Little bird

A Sunday afternoon… Boring but wait what’s that? Did I hear the trees moving in the wind? Yes, there is a bit of wind around. I made a quick call to see if Mike is keen to take a trip to the slope?

We arrive at Maitlands at about three o’ clock and there is very little wind about.

Mike is going to be the guinea pig with his Mazda Zagi.

His session was almost like watching a fishing competition. Catch and release or should I rather say release and catch. Needless to say that there was not enough wind to keep a Zagi aloft.

My turn now and it is going to be another maiden.

I won this glider at the Hermanus Slope competition last year in November. I don’t know what type it is or what it is called. It was already built up and I just needed to add servos, battery, receiver and horns.

But what I can tell is that its all up flying weight is 425 grams.

The launch was quite amazing for a maiden. She floated right out of my hand nice and easy. No real trim was necessary. I would like to add at this point, that the wind strength was hovering around 8 to 10 km/h - really light conditions.

No problem for this little bird. She floated quite happily along the ridge and managed to find enough lift to even keep good altitude after a loop.

The only criticism I have is with the ailerons. I found they were very sluggish and I definitely need to address that. A bigger servo horn or adjustment of the torque roads should do the trick. I use an old fashion 27 Mhz radio and therefore don’t have the luxury of digital adjustments.

This glider is a great addition to my hangar especially for these light days. I can see myself tearing up the slope where as my friends can only standby and watch, their big, fast planes grounded.

Last but not least, there is a doctored picture amongst the above photos.

See if you can spot it.

Hey, I just thought of a name for this plane. “Little bird” What do you guys think?

Enjoy the pics

Markus