Hi Rick,

Congratulation to finishing dream project of most of us. Can´t wait for more videos and words from You. When saw 1st flight vid, thought that is flown faster then needs to be - what range You tried? About spoiler - didn´t it turbulate flow onto rudder?

About reserve parachute - pneumatic fired chute sounds good - any video of firing tests ? About small ballistic chutes - Millenium rigid wings often used one - see vids on YTube - there is one that shows accidentaly fired Next is mechanically (spring) thrown chute that was used in swiss XXTherm project - new XXTherm 2 seems very interresting and they claimed that it should be much cheaper then APteryx.

btw XXTherm is using 3piece wing structure - I am fan of it although still looking for best junction of wing parts.

Marry Christmas and Happy New Year
Jeri

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Rick Mullins wrote:
>
> It took almost 4 years but I took the first flight yesterday. Everything went well and I was surprised to even have a little lift to work on a cold winter day. First impressions: The sink rate and thermalling is awesome. The controls will take a little getting used to. The roll control feels a little strange. I have no experience in sailplanes and only about 400 in small planes. The roll pressures are heavier than I expected and while the stick is mostly neutral in the center as you start getting to the extremes the stick wants to "fall" the rest of the way to the limit. Maybe a quirk of the way the way the triangular control block works as it goes over center or maybe I don't have something adjusted quite right? Maybe someone here who has flown one can comment. But over all I can tell I'm going to have a good time with this. The day after Christmas I'm heading to Florida, warm weather, and thermals to get wired into this thing.. I've uploaded a few new pictures of my first flights.