I live on a remote ranch in eastern Oregon with high mountains about 20 miles away and foothills of about 2 miles with hundreds of acres of grass hay fields. This year has been dryer than normal and this august has been awsome for super boomers especially in one field we just plowed and is bare dirt.Some of the thermals have been 1/8 to 1/4 mile wide and with no wind (not even a breeze) the thermals are scarry. i have a Phoenix 2000 742 from hobby king and the other day i wanted to see how high i could get it up as my arf e bot or my oly 2 e , so i took it out and launched to about 500ft and throttled back and started circling in a really wide circle till i was disorientated and gave it full down elevator and could barely get it back down to 1000ft thermaled up again and it was a speck then lost sight in the sun. gave it full flaps and full left rudder and full up elevator and finaly saw it,gained control and landed in my field. This is the highest i have ever been and i have no idea how high i was, It was scarry but exzilarating to say the least

Here's one that scared me. The plane was a brand new RE stretched (+/-120") Sagitta 900. Someone else built it without spoilers and this was just my second day testing.

At about 10 minutes (800 seconds on the graph) and 2,500 feet I was determined to get it down. That's when the big sawtooth pattern starts. I was spiraling, but it was so high it didn't look like it was coming back. Next I would try a different piece of sky. This is where it was going up again, 600 fpm at times. I finally realized victory when I went inverted. The highest point is 3,140 feet, around 960 meters. This was in flatland Michigan, not California.

The plane now has spoilers.

How high is too high? It depends on air clarity, plane color, and whether there are clouds in the background. I don't remember the exact conditions, but the biggest danger with this 3m wood plane was over-speeding once I tried to come down. Yes - it was getting very hard to see, but what's worse is not knowing how fast it is going.

Tim

600 fpm - that's what makes me the most nervous when I'm getting near specked out. I may still be able to see the plane well enough - but I worry that if it starts to go up really fast, I won't notice until it's a little too late.

Originally Posted by 2motheus

. Yes - it was getting very hard to see, but what's worse is not knowing how fast it is going.

EXACTLY... My Culrais started a MEAN flutter once when I was trying to bail out of huge lift. I could have sworn it wasn't going all that fast, but at that altitude it sure was hard to say for sure. Then all of a sudden a huge blur replaced the plane, and that was with full crow/butterfly. I think I'll be getting the speed telemetry module next. I never thought of having one for a glider, but after that flutter it sure changed my mind.
And as a testament to the Cularis, it seems non worse for wear after it's brief dance with a HUGE amount of flutter. I'm sure a wooden ship would have disintegrated.

Originally Posted by GliderJim

- but I worry that if it starts to go up really fast, I won't notice until it's a little too late.

Yep, that's why I set the voice alarm on my telemetry to alarm @ 1000foot. It gives me enough altitude to play with, but if the next reading is mush more, I can start an exit plan early. Already payed off once since I started using it.

Hi All, Just after posting my last flight i went out again two days later and the same thing happend but this time i tried to speed out of it in a dive, had to swich out of dual rate to 100% but it worked just fine. I don't know how fast i was going but the plane held up just great.

Hi Rcva8r2,

The Cularis I have will take 70-90mph dives using ET seagull.
You had to be hauling A to explode.

I have a 17ft4in stretched BOT and over 30mph gets the wings fluttering, so I have the ET tele-downlink in for air speed. Takes a long time with crow to get down when keeping ~25mph or less.

Originally Posted by kilwein

Hi Rcva8r2,

The Cularis I have will take 70-90mph dives using ET seagull.
You had to be hauling A to explode.

COuld have been that fast....or obviously faster. Hard to say as at that altitude it was hard to judge the speed. I did measure with a GPS a few times, and during normal flying, I think 56MPH was the max, and that's when I tried a mild dive to see what it would do.

Probably my 8th flight with my Marauder (2007) I specked out near what was most likely about 2,500AGL. However once I turned back to come home, it kept going UP!

I really don't know, but my 3-meter woody was probably about 3mm across at it's highest. The best part was simply pointing the nose down while popping the spoilers halfway. I had the quad-spoilers installed at that time and it dropped her like a rock.

Once near the field I sucked 'em back in and did what was at least a 60+mph pass. Rock-solid, no flutter.

Glad I'm getting her rebuilt...

Originally Posted by jtlsf5

Lenny has a good point. In the age of too easy communication on the net, plus over exuberant government types trying to keep the world safe from the three idiots that would ever actually try to use a model for subversive purposes, this thread is ill advised. Previous response deleted.

If the government makes it against the law for me to fly my model airplanes , I will break it . . .

Originally Posted by Scott Whitney

Its too bad we now live in a time where we must fear our own government. If they can limit how high we fly, how soon will they prohibit models capable of flying too high? And if someone designs a model capable of flying too high, will they send the "thought police" after them?

I can see it now, a father and son, flying a model they built together. Suddenly a SWAT team surrounds them and with guns drawn the cops say, "Drop the Futaba or we will shoot".

I feel much safer now.

Me too , especially after I was arrested for offending Homeland Security at the Nashville airport and spent three days in the Nashville jail .