Took the MiniMax to the mountains today, chucked it off a cliff at about 11,000 feet, and she flew like a champ. Stock everything, using a tiny 7 cell 720mAh AAA folded battery pack.

Climbout was, as expected, not great, but flew some slow circles, trimmed for nose up attitude and before I knew it, had her about 150 feet above me, so now flying at around 11,150 feet.

It was just awesome seeing the Mini flying with the ground around 1,000 feet below, tapering to 6,000 feet below. There was a 12,000 foot peak nearby in the background, and just made for a fantastic flying experience.

I flew her about 50-75 feet below where I was standing (on the edge of a switchback dirt road), but was afraid to get much lower, for fear I wouldn't be able to get her back up to land. It's really neat to be looking straight down at your airplane, seeing the top of it, as your flying.

Didn't have my doggone digital cam with me, so no pics. NEVER leave your digital camera at home, folks.

I highly recommend this type of flying to anyone who hasn't done it, it's quite unique and cool.

-Steve

That's very cool! I've wondered about how altitude would affect parkflyer sized airplanes

Martin

Yeah, that's cool! Please post some pic as soon as you fly again! Hm, I wish there were mountains here in Berlin!!!!!

alex

If you go up there again, take some props with more pitch. That high I can't make a recommendation as to how much more pitch - I find about 20% is good for 6000 - 7000 feet (as compared to sea level). I've not experimented with even higher altitudes, primarily for lack of opportunity.

But glad to hear that it worked!

BTW, what mountains?

I am jealous. I can't get mine to fly at 4500 feet let alone 11,000 feet. As I have posted on a thread about minimax by Cal Dude recently mine won't fly at all.

I think more pitch would have helped the climbout, for sure. The Mini was definitely not climbing like usual. I'll try more pitch on my next outing.

The mountains were the La Sal mtn range, in SE Utah, near Moab.
Here's a pic:





Eventually I want to try the San Juans. I was thinking of heading up Engineer Pass, which tops out at 12,800 feet, so I can break my MiniMax current record. (unless she won't fly that high...)

Here's the pic, didn't attach for some reason on the first try...

Here's a pic of the La Sal mountains
I took this a few years ago when we first bought the Durango and I was showing it off. The LaSal's just happen to be in the background

Beautiful area. I spent a goodly portion of my growing-up time southeast of you there in Shiprock, NM. We go through Moab on the way to visit my family in Santa Fe whenever we go back. (Santa Fe's where I've done my "high altitude" experiments that I've written about on the Ezone.)

The motor doesn't care about altitude, but the wing and the prop do. The wing needs to fly faster, and adding pitch to bring your current draw back to what it is at your base altitude will give you very similar performance to what you'd otherwise expect. But watch the approach speeds!

Another way, if you're geared and have the flexibility, is to reduce the gear ratio some. I found that going from 3.6:1 to 3.3:1 did the trick when going from near sea level here to Santa Fe on our last big trip back that way (but that was in a much bigger model - a Sig LT-25).

I've dreamt of flying out of the meadow at the top of Wolf Creek Pass in Colorado, and with light weight low loading airplanes I think it would be very doable - say a Switchback.

Try a GWS 8x6. Works good at sea level too.

I flew a DuskStik once at 14,000' and the biggest problem I had was the wind. It is rarely calm at that altitude.

Doug