Off subject.

I wish I new what causes the sudden dive. I’ve had several dives. Once another plane was taking off and I was way out and up high. Both planes made a dive. Mine recovered when I gave it up. The other one crashed as it was low. I was blaming my set up or radio.

I enjoyed reading about the comparison. Both sound like good gliders and airfoils make a difference. How one flies also makes a difference. Some when properly trimmed preform real well but if off a little are dogs while other may not have that sweet spot were the performance is really great but is good when the trim is not spot on. Generally most glider airfoils have a CL/VD around 35 while others have CL/CD of 45. Those at 45 are not usable in general for gliders but if one hits that sweet spot the improvements are great bot one flies off that sweet spot most of the time.

Art

Don, thanks for the offer, but the MA was a total write-off: truly shattered. How the equipment survived is a mystery. I must say it did less environmental damage than the 93-oz Ellipse, parts of which were un-extractable from the hard ground.

And yes, that last flight was gorgeous, floating around with the sun blazing though the covering. Epic.

This morning I got high on pure air with the YJ, though. Even at nearly 20 oz, it climbed out on some barely- detectable (by me anyway) lift.

Originally Posted by Don Stackhouse

Just to clarify, we do NOT have a 100" Monarch Ascension in development.

We DO have a 3-meter (118") Monarch Ascension in the final stages of development, mainly waiting for me to finish writing the instruction book for it....

Hi Don:
Any chance the instruction book for the 3M eAscension will be done before Christmas? Or at least think about taking pre-orders so I can ask Santa to put one under the tree?

I would like to think so, if I can manage to get Murphy's Law to give me a break. Right now I'm hobbling around with a cane after a little mishap I had out in the barn a few days ago. In any case, if it's not before Christmas, it should not be long after.

Ed,
I sent you early Christmas gifts to your private email.
O'l Kyle

Originally Posted by Don Stackhouse

I would like to think so, if I can manage to get Murphy's Law to give me a break. Right now I'm hobbling around with a cane after a little mishap I had out in the barn a few days ago. In any case, if it's not before Christmas, it should not be long after.

This sounds exciting. Some of us have been waiting many years for this moment. Best wishes for your recovery, Don.

Randy, formerly from Montrose, Colorado.

I was hoping to have it ready in time for Christmas. Obviously that's not going to happen. However, Jan./Feb. looks reasonable. Two cracked ribs, a cracked vertebra, a broken tooth, and eight staples in the back of my head don't actually seem to be slowing me down too badly.

Sorry for your bad luck Don. I am sure everyone who like me is excited about your 3m Ascension would understand if you were to take a little break.

Get well soon and
Merry Christmas.

Curtis

How did the barn make out?

Still a work in progress. It's an old barn (1856), and there's some areas that needed serious TLC. We've been working on it for three years now, and we're coming down the home stretch. However, I was out there late last week after dark, looking for something, and happened to step on an area where the floor joist had been removed for replacement (the floor there was also about to be replaced). The unsupported floor boards broke and I fell through to the dirt floor of the lower area eight feet below, bouncing my head down the side of a beam on the way, and then bricks and planks rained down on top of me. All things considered, it could have been far worse.

I am really looking forward to getting this all done. One of the big projects after the barn is finished is building something I've wanted to have for a couple decades - my own wind tunnel, optimized for very low Reynolds numbers, with a 3x4 ft working section, and top speed around 100 MPH.

It hurts hearing about it.

Don, if you can get laid up as bad as you did in a barn with zero wind, please do be careful when you get that wind tunnel roaring at 100 mph. You will need some very small-chord airfoils to get low Re's at 100 mph!

Hope your healing progresses well. Dang.

Originally Posted by EdSoars

Don, if you can get laid up as bad as you did in a barn with zero wind, please do be careful when you get that wind tunnel roaring at 100 mph. You will need some very small-chord airfoils to get low Re's at 100 mph!

Hope your healing progresses well. Dang.

Don't worry, it will be capable of speeds UP TO about 100 MPH MAXIMUM. Just because that power is there doesn't mean I have to use it. I'm really more interested in most cases in what happens in the range of about 5-20 MPH.

As far as very small chords, just like very low thicknesses, that's something I already have plenty of experience with.

I have wanted my own wind tunnel since I was a kid. Recently I wa thinking it would be handy to be able to rapidly protype stuff with a 3D printer and test.

The big hurdle is that for a working section that size and those kinds of speeds, you need about 40 horsepower or more, so it's not a small undertaking. Also, at those kinds of speeds the static pressure inside is much lower than outside (Bernoulli), so the walls need to be built like a pressure vessel. There's a lot of force trying to collapse the tunnel walls. If you don't plan for that, your tunnel could quite literally eat itself.