I few this ‘Riser’ for the first time yesterday.
I didn’t bother with double taping the spoilers as this was only to be a flight off the slope.
I kept debating whether to launch her yesterday or not, the winds were a little gusty for something as light, and of the design as this little girl.
I could hear two distinct little voices in my head;
Voice #1
“Go on,…you’ve been dying to try her out! :twisted: It could be months before you find ‘perfect’ conditions ”………Voice #2
“It too gusty. :? Even if you manage a successful launch, landing her in these winds is going to be problematic.” Obviously voice #1 won the argument and up she went. And up. And up! She is certainly very good at gaining height. Eventually, after putting in a lot of down trim, she stopped gaining altitude. However she was flying very ‘nose down’. May be it was just a function of the strong lift.
She has a propensity to drop her left wing. Lots of right rudder needed to keep her level. Not sure what the reason for that is. Static weight wise the wings are balanced.
From a flight point of view I’m wondering if it would be better to add weight to the right wing half, or simply leave in right rudder trim to maintain straight flight? :?:
She bounced around on the wind for 10 or 12 minutes, always wanting to go higher, till it was time to land her.
This proved, “interesting” having never landed a two channel polyhedral before.
The down wind section was fast and as she came over the ridge she gained height before I could push the elevator stick forward to cancel the climb. The turn onto cross wind caused the ‘inside’ wing to drop considerably. Now loosing height the consequent gain in air speed gave much better rudder control enabling her to ‘crab’ against the cross wind and not blow back towards the trees that line the far edge of the landing zone on the west slope.
So to the turn into wind and her final approach. (This is where it got a bit hairy! :shock: ) Picture this in your mind.
By now she’s lost a fair bit of height, she’s probably 1-2 meters above the landing zone. As I turn her into wind, again the inside wing drops. "SHIT!" The only way I can level the wings is by centering the rudder, but then she wont turn fully into wind. Somehow with a combination of small rudder movements to and fro, I get her facing into wind, but now she’s way off from my intended landing area (on the heather, for those who know the slope I’m referring to,) and although I can’t see exactly, I think she’s flying above the road some 40 or 50 mtrs behind me, just in front of the row of trees
Now, having got her to face into wind, she looses all forward momentum and just hovers over the same spot. I know the ground beneath her is quite uneven. She’s less than 1 mtr above the ground. I eased the elevator stick gently forward hoping she might start moving forward a little towards smoother ground. No such luck, she just gets lower, then drops onto the ground. I see one wing half fly up into the air and blow backwards.
“Oh great!!” I say to myself out loud.
“First time out, and I break her!” In fact the damage wasn’t so bad. All that had happened is the little 5mm dia carbon wing joiner had snapped and one wing half had slipped out from underneath it’s retaining wing bands. No damage sustained, apart from a dent to my ego! :oops:
Like I said, an interesting flight. Next time I’ll wait till there’s just a gentle breeze.
Keith.
