[Bill Cummings]

Looks beautiful.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Looks beautiful.

I endorse Bill's comment 100%. You really did a nice job on that John!!

[jcoyier]

Bill and Bob,
Thanks for the compliments.....much appreciated!
John

[jcoyier]

Session #12

Session #12

Date: Monday Feb 15, 2016

Cummulative flights to date: 18

Number of flights: 1

Site: Peterson's Butte lower launch, approximately 400 ft vertical to the LZ.

Conditions: Warm low 60's , partial overcast with scattered cums, SW at 15

Configuration: Using the leg harness attached to upper trailing edge (does not allow me to kick up into the cage, body position is vertical)

Assistance: Had a person on each wing tip to maneuver the glider to my launch point mainly to keep from hitting cars I had to maneuver around getting over to launch. I had little trouble maintaining control without assistance once in the clear.

Launch: Uneventful, got in maybe three steps before being pulled off in the lift.

The flight: Got concerned quickly about my clearance margin over the tree line west of launch. I turned right very soon after launch and experienced some turbulence. Felt I had my hands full maintaining the heading I needed for the shortest approach to the LZ. It became quickly apparent that using the leg harness for any duration at all is a real liability. It takes a fair effort applying enough forward pressure on the hang cage to keep the glider from slowing to a stall. This also gets in the way of actuating the rudders. By the time I got to the LZ my arms were exhausted and this was only a 400 ft hill. The photo shows me about halfway to the LZ. Notice the vertical body position this harness configuration puts me in. Great for takeoff but does not allow me to get into the cage.

Session_12.jpeg (40.22 KiB) Viewed 4564 times

Landing: This was the most maneuvering I have done setting up an approach. It required me to line up along a power line, crab along it and then drop into the field LZ. I felt in total control on approach and the flare was easy with only a couple steps to full stop in a 10mph SW breeze.

Conclusions: I need to get rid of the leg harness and start learning how to fly without it. I will need to go back to the coast where any mishaps will be done over sand. At my current skill level the clearance over the trees right off launch is too marginal to be safe. I should get to a point where I'm able to get to trim immediately after launch to maintain a safe margin.

[jcoyier]

Session #13

Date: June 1, 2016

Cummulative flights to date: 19

Site: Kiwanda

Conditions: Shirt sleeve weather, gentle breeze, did not need to secure wing as I set up.
Harness configuration: bare glider
Assistance: none
Launch: steep sloping dune in approximately 12mph somewhat steady breeze

The flight: Walked tail to the breeze on the way over to the dune without too much difficulty. Forgot the bare root diagonals so had to use the faired ones making it difficult to keep from bumping the fairings with my helmet otherwise it presented no problem. I think I can reasonably fly with these in place as long as I'm not needing to carry the glider 300 yds and then climb a steep dune backwards.

I am guessing I had about a 12mph breeze at the top of the dune where I launched. I was launching for the first time with nothing but the shoulder harness to carry the glider. I kicked up right away with no trouble other than a fairly significant pitch up which I was able to correct quickly by moving both feet well over the leading edge. I felt I was flying plenty fast but also felt like I was getting a very good glide out of the path I chose. I will have to get some experience doing this to really develop some finess and get it so I minimize the pitch changes. All in all the glider seems very easy to control on launch, during launch, in flight and landing. I started to carry back to my tarp which I flew way past and then thought “mission accomplished”, no need to go do this again here so I just carried on out to my car and packed up.

Landing: I ended up staying in the feet up position until I was about 10ft off the ground and as soon as I dropped down the nose came up rather quickly and I think I counteracted it with pressure forward using my arms or just moving a bit forward in the cage. Ran it on a few steps to a stop.


Conclusions: After feeling like this had been so easy to do, I neglected to analyze my experience today more carefully. I am really wanting to be ready to go inland and launch off something that will give me some time in the air to really fly the glider. At this point I make the critical error of deciding that I can safely launch the glider from Dog Mtn which is a ramp launch with a huge, wide open LZ and about 1500ft vertical. It is about 3 hours north of where I live. I had already made one trip up there with the intent to fly and aborted the idea after driving all the way up there, setting up the glider at launch and then started thinking things through. I decided it was too big of a risk since my only experience at that point had been flying with the leg harness arrangement which I learned from session #12 that my arms wouldn't last all the way down to the LZ. I had rigged up the hammock harness arrangement and realized I was about to take a risk of doing two things I had not yet practiced; 1) fly using the hammock and 2) launch off a ramp. The conditions were also unstable so I expected to get some turbulence which was also something I had not yet experienced. I packed up and went home which was a good decision.

[jcoyier]

Session #14

Site: Dog Mtn
Time: approx noon
Conditions: SW breeze 5-12 with cycles where you could hear it in the trees at launch, 80-85F very warm day. Direction and velocity were cycling.
Cummulative flights to date: 20
Assistance at launch: left wing tip
Number of flights: 1 crash immediately after launch

Dave and Dianna Auman where at launch with a friend. Dianna and their friend launched and were having OK flights from what Dave could see. I decided to have Dave assist me while standing on the ramp to get a feel for the conditions to make a decision on whether to attempt a launch. I had Dave on my left wing tip. From what I recall, he was actively assisting me 80% of the time I stood on launch. This should have been a clear indicator that I should reconsider attempting a launch. The breeze did not feel consistent and even the best cycles did not come straight in. This also should have been all I needed to scrap the attempt and wait to see what the day would bring. I launched anyway. The launch on that short ramp had me intimidated but my run and take off felt OK with the wings reasonably level. Immediately after launching I got my right foot up and over the leading edge but I was unable to put enough pressure forward with my hands to keep the nose from pitching up significantly. About the same time I felt I was turning left and input right rudder to correct. I applied too much rudder and found myself in a sharp right turn at a high bank angle headed for the treeline on the right side of launch. With no room left I held things steady and slowed the ship down with the slim possibility that I would clear the tree line. I was 6-8ft short and impacted the only dead snag in the tree line. The glider hung up where it hit. I was easily able to disconnect from the sling attaching me to the glider and get out of the tree. The glider sustained significant damage. Very likely that I will need to rebuild the entire left wing panels which will take several months of shop time. My injuries were minor abrasion to my right elbow and major bruising to my rib cage on the left side.

What did I learn:
Cleaning sand out of the glider is a lot easier than a re-build. 20 consecutive successful launches and landings off a 70-80ft high dune might have been sufficient training to launch and land at this site if all of those flights had been in the bare glider or hammock sling seat configuration where I had mastered kicking up into the cage. This was a ramp launch, cycling breeze, slightly crosswind and lots more vertical to the LZ (read: intimidation factor)...my focus was getting up into the cage as quickly as possible having only done this once on the last session I had at the beach which was clearly insufficient.

What to do next:
I need to practice more at Kiwanda until kicking up into the cage becomes not only automatic but with as little perturbation in pitch as possible. Rudder control must also be much more automatic (part of what I experienced was over control into that right turn). I believe at least 20 more flights off the dune needs to happen where I kick up into the cage with very little pitch perturbation. This may take even more than 20 flights. The coastal dune site I have been using requires a right turn fairly soon after launch to avoid landing in the surf so my experience to date actually has given me some practice in making small roll changes without over control. The key here is that it was not enough training in the final flying configuration I will be flying the Easy Riser in. Recall from my previous training flight that it was the first time I kicked up both feet onto the leading edge and flew down in the cage. I had convinced myself that it was so easy to do I did not need to repeat it before going to the next step and launch from the Dog Mtn ramp. Needless to say I was wrong on that decision. Two things happening simultaneously I believe was key to my incident at Dog. Failing to execute the swing up into the cage without maintaining constant angle of attack and at the same time needing to make a roll correction to maintain a straight off flight path. Clearly I was unable to do both. Another part of this I did not get to explore was the landing which requires the pilot to drop both feet off the leading edge while holding pitch steady. I noticed this on the last flight off the dune. I dismissed it as something minor but feel it could cause a whip stall if one got in a hurry to drop while still well above the ground on approach. This glider is very easy to fly but will quickly spin in if stalled in a turn. The last flight I had at the beach I found it took a mental effort to let my feet come down out of the cage since it is such a secure and comfortable position. So I think dropping my feet early is not going to be a problem but I'd rather make darn sure through sufficient practice at the beach.

Unfortunately the impact very likely tweeked the entire frame so I will need to do a complete re-build involving at the very least, fabrication of the lower left leading edge spar which was completely broken on impact and then, of course re-covering and re-rigging. I am also guessing the internal root diagonal brace rib was also destroyed so I will need to create a form to reproduce that curved rib with new tubing. Because of the difficulty in covering I experienced with the first re-build, I plan to replace any of the frame tubing I need to in order to achieve a completely straight and true frame. I will likely document this in a continuation of my intitial re-build blog (easyriser1.blogspot.com).

[Bob Kuczewski]

I'm glad you're OK John!!!!

Thanks for sharing the highs (and lows) of your project. We can learn from both!!