Ok... What're the rules on posting a link to somebody else's video on YouTube? I sure hope it's ok... because here one is:

First test hero2 on Hype WOW (4 min 9 sec)

I've posted this because the last 60 seconds are a superb view of this guy's spoilerons in action! You can clearly see the throw he gave it, the sink rate he gets, and the smile on his face when it plops into the grass at his feet.

Boom.

Bringing the Blaze in at our field (yet to hop over the fence but it does!) with left aileron to turn on to the strip. The wind is quarter crosswind and just a tad of throttle on.

That looks nice David. Have you tried using spoilers yet? Maybe 10 mm or so on both sides. Remember that when the plane is coming to you, you may have a bit of a problem gauging the speed. Try to off set yourself a bit to the plane if you start having a problem judging the speed of the plane and it stalls on you.

I should mention that once you are low and slow enough and once you have spoilers deployed, it is best to use the rudder stick for directional control. Of course if you have a cross wind, you will put some ail into it. Just watch the plane closely that it does not want to tip stall on you. Using rudder will help to prevent tip stalls.

Originally Posted by David Hipperson

... The wind is quarter crosswind and just a tad of throttle on.

Good point, know it or not.
That article I mentioned above? Covers that point. Says that (& I used to be guilty of it myself) most guys try to dead-stick their landings. Bi-i-i-i-i-g mistake!

Originally Posted by StarHopper44

Good point, know it or not.
That article I mentioned above? Covers that point. Says that (& I used to be guilty of it myself) most guys try to dead-stick their landings. Bi-i-i-i-i-g mistake!

Hmmmm .. that is neither accurate or correct. I dead stick most of my gliders ... then again some of them do not have motors on them. Just saying.

I suppose I should add that on page 11 of the Blaze manual, it is shown how to assemble an unpowered glider.

Originally Posted by David Hipperson

Bringing the Blaze in at our field (yet to hop over the fence but it does!) with left aileron to turn on to the strip. The wind is quarter crosswind and just a tad of throttle on.

So do you cut the throttle a moment before you touch down?

Originally Posted by Obake

I should mention that once you are low and slow enough and once you have spoilers deployed, it is best to use the rudder stick for directional control. Of course if you have a cross wind, you will put some ail into it. Just watch the plane closely that it does not want to tip stall on you. Using rudder will help to prevent tip stalls.

I don't usually fly using rudder but I've tried it out on this plane and it seems to not give much in the way of directional control but rather a bit of yaw and quite a bit of pitch. Is that normal? I'm guessing its got something to do with the v-tail as my other t-tail plane doesn't really pitch at all with rudder input.

Originally Posted by Obake

Hmmmm .. that is neither accurate or correct. I dead stick most of my gliders ... then again some of them do not have motors on them. Just saying.

I suppose I should add that on page 11 of the Blaze manual, it is shown how to assemble an unpowered glider.

FWIW, my comments didn't pertain to YOU per se, nor only gliders. There aren't sufficient gliders flying (or pilots piloting them) to comprise any majority of the term, "most guys". We're talking all airplanes, & the vast majority are powered. And keep in mind that 1:1 pilots are schooled (can't say they're 'trained' if it doesn't take *LOL*) to not chop throttle completely but to fly the plane down onto the runway, with (reduced) power. Simplest reason - if there's a problem & they need to power out for whatever reason(s) for a go-around.

Nevertheless, I owe an apology I guess, as, I've confused the referenced article with another one I read about the same time....and that one is the one which covers that dead-stick glide-to-touchdown is a 'no-no' point. And alas, I can't find the darn thing now! It's somewhere in my bookmarks, but they'd take 3 days to pick thru. Hopefully the explanation or expressed reasoning here is sufficient to understand the comment. But I'm truly embarassed at my mis-construal of those two essays. Just further proof that my memory is just a memory!

Originally Posted by johnwohl

So do you cut the throttle a moment before you touch down?

I don't usually fly using rudder but I've tried it out on this plane and it seems to not give much in the way of directional control but rather a bit of yaw and quite a bit of pitch. Is that normal? I'm guessing its got something to do with the v-tail as my other t-tail plane doesn't really pitch at all with rudder input.

John ... it is late and I am short on time so here is the fast explaination as to rudder. Yes you are correct about how the Blaze responds to rudder input. These V-tails on the Blaze and its cousins are lacking in most cases. I had to stengthen the moving surfaces of my V-tail with carbon plate to stiffen it up.

There is more to this however. V-tails are trimmed differently than the standard cross tail or T-tail plane. As a rule, you will need to put some differential into the V-tail rudders. By this I mean that you can start with a 2 mm difference in the up and down deflection numbers of both sides. For an example on a left turn you would have the left rudder deflected down 3 mm and the right rudder deflected up 5 mm. You could also look at it as an 8 mm total deflection between the two rudders.

When a V-tail turns, one rudder wants to push the nose up and to one direction and one rudder wants to push the nose down and to one direction. Thus you have to play with this differential to find what works best with your plane.

Once you have the deflection worked out, the plane will want to make a more normal turn. Even then, on the Blaze it is still a little lacking. I mentioned the rudder previously as most people forget to use it, especially when the plane is in trouble and low.

On the factory Blaze it is almost a wash to even try the rudder but I did want to mention it to you as with spoilers deployed and at a slower speed, if a stall is induced and you apply power and aileron input, you can induce a very fast stall. That is why with spoilerons out you want to use rudder primarily, as the ail and spoilers are the same control surface in the case of the Blaze.

Hope this helps. Enjoy your plane and keep plugging at it. Learn to guage the mass of the plane and its moving energy during landings and you will be pinning them dead on soon enough.

Thanks for the responses, all very interesting. As I mentioned I do have spoilers enabled but up to now just have not found the need to use them. I did on my Sprinter and do on my Siren.

Yes, I do chop the throttle completely on landing but the amount and use varies with each approach as one deciding due to strength and direction of wind to make up your (my) mind.

Another comment I'd make is that when going to another flying site take extra care as wind conditions down to local trees, buildings, contour etc. can change the need for how you land. Even what you see in peripheral vision can unsettle the fliar until familiarity kicks in.

Originally Posted by StarHopper44

FWIW, my comments didn't pertain to YOU per se, nor only gliders. There aren't sufficient gliders flying (or pilots piloting them) to comprise any majority of the term, "most guys". We're talking all airplanes, & the vast majority are powered. And keep in mind that 1:1 pilots are schooled (can't say they're 'trained' if it doesn't take *LOL*) to not chop throttle completely but to fly the plane down onto the runway, with (reduced) power. Simplest reason - if there's a problem & they need to power out for whatever reason(s) for a go-around.

Originally Posted by StarHopper44

Good point, know it or not.
That article I mentioned above? Covers that point. Says that (& I used to be guilty of it myself) most guys try to dead-stick their landings. Bi-i-i-i-i-g mistake!

I have no idea what the glider to powered ratio is, nor is it important for the Blaze or the topic at hand. The quoted comment in RED is inaccurate for the intended target and his application of power during his landing process.

At the very basic level the statement is wrong as non-motorised gliders land every day with out crashing. The premise of what you quoted are that pilots make a mistake when they try to dead stick a plane. In actuality, if there were an accident, then at a minimal the pilot did not understand the flight characteristics of their plane and let themselves get into a situation that is dangerous.

As for David applying a tad of power on his landing, your quote was also inaccurate. On these motorised RC gliders, we often apply a tad of power not to keep the plane in the air or to maintain some sort of a power band, we apply the power to slow the plane down. Yes, slow the plane down. That big blade windmilling or just barely running induces drag and will help to slow a glider down, not a lot but some.

This is not an attempt to argue with you, but simply to show the facts of a situation so that other readers do not make decisions based on incorrect or inaccurate information.

Originally Posted by Obake

...

In actuality, if there were an accident, then at a minimal the pilot did not understand the flight characteristics of their plane and let themselves get into a situation that is dangerous.

...

The part of your statement quoted above is the key to the entire premise, except for one detail which could be added to make it more germane to my point: "...did not understand the flight characteristics of their plane and how those characteristics interrelate with the conditions present and let themselves get into a situation..."



In the original article I cited, it was by an airline pilot, titled 'Anatomy of a Takeof', in which he notes as his central theme that taking off per se is not his biggest concern when taking off - his biggest concern is stopping. Here's the exact words:

"I don’t worry about taking off–I worry about stopping.

Why? This sounds so simple that when you think about it, you’ll have to agree: aircraft are made to fly–not drag race.

Huh?

Look, accelerating 85 tons to nearly 200 miles per hour builds tremendous kinetic energy. Not a problem for the landing gear if you take off because it’s simply rolling. But if you must stop, the brakes and wing-located speed brakes have to dissipate that energy within the length of the asphalt ahead. The runway length is finite, the aircraft weight is unchangeable once you’re rolling. So where is the point of no return, the point after which there’s not enough runway to stop?"

The emboldened sentence is the key to what I was saying to David.

It is an absolute fact that every time I fly with 'the guys' at our club field - EVERY time - I see guys make, for the point of brevity, 'poor decisions' as to going around to make a good landing. It seems that they make a decision not in the best interest of their plane's surviving unscathed, but as a challenge of, "I can get this thing down, this time! And every day, I see them walk out into the bean field to retrieve their plane and/or the broken pieces, or at best, making an unneccessarily long walk all the way to the end of our 850' runway & back in retrieving their plane.

They didn't know, or at least admit to themselves, at what point the No-Go decision took precedence in the order of things, combining the characteristics of the plane with the conditions present at - or before, actually, the decision-making point. And not just rookies - I see it from those and the experienced pilots as well. Almost at the moment of turning onto final, I can see trouble coming in nearly every case that it does, and I'm standing there thinking "Go around Go around GO AROUND" but no, they don't. It's like they're thinking "I'm landing, and land I shall, NOW, come hell or high water." AND IT DRIVES ME NUTS! I've even seen our club's head instructor do it. Repeatedly. I've seen him yelling LANDING instructions to a student who I knew had made the decision to go around! "Stall it into the beans!!" 'The Thing' that gets me is, I can see these guys missing the decision point - why can't they?!? But I'm over-elaborating.

Now, to get back to David & the point at hand. Perhaps you were there, or have talked to David via the 'back channels' - I don't know. I wasn't & haven't, and I can't read his mind, so I can't presume to know what David was thinking when he wrote the caption for the picture he posted. So all I have to go on is what he wrote and the picture itself. To the best of my memory it was in conjunction to his post about having difficulty bringing his Blaze down in a 'short area'. I couldn't help thinking the two were connected. The caption itself says: "Bringing the Blaze in at our field (yet to hop over the fence but it does!) with left aileron to turn on to the strip. The wind is quarter crosswind and just a tad of throttle on."

"(yet to hop over the fence but it does!)" -- I see a fence behind his plane. But the words say "yet to". This can only (and did) indicate to me there's another fence ahead of his plane - out of the picture - he has yet to hop. And that he does hop it.

"...and just a tad of throttle on." The picture clearly shows that. How you know David was doing that to reduce speed, I have no earthly idea. I took it as, he has power on to make that fence he has yet to hop. Good decision, I thought. Rather than try to only glide it over that (in my mind) final hurdle before touching down. 'Good' in that, he's maintaining power if needed for a go-around, eg if between that last hurdle & actual throttle chop for set-down, trouble develops.

Perhaps I completely mistook David's words, & you somehow know better. But all I had to work with was to take them at face value along with what I saw in the picture, and his topical prefacing remarks about getting into a shortened field. But in any regard, I stand completely behind what I said - in that the cited article covers that point - ie of maintaining power during landing. If you feel my remarks were "incorrect or inaccurate", so be it.

Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving!
~Hopper

I won't enter any discussions if they proceed in to any heat but I'll try to clarify any aspects of what I've said or meant.

We are really lucky in that our flying field is owned by a farming family. Our area is part of their own strip for their own personal full size light aircraft but these are rarely in use and, obviously, we all respect the use of both models and F/S.

Because there are cattle in use (not on the flying strip areas) there are numerous fences. The one you see in the background is somewhat foreshortened by the photo but ahead and relatively close to the Blaze is a similar meter+ high wire fence. Just ahead of that is a low single row electric fence but only 600mm or so high. This all sounds much more complicated than it really is but they are hazards and you have to be aware of them. I'll be as honest as I always try to be in that to some degree these difficulties actually sharpen your flying greatly. When living for a while in the UK we flew on a disused war time airfield and because of the almost unlimited availability of space one became very casual about flying.

Now, there is discussion about power, whether on or off etc. When I used to fly sailplanes such as Paragon, Olympic and similar models sometimes, if my memory is right, called California floaters the only way was down. As I said earlier planning your landing usually started several circuits high simply because you had to figure out where you intended to put the model down. Aids were virtually nil regarding electronics on transmitters (I didn't have rates for quite some time) and the occasional fitment of on/off air brakes to some models could be a huge help but you still had to plan. For most forget ailerons and crow/butterfly etc was non-existent.

Our modern electric sailplane even in a model like the basic Radian or an Easy Glider Pro is a revelation simply because we accept all of the aids as being normal. I'm not whinging because if used properly they make life much easier and I fall into the category that does use these aids. But every benefit brings a certain degree of failure to make the very best out of the skills and knowledge you might acquire without them.

I wish each and every flier the best but all the bells and whistles around are unlikely to teach you to fly properly but they improve the skills as your flying progresses.

We don't have it here but hope you had a great Thanks Giving.

My own electric foamie sailplanes.

Originally Posted by David Hipperson

I won't enter any discussions if they proceed in to any heat but I'll try to clarify any aspects of what I've said or meant.

Nor will I, SH seems to take umbrage when his posts are challenged, regardless of accuracy or not and feels a need to write a page of rebuttal. So be it, I have no problem with that.

You, having 5 gliders, really should not have too many questions about the Blaze.

My gliders are trimmed correctly, fly and thermal correctly. I posted a few tidbits of knowledge for those that will recognise them.

I will bow out of this thread now. Best wishes to all.

Originally Posted by Obake

On these motorised RC gliders, we often apply a tad of power not to keep the plane in the air or to maintain some sort of a power band, we apply the power to slow the plane down. Yes, slow the plane down. That big blade windmilling or just barely running induces drag and will help to slow a glider down, not a lot but some.

How do you do that? I imagine just like one little notch or two of throttle to get it spinning but not enough to provide any thrust? When do you shut it off? Do you shut it off a second before you hit terra firma or no? Sorry, but I'd never heard of that technique before. Makes sense though.