Not much of a time, but what an adventure!

Plane: Radian Pro
Type of flight: Slope
Duration: 5:40

The forecast south wind developed today so I drove 40 miles to the slope, but once there the south wind lasted only 10 minutes, then did a complete 180. I was fortunate to get the time I got on the first flight. During the second flight the wind had switched to blowing 20+ away from the slope, but I pointed the nose into the wind and managed to get good altitude out over the valley, (probably 500' over us, but 1000' over the valley), when suddenly a stiff gust came out of nowhere and seemingly instantly inverted the plane. Before I got a chance to react I noticed the canopy drop away, then immediately afterward another small swiftly falling object fell away going straight down.......fast...........yikes....the lipo!!!! As the canopy fluttered down like a bird my RP instantly went tail heavy and started slowly looping down from speck altitude just loop, loop, loop with obviously no control whatsoever; seemed to take hours to descend, but it was less than a minute. We stood and watched in awe as it looped it's way down around the corner of the hill over a half mile away heading, for what looked from our perspective like an ignoble end in the farm fields below......none of us could see where it hit, or whether it hit the side of the hill or landed on the flats below. Two guys started walking around the hill, and two other guys and myself drove around to other vantage points trying to spot where the plane landed. It took one of my friends driving all the way a couple of miles down and around the bottom of the hill to finally spot it from the below after about an hour of searching. As the crow flies it was at least 3/4 mile away from where we were standing, still on the side of the hill and invisible from above. We all expected it to be in pieces, but the most remarkable part of the whole story is that due to the tall grass on the hill, and the agonizing slow loop the plane made descending, there wasn't a scratch on the plane!! After tumbling nearly 1000' down under no control at all, it was totally unharmed! I call it worth a canopy and a lipo to get the plane back, (along with the Hitec 2.4 rx and Soaring Circuits CAM intact,......whew!). That ended our day flying, but all the guys were relieved that we had managed to find it, and surprised that the plane survived; after watching that spectacular descent so was I.
So, with that adventure behind me, I ordered a new canopy, and will take my meezley 5 min time and feel happy to still have my plane!!
We were all so dumb struck by the spectacle of it all no one thought to grab a camera, so you'll have to take my word for it, but my Radian Pro dodged a big bullet today, and hopefully I'll have a better time next month!!

Sonny

Originally Posted by JumpySticks

Looks like a good time was had, in spite of the DQ.
2400'....man that's way up there.
Thanks for the plot.
What logger do you use?

G'day JS
Yeah I'm pretty stoked with the altitude. Well it was good for a while, I'm quite the noob to thermalling, and I can tell you when she went Instrument Flight Rules I got quite panicky! I was under a Cu-Nim then as getting a bit downwind pushed upwind and circled over the top of another raggy bit of cloud She circled out then it was a bit of a fight to get her lower, or so it seemed. Pretty amazing for a 200 AUD RTF with a better prop. Be more concerned at loosing the logger than the A/c.
Its a Hyperion Emeter II Remote Data Unit. May have another go tomorrow weather permitting.

Cheers
Ross

Originally Posted by sonny1

Not much of a time, but what an adventure!
...............
Sonny

man o man that's amazing Sonny, shame you missed the Kodak moment
And the best part is you got her back
Live to flight another day

Cheers
Ross

Originally Posted by sonny1

Not much of a time, but what an adventure!

Plane: Radian Pro
Type of flight: Slope
Duration: 5:40

The forecast south wind developed today so I drove 40 miles to the slope, but once there the south wind lasted only 10 minutes, then did a complete 180. I was fortunate to get the time I got on the first flight. During the second flight the wind had switched to blowing 20+ away from the slope, but I pointed the nose into the wind and managed to get good altitude out over the valley, (probably 500' over us, but 1000' over the valley), when suddenly a stiff gust came out of nowhere and seemingly instantly inverted the plane. Before I got a chance to react I noticed the canopy drop away, then immediately afterward another small swiftly falling object fell away going straight down.......fast...........yikes....the lipo!!!! As the canopy fluttered down like a bird my RP instantly went tail heavy and started slowly looping down from speck altitude just loop, loop, loop with obviously no control whatsoever; seemed to take hours to descend, but it was less than a minute. We stood and watched in awe as it looped it's way down around the corner of the hill over a half mile away heading, for what looked from our perspective like an ignoble end in the farm fields below......none of us could see where it hit, or whether it hit the side of the hill or landed on the flats below. Two guys started walking around the hill, and two other guys and myself drove around to other vantage points trying to spot where the plane landed. It took one of my friends driving all the way a couple of miles down and around the bottom of the hill to finally spot it from the below after about an hour of searching. As the crow flies it was at least 3/4 mile away from where we were standing, still on the side of the hill and invisible from above. We all expected it to be in pieces, but the most remarkable part of the whole story is that due to the tall grass on the hill, and the agonizing slow loop the plane made descending, there wasn't a scratch on the plane!! After tumbling nearly 1000' down under no control at all, it was totally unharmed! I call it worth a canopy and a lipo to get the plane back, (along with the Hitec 2.4 rx and Soaring Circuits CAM intact,......whew!). That ended our day flying, but all the guys were relieved that we had managed to find it, and surprised that the plane survived; after watching that spectacular descent so was I.
So, with that adventure behind me, I ordered a new canopy, and will take my meezley 5 min time and feel happy to still have my plane!!
We were all so dumb struck by the spectacle of it all no one thought to grab a camera, so you'll have to take my word for it, but my Radian Pro dodged a big bullet today, and hopefully I'll have a better time next month!!

Sonny

Great story Sonny!
The plane was pretty light without the battery. That probably helped with the soft landing.

JumpySticks any pointers just got my logger in and did a quick test. How do you have yours set up yo give the data you post?

Originally Posted by RTF Thumper

JumpySticks any pointers just got my logger in and did a quick test. How do you have yours set up yo give the data you post?

Thumper,
Take a look at this blog post.
If you have any questions, send me a pm.
There are a number of options you can select using gps visualizer to give you more or less information.

Radian RET, two meter
Thermal entry #2
02-26-12 1:00 PM
54:50 flight
North Las Vegas, NV

winds were aprox 3~10mph
30 sec climb to 907 feet
max altitude 3076 feet

Originally Posted by Vegas_flyer

Radian RET, two meter
Thermal entry #2
02-26-12 1:00 PM
54:50 flight
North Las Vegas, NV

winds were aprox 3~10mph
30 sec climb to 907 feet
max altitude 3076 feet

Nice flight Vegas! Super high flying.

Would you please do me a favor and give us the time from motor cut-off to landing? Looks just a little bit off to me. I'll post after the correction.
Thanks in advance.

The eagletree logger is new and I have yet to figure out how to do the things I was doing with my other logger. This is about as close as I can get.

Total time on log is 55.48 min where it drops off the graph
subtrack 1.79 min at the start and the flight should be 53.69 min.

I attached the Eagletree FDR file if anyone wants to take a look.

Originally Posted by Vegas_flyer

winds were aprox 3~10mph
30 sec climb to 907 feet

Nice! What's your power system? 300 meters in 30 sec is damn good.

Still working out the rough spots but what a blast just a quick test
Thanks JumpySticks, you were very helpful. Now if I could get the logger to start at 0 instead of our actual elevation.

Originally Posted by labrown

Nice! What's your power system? 300 meters in 30 sec is damn good.

All stock (prop, motor and speed controller) with a new "Turnigy nano-tech 3s1300mah" batteries. I'm also hauling up the Eagletree Glide Variometer System, which added ~1.5oz to the plane. You can look at my flight log: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...ostcount=11096 It show three filghts, 960ft first, 800ft second and 600ft on the third. Not real happy with the losses on each flight. I might cut my timer back to 20 seconds of power.

Chris

Wow. That's some nice performance. Set up stock, my radian just barely makes 200 meters in 30 seconds. I've got a CAM time/altitude limiter in my plane. I put Graupner 10x8 props on and can make 200m in 22-24 seconds now.

My third launch on the same battery does around 200 meters in thirty seconds.

Originally Posted by RTF Thumper

Still working out the rough spots but what a blast just a quick test
Thanks JumpySticks, you were very helpful. Now if I could get the logger to start at 0 instead of our actual elevation.

I think you've got it. I usually add tracks as well as points, and a shadow to see the ground track.

If you try to adjust the altitude to zero the plot will be below the ground where you are, and you will see nothing. It plots from sea level.