Cheers Randy!

If you take another look at the video (6.00mins in) you'll see that the rear anchor cable is attached to an aluminium plate that is secured to the ground with long, 1" diameter pins. I'll take a few close-up photos of the various parts of the bungee system tomorrow and post them here. The anchor cable goes to a release mechanism just aft of the main wheel. I think I posted some images of this earlier in this thread, but I'll dig out a few more shortly.

I'm with you - there aren't enough videos of the Carbon Dragon flying (cough, cough, Rick!) so I'll do my best to make up for that in the near future!

With Tuesday's bungee session successfully completed (and a couple of minor repairs made!), the next step is to take the glider out to an airfield and tow it up (10' - 200') behind the car in small increments of height, so that I can start doing some gentle turns and ultimately a few circuits. I won't be hill-launching it until I have the air brakes working satisfactorily. At the moment they are held closed by a couple of 8mm bungee cords which require too much force on the pull cord in the cockpit to open easily. I'll have to use a thinner bungee (~6mm) and possibly a reduction pulley block. Watch this space!

All the best,

Phil.

More videos? I'm trying to save all the glory for you!! Maybe Randy hasn't seen this video...still my favorite.



I say just go for it. I did a quick tow to 20 feet to insure weight and balance and controls we OK, then did a tow to 2500 feet in dead calm air. Maybe I could have been more conservative but after the load test, thorough preflight by me and several friends, and a low short hop to insure it was balanced and controllable, I was confident the wings weren't going to fall off and I felt there was less chance of damaging the glider (and me) by getting some distance between me and the ground. That way I had enough altitude to spend several minutes in the air getting a feel for how it flew before I had to land. Spending too much time doing low tows when you are unfamiliar with the wing i think puts you at higher risk for an accident. Of course you need the right location. I had a 3000 ft grass runway with few trees and lots of landing options.

Hehehe! Yeah, I re-watch that fly-by every now and then just to light the fire again!

Fields in Ireland tend to be fairly small and are either surrounded by rock walls, trees or gorse - I need to be certain I can get this sucker in to my preferred LZ (the aptly named 'Bone Setter's Field') before I lob off the side of Mt. Leinster!

Gotta say, though, my initial impression is that this is a really docile, floaty glider

Phil.

With the spoilers on the wings (instead of the center drag brake in the plans) it is much easier to get into a field with the CD than it was with my hang glider. Add or remove spoilers as needed, so controllable. Very mellow, forgiving glider.

I'm looking forward to the first flight video

Not understanding your location restrictions so please excuse if I am out of line......but an airport or glider operation might be a place to do car tows for initial testing at maybe a little higher than what you are getting with the bungees. I would also think a tow to altitude at a glider operation would be the next step, and after that jumping off mountains. I do not think you want to be going into a short field on your first landing, better an airport/glider field.

Hi Don,

I couldn't agree more! The problem is that we only have one glider port here and their grass strip is too short to get any decent height on a car tow - it also undulates horribly and has to be cleared of sheep before use! There are a small number of private strips (for microlights) and all are shorter than I'd like (~400 - 450m). My one hope is that Kilkenny aerodrome (1100m) will let me use their grass strip early in the morning before it gets busy with their sky diving operation. Watch this space...

Phil.

PS - not sure if I mentioned it earlier, but the new aft release works really well - super easy to release under full bungee strain.