Originally Posted by PeteSchug

Pale Male. He resides in the high rent district on the upper east side of Manhattan. He does urban soaring almost every day. This shot taken with a 500 mm zoom on my Nikon D90.

Pete

That's neat. Sorry, no photos here, but I was at a local park yesterday on lunch break, watching some gulls riding thermals over some soccer fields. They weren't very high in the sky and I kept thinking it was perfect conditions for the ASK-21. The area was just the right size for quickly setting-up the hi start and launching away.

Seems like this one would be a great candidate for piggbacking to altitude . Sure would not take a very large or powerful electric plane to hoist it .my 52" WS GP Electro Stik would not even know it has a hitch hiker on it. My past experience piggbacking is a lot easier / safer than towing but them I never claimed to be a master of towing either. I know a lot of tug and glider pilots make it look easy.

Now if the ASK-21 glider had on board GPS so it would circle over the release point so that one pilot to take it aloft,land the powered plane and then fly the glider ,what a wonderful it would be.

I know I spend way to much time flying all by myself. I have a great flying site with covered pit area,4 AMA type safety benches, picnic table lots of open area(hay field) to fly over and rarely does anyone else come to the field. Best part is that it is only 6 miles and 10 minutes from my house. Worse part is that I am the sole grass cutter and have to trailer my mower.

Charles

Originally Posted by everydayflyer

Now if the ASK-21 glider had on board GPS so it would circle over the release point so that one pilot to take it aloft,land the powered plane and then fly the glider ,what a wonderful it would be.

Charles

That's a fantastic idea!

Add that to the list HH.

Pete

I still wish someone from HH could answer the question about a lipo cutoff, whether its a noise indicator or whatnot. Kind of a need to know thing for some of us thinking about preordering.

Originally Posted by interplanet

I still wish someone from HH could answer the question about a lipo cutoff, whether its a noise indicator or whatnot. Kind of a need to know thing for some of us thinking about preordering.

My guess is that without a motor to run the battery will last a long, long time.

If there's room you can stick the 200 mAh battery in. 200 mAh at 7.2 v is 1440 mW which is a lot of mW's to drive four teeny tiny servos just a little at a time even if you do aerobatics on a ridge all the time.

I am not going to worry about it. I've flown my 1S J3 and Champ for really long periods of time WITH the motor running though not full throttle. The ASK-21 uses a 2S battery and no motor.

If they put an audio low voltage signal in you probably won't hear it anyway!

Edit: practical limits. My longest thermal flights have been around 45 minutes. Maybe I get tired quickly or I don't like getting a stiff neck, but my personal endurance is probably less than the ASK. I may have to get a lounge chair to do some serious testing.

Pete

Want to learn how to thermal purchase a Ascent ( I have my original red one from years ago , converted to BL of course) and a copy of the Old Buzzard's Soaring book. Title may notbe exactly correct but is close.

If conditions are good enough then it is amazing what can be thermaled. Over 30 years ago I used to thermal a Gleen Spickler Quicky 500 on really good thermal days.It was build to mininum race weight and had a K & B .40 on it.

Charles

Battery life could be determined to a great extend to how active the AX3X system is.

Still needs to be controlled on and off. HH personal stated there was no reason to turn it off as everything flys better with it on. As long as they maintail that stance I will most likely avoid anything with it in it. Guess I had bettere start looking at GP Micros.

Hey Charles.

I've been flying for almost fifty years. I think everyone misconstrues the use of gyros. They just extend the range of conditions under which you can fly.

I haven't yet flown any of the HH three axis systems but I've got hours on my 9 oz. pico Tiger Moth FPV that has a gyro in it. Stuck it there in the hope of better video and fly it under the most horrendous conditions you can imagine. Glued it back together several times when the wind smacked at low altitude. I can't see any reason to ever take the gyro out. It doesn't interfere with my control, but it does help steady the cam and make gusty conditions seem less gusty.

Pete

Originally Posted by everydayflyer

Battery life could be determined to a great extend to how active the AX3X system is.

Still needs to be controlled on and off. HH personal stated there was no reason to turn it off as everything flys better with it on. As long as they maintail that stance I will most likely avoid anything with it in it. Guess I had bettere start looking at GP Micros.

You're making a mistake, a big mistake.

All the gyros do is counteract any sudden, commanded movement in the axis' they are on. In practice, that means you won't be tossed about in turbulence so much.

Originally Posted by PeteSchug

Hey Charles.

I've been flying for almost fifty years. I think everyone misconstrues the use of gyros. They just extend the range of conditions under which you can fly.

I haven't yet flown any of the HH three axis systems but I've got hours on my 9 oz. pico Tiger Moth FPV that has a gyro in it. Stuck it there in the hope of better video and fly it under the most horrendous conditions you can imagine. Glued it back together several times when the wind smacked at low altitude. I can't see any reason to ever take the gyro out. It doesn't interfere with my control, but it does help steady the cam and make gusty conditions seem less gusty.

Pete

Exactly. People get horribly confused about gyros, often thinking that the gyros do all the flying.

Originally Posted by ducatirdr

I think micro rc gliders are a great idea. I saw this video and thought to myself about trying something like this.

Guy slope soaring off a building

This video had me think how cool it would be to have a smallest slope contest and oddest slope contest. With the right conditions you should be able to fly off some unusual lift sources.

Then there is artificial slopes like this....

http://www.sciencetoymaker.org/airSurfKit/index.htm

I think we're gona find lots an lots of places we never dreamed of to slope soar this little gem!!!! A smallest and or oddest slope soaring contest would be cool!!! All you need is a small knoll or a long tall building with relatively unobstructed space in front with wind blowing directly at face and you've got a mini slope. Or,,,, how bout a mini slope duration contest???
I once briefly held national record for slope duration in open class flying a 106in wingspan scale sailplane similar to the ask. I flew her for 12 hours 35 min in 2001 out on coast at Eureka Calif.
And as for you guys who Wana practice micro thermaling,, I'd suggest the Micro champ, it thermals surprising well!!! Which forbodes REALLY REALLY well for this new micro ASK 21!!! If I can thermal a champ for 45 min,, I should have no trouble getting thermal flights of over an hour with this much more streamlined and efficient sailplane.

Or,,,,, how bout some micro dynamic slope soaring????? Don't know if this little guys wings could take it though!!!! For those of you not familiar with dynamic soaring , look it up on you tube.lots of videos there of people doing it. It's basically flying on the backside of a sharp edge ridge to attain incredible soaring speeds. I believe current world record is somewhere around 240mph with an RC sailplane!!! :-O

Originally Posted by Airman74

Or,,,,, how bout some micro dynamic slope soaring????? Don't know if this little guys wings could take it though!!!! For those of you not familiar with dynamic soaring , look it up on you tube.lots of videos there of people doing it. It's basically flying on the backside of a sharp edge ridge to attain incredible soaring speeds. I believe current world record is somewhere around 240mph with an RC sailplane!!! :-O

I think that is up to 487mph
http://www.rcspeeds.com/aircraftspeeds.aspx

Originally Posted by interplanet

I still wish someone from HH could answer the question about a lipo cutoff, whether its a noise indicator or whatnot. Kind of a need to know thing for some of us thinking about preordering.

Thermal and slope pilots don't need an indicator

Originally Posted by Airman74

Or,,,,, how bout some micro dynamic slope soaring????? Don't know if this little guys wings could take it though!!!! For those of you not familiar with dynamic soaring , look it up on you tube.lots of videos there of people doing it. It's basically flying on the backside of a sharp edge ridge to attain incredible soaring speeds. I believe current world record is somewhere around 240mph with an RC sailplane!!! :-O

Way off. Spenser Listenby set a record of 468 the broke it with a flight of over 480. For small stuff at low speed SpeedsterDen does some neat flying on the back side of sand dunes in Denmark. He also has a video or two of DSing the drop off on the side of a road. Most of his slow speed DSing is with the Alula.

Listenby manufactures the Kinetic series but an all out DS plane fully equipped is at least a couple of thou and if you make a mistake the crash gives a new meaning to the word total.

Speeds are measured on the upslope against the wind because it's the only place they can be radared. The estimated airspeed on Listenby's fastest run was around 550 mph.

They also turn at about 50 to 70 g and they make a might roar. You can hear the change in noise as they cross the shear line.

If you're skeptical go check out the DS forum. These guys are for real.

Pete