Working through the hanger

[Simon Chaddock]

With the recent nice. hot and fairly calm weather I have endevoured to fly all my planes.

Yesterday was the turn of the Endurance and went thermal hunting.

Quite low powered and with its low aspect ratio broad cord wing in does not look too much like a sailplane but it glides quite slowly and has a low sink rate along with a big battery.

The thermals were hard to find and not very obvious but with well over an hours 'cruise' endurance available it was rather comforting to know I could safely motor about and would likely to get tired before the battery.

After just short of an hour (about half under power) and most of the time flying close to the limits of my vision (white is not a good colour when edge on!) I decided enough was enough.

Now if only I had a remote vario on board.........

Edited By Simon Chaddock on 27/07/2012 20:14:26

[Simon Chaddock]

Although the Endurance can within limits thermal well enough it did set me wondering how much better it might be with a proper high aspect ratio glider wing.

I had intended the 2m wing I built for the larger Giant Dragon to use an undercambered section but as the construction method itself was untried I 'chickened out' and adopted a simpler to build Clark Y.

I had in mind a wing with the same total area as the broad Endurance one and using the same sort of balsa spar and Depron construction but with a 12:1 aspect ratio and for the first time the undercambered Eppler 195 section.

The hot fine weather has gone so it seems like a good time to start something!