is different. It took quite a bit of time, but after a lot of print screen, save, print screen, resize, ......I finally manipulated the second page to print on the correct scale.

And that was the beginning: two sheets of paper with 15 airfoils for each wing half. I used airfoils that were in the compufoil database, RG15 at the root, transtioning to SD8000 at the tip. RG 15 is fairly common for thermal models, and is not at all pitch stable for a flying wing. SD 8000 is a symmetrical stabilizer airfoil, pitch neutral. I think I stretched them a little to make a thinner profile also. So the wing's stability will come entirely from twist, zero reflex. The wing was built flat but the twist will be added with the covering. My last flying wing was based on twist as well, so I should be a little closer with my twist guess this time.

Some of the simplest materials that are so easy to acquire in the states can be difficult or impossible to find here. First, at the hobby shop, which is actually a really decent store, I was only able to find balsa, no hardwood, and the balsa was only of the worst quality. It took an hour of digging through every sheet they had to pick a dozen pieces that would work. Second, I still don't know where to find epoxy. Although I know it's around, I just haven't worked out where it is sold. Number 11 Xacto blades...nope. My favorite building board, those suspended ceiling tiles used commonly in office buildings....not a chance. And finally, wax paper.....I would pay 50 bucks for a roll of wax paper right now. So the wing was built on a sheet of white styrofoam with a layer of some poly-whatever that was non stick and see through and held in place by seam pins...no T pins available. And, surprisingly it all worked great. Actually the total cost of materials to date is around R$55. $30 usd. Pretty incredible. So the entire wing has been built with only balsa and CA, not a stick of hardwood or a drop of epoxy. You get pretty creative trying to make things strong enough when you're limited. The D tube is key, but the vertical grain, full span shear webs do all the work that hardwood spars would have.

I plan on using 2 HS 56 servos in it, hitec feather receiver, and a tiny battery pack. I will ebay them back in AZ and bring them with me next time around. There are some beautiful places around here to huck this thing so it will be nice when it is finished.

Brasilia comp behind, next up Canoa

Just finished the comp in Brasilia that went pretty much perfectly except for a couple windy days. I was flying better than I ever have in a comp, although not every day. Some things clicked since the worlds and I don't even know what it is exactly except maybe I am making slightly cleaner decisions about when to top out, when to leave, how fast, left or right or straight, and I am trusting some of my own decisions more when the gaggle decides differently, and it is paying off huge. The conditions were flatlands, strong, light winds, clouds. These are my best conditions so I am still aware that I will struggle on odd days or in the mountains. The turbulence was mildly intimidating on a couple days but nothing crazy. On the worst day an Aeros pilot did an outside loop followed by a tailslide and multiple tumbles resulting in him going home the next day with a crooked glider bag full of broken shit. I was low in the same area but didn't experience that air, however I do remember having to glide with about 1/2 vg for a few miles to feel comfortable near there. Chris Smith got a front row seat and it seems that the parachute took a bit of time to open before finally popping cleanly and lowering him into the hills. Most other days were excellent with high cloudbase and good racing.

I just read a story from a blog where a pilot claims to have been climbing poorly, was advised to raise his sprogs as this would help him, and afterwards began climbing like a rocket! This and other misconceptions about how to tune a glider can have bad outcomes if taken to extremes. In this example, obviously he hasn't compromised his safety since he is raising his sprogs, but raising the sprogs and improving the climb are completely unrelated assuming he doesn't climb with full VG, just as lowering the sprogs beyond a certain level is completely unrelated to bar pressure. I see a lot of gliders with way low sprogs and questionable setups. Perhaps it is time for a compilation of the collective knowledge of comp pilots, designers, and manufacturers in a format understandable and useable by all pilots of comp wings. The wings are so similar now that almost all techniques can be transferred between different gliders. It would be great to see it on a cd with video from inside and outside the sail, all vg positions, tip wand positions, mid section concentric changes, cg changes, ballast, varying amounts of reflex/flaps, etc, all in a controlled condition with the same pilots on the same gliders, maybe gliding against each other after one makes a change and the other does nothing, and so on. I think an intelligently edited version of this would be a huge hit with people buying racing gliders.

Sold the wing here so I will be coming home with just a harness with clothes stuffed in it. That will be a nice change. I'm picking up the new wing, tuning it up, and heading down to the Ecuadorian coast for a week of ridge racing at one of the best coastal sites in the world. I think I could live there, the flying is so good. Sounds like the normal crew will be there plus a few other top pilots to spice up the racing event. I heard the launch was improved recently making the airflow up the dirt ramp much cleaner. Should be a great time.

back to AZ

Here are a few pictures I lifted from blogs, emails, etc. I broke a tip on the landing but borrowed another one and won 300 dollars on the next landing. Jonny would have walked with 500 dollars but had already decided to split with Kraig... Texas is over, Brazil is ahead, and right now I am getting some great flights in Arizona between storms and 110 degree days.

pic Mark Knight


This is from the other night over at a local hill in the middle of the city. Flew till I couldn't see the ground anymore and landed by the lights of a city park. While everyone else is losing sites and airspace is closing in, the FAA recently altered the airspace in Phoenix and the change goes into effect Ocotber 25th. We are gaining 1000 feet at one site, 2000 feet at another. Pretty sweet, too bad I'll be cruising the cliffs in Ecuador when it all goes down. Working on a ticket to Brasil right now, cutting it close but hope it works out and I should be flying in Brasilia by this Sunday

Itamonte, MG, Brasil

Last week I went 800km north from Curitiba to fly in the 4th edition of the Brazilian circuit. Itamonte has the only true mountains I have ever seen in Brasil, at around 2500 meters altitude.

Flying was nice considering we are in the middle of winter here. Even on the blue, inverted days we were able to do between 60 and 80 km, 2.5 hour tasks over cool terrain. Landings were almost all hillside rotor affairs but winds remained light all three days so it was pretty mellow. Takeoff was more like what I'm used to with a prevailing over the back wind only blowing in because of thermal and rotor. Even with little to no wind, the launch ridge was very turbulent by my standards. As soon as we left it became very smooth with light consistent thermals and big gaggles.

Goal was always in town which was cool since it's in the bottom of a valley circled by small hills. If you clear the ridges, you make goal. Some pilots would come in super low and have to turn to follow the backside of a ridge, pop out a small side ravine, then squeak it in over trees and houses. Others pushed a little too far. I had one slow day after I misread my borrowed gps and went the wrong way for about 10km, then got back on track and had a decent finish. The second day I simply fell down after wrongly assuming the day would be as good as the day before even though we didn't have clouds. Lesson learned and day 3 was a great experience and really good practice for my weak point: weak days. I got a late start but had the patience to lead a small gaggle around the course rather than run off and try to win the race on every glide and every decision. Final glide was cool.

A malfunctioning electronic gate at the house where I left my harness last week left the garage open suddenly in the middle of the night on the weekend. Three kids came in and left with bicycles and my harness bag. They were confronted by the owner of the house a couple blocks away where they dropped the harness in the road and ran away with the bikes. Unfortunately they had already found my Flytec 5030 and the third kid was long gone with it. So this comp was flown with a regular gps and simple vario, both borrowed from generous locals. My confusion the first day was compounded when I checked the track log mid flight to find it was 100% full. I assumed that I had just lost the day but continued to fly anyway just in case. Fortunately it was on 'wrap when full', which saved the day. Still hoping to find that 5030, going to try a door to door hunt this weekend. We know their faces.

Some recent shots

Test flying new leading edge configurations over San Bernardino captured by Dave Freund.

Photo by Dave Freund

Universal "you lead out" signal, usually followed by the other pilot doing one more circle as you glide away. My current wing is gliding *well*. Photo Dave Freund.

Jeff Shapiro in Montana on the wing I flew at the pre worlds last year.

On glide with Konrad on a flight from Andradas to Campinas. We had an amzing final glide after a super cool winter flight of 80 km.

More stories later.