Hi Rick,

I can only endorse Phil's enthousiasm of Aspres! It is gliding heaven there, apart from the Mistral and frequent thunderstorms in september. It would be fantastic to meet up there. Your pictures on the site are a big help for me to understand the sometimes complicated constructions.
Next summer will be to soon for me though, but the summer of 2020 my CD must be finished and I will, if I am allowed, fly from Aspres with it.


Hope to see you there. (Is it expensive to put a trailer with a CD on a ship?)


EJ

Hi Erik.
I'm glad I could be of some help! Glad that you are restarting your project. Most people don't appreciate the size of the project and once they quit they are done.Hopefully next summer we can all meet up there!

One of the Carbon Dragons at Wallaby ranch came from Britain I think it was. The guy gave it to him but I think the shipping to the US was about $10,000 US dollars!

Just in case I'm not explaining myself well, if you don't have something to pull the stick or cable back, as it will be if you just follow the plans, the glider will dive when you let go of the stick. If you are adding enough ballast so it's not doing this I would be concerned you are creating a too far aft CG. I would do another weight and balance to insure you are still in the allowable range.

Just in case I'm not explaining myself well, if you don't have something to pull the stick or cable back, as it will be if you just follow the plans, the glider will dive when you let go of the stick. If you are adding enough ballast so it's not doing this I would be concerned you are creating a too far aft CG. I would do another weight and balance to insure you are still in the allowable range.

Thanks for that Rick - I wasn't aware that the weight of the elevator might be the source of my apparent CG problem. I think I'll stop monkeying around with tail ballast until I can do another weights and balance measurement when I get home. I'll jury rig a bungee and make-shift cleat on the stick in the mean time. It shouldn't be too big a job to retrofit a  mass balance near the center of the elevator that slots inside the horizontal stabiliser either side of the #1 rib. There should be enough space inside the H-stab to allow full +/- elevator travel.

Phil.

Fantastic...I think more flight video than all the other CD videos combined (hint hint). 

The mass balance thought is still going to be more weight very far aft.  I like the bungee trick better especially if  all the other CD's do it.

My experience with gliders (I am rated) was that it was almost impossible  to land without spoilers engaged, the aircraft wants to float especially in ground effect.   On your first flight you did what I think would be very hard....congrats and what a fantastic pilot too.

Hi Phil, I looked at my Discus today to see if there is a weight that balances the elevator. On the ground it is horizontal and seems to be only holding that posotion because of the springs of the trim. Maybe there is an antiflutterweight somewhere in the system, but I must ask the technitian. Om the pushrod for the elevator there are two springs attached that meet on the triimknob. By moving the knob along a threaded rail, one can adjust. The weight of the elevator seems to be compensated by the different loads on the.springs. I figure that can be build in on the cable behind the mainframe and made adjustable by a piece of string endind via pulleys next to the flap handle. The weight of the elevator will then be the natural maximum downtrim.otherwise it gets complicated and on needs pushrods.i would not put more weight in the tail than neede for the static cg. If the stick is neutral in flght and you need some force to hold it that way, the CG is alright and I would add a bungee to compensate for that force.