...a chance to fly before the rain arrives in force! Yesterday was very frustrating. The forecast was hot so, despite a beautifully calm and cool morning, I didn't take the Walrus for fear it might melt in the car during the day. However the hot weather forecasted never happened as a cool chance arrived early, so a perfectly good morning's flying gone to waste.
The calm evening boded well for a delayed opportunity to get into the air. Having waited for the sports practices to end, I eagerly headed out the door with Walrus in hand anticipating an enjoyable half hour of floating Wally around in the sunset. Except, as I stepped out of the door, the gentle breeze turned instantaneously into gusty winds. Turn on heel, unload Walrus and glare annoyedly at waving treetops from inside...
So this morning my expectations were not high with heavy clouds populating the horizon and the treetops moving despite the early hour. Nevertheless, somewhat desperate for the opportunity to catch some air I packed the Walrus and headed off to work.
Climbing out at the field I was delighted to find the breeze gentle and steady, and hints of drizzle on the windscreen happily abeyed. So, battery connected and camera in place, the Walrus headed off to say hello to the cloudy sky...
...except for the ninja magpies I had a very peaceful fly this morning at a local sports field. The weather started off sunny then quickly grew heavily overcast from the East, with dark grey clouds threatening imminent rain. I launched the Phoenix 2000 with barely any breeze at all, and it glided contentedly into the overcast sky. Due to the major surgery done on the wings, I wasn't wanting to do any high-G manoeuvres in case of catastrophic failure. However I was wanting to assess the performance of the Phoenix with the new 2200mAh battery, the previous flight having been too breezy to really see how it went.
Well I had good opportunity, needing to outrun magpies flying at the glider with intent. I have figured the best method of dealing with these assaults is to maintain or gain altitude. In this endeavour the Phoenix performs well, climbing steeply under full power and rapidly gaining height. While it's long wings mean it's not the most agile, once it's seen off the attentions of the xenophobic avians, it glides with consummate ease and grace. In calm conditions the flaps are quite useful, slowing the approach down to a comfortable pace. I also did do some flying with the flaps down, allowing slow cruising at very low power - most relaxing experience. The landing in calm weather can be a little challenging, mainly because it is easy to misjudge the approach because of the good glide characteristics. Additionally, the trees surrounding most of the field necessitate a sharply banked turn onto finals. Nevertheless, I managed bring the Phoenix with two pretty good landings to end an enjoyable morning's flying...
