Fun With My Hobie Hawk

[webguyjv]

Today was a gorgeous day at Del Valle Regional Park (Livermore, CA) where it was sunny, crystal clear sky, light clouds, moderate slope lift and thermals brewing in and out on a regular basis. Very nice.

I wanted to fly my Moth sport sloper but some of the flyers that arrived before me were up, and one of them (my buddy Jerry Hall) is also on channel 15. This meant since I had no spare CH59 crystals, I cold only fly the Hobie Hawk. I was a bit nervous about this as I had mostly only flown it in fairly light slope lift. I was intimidated as 2-3M glass slope racers were happily zooming around inthe lift and I was afraid to do something dumb and crunch my new Hobie.

I decided I couldn't wait till Jerry had finished flying and launched the Hobie Hawk. What ensued was about 35 minutes of delightful flying, at some points specking out nicely. The Hobie Hawk is patiently teaching me to core thermals and I'm having a ball!

I could have continued flying for another 30 minutes or so, but Jerry told me CH15 was free and I wanted to try tearing up the nice slope lift with the Moth. After Jerry landed, he obliged me by flying the Hobie for me while I took these photos...

[webguyjv]

I wanted to mention that I am constantly amazed by how flexible this plane is. For a crunchie RE sailplane, it's very versatile - taking hard brush landings in stride with no damage, handling strong slope lift situations, etc...

Another amazing thing is that this time last year, when the slope lift became poor, I would break out my e-glider and fly. Since I've been bringing the Hobie Hawk along with the e-glider, I haven't assembled the e-glider yet. I think this plane has such a wide range of acceptable flying conditions - it constantly amazes me.

Hey Cactus Jack - if you read this, I wanted to tell you that Dave Kellog says "hi". I saw him two weeks ago in Carlsbad, where I was flying my Moth, and we got to talking about my new Hobie. He told me his Hobie hawk stories, gave me lots of good advice, and also told me that he knows you and he's very impressed with your hobiehawk.com Web site.

Happy Flying ;-)

Hobiehawkguyjv :cool:

[IceDancer]

Webguyjv,

I bought an original Hobie Hawk, used, on the E-Zone and I hope you can help me out.
When I install the wings and stab on their rods, then tilt the Hawk on its side, both the wing and stab on the down side start sliding off their rods.
My question is, how do you keep the wings and stabs from sliding off their rods?

I am refurbishing this one and this concerns me somewhat.

Thanks.

Sam.

[Culver10]

On my Windfree, I bend the parallel rods (wing and stab) apart in the horizontal plane so they are not parallel. This slight bend puts some side force on the tubes which makes then hang in there.

[webguyjv]

...When I install the wings and stab on their rods, then tilt the Hawk on its side, both the wing and stab on the down side start sliding off their rods. My question is, how do you keep the wings and stabs from sliding off their rods?...
Sam.

Hey IceDancer :)

Congratulations on your new Hobie Hawk. You're gonna love it!

As for the rods, there are many possible solutions. Bending the rods could be one, but I don't recommend that as it will make it difficult to get the rods through the fuse and vstab. I recommend simply going to your local supplier and getting some new rod stock, that fits in the holes better. If the fit is really loose, to where the panels literally slide off, I think that's the best solution.

On my Hobie Hawk, the wing rod is pretty snug in the fuse, but sort of loose in the wing panels. I put removable tape on the top of the wing roots for each flight. It's similar to electrical tape, but it comes in different colors, in like 1" widths. When doing this, the wing never pulls away from the fuse in flight.

On mine, the elevator panels stay in place with the rods that came with the plane. I found no need to replace the rods or do anything else.

One other alternative, is to pull out the mechanical items that are pressed into the fuse (they might be something like spring steel sleeves), and replace them. If they got weak over the years (not unusual when considering that all Hobie Hawks are at least 20 years old now), it's very likely that the rods will no longer have a nice compression fit.

Happy Flying ;-)

John