slope soaring

thenated0g

Drinker of coffee, Maker of things
Mentor
There are a lot of things to learn. If you can reach out to an experienced person locally it will help out a lot. I happen to live not far from alofthobbies and the owner took a day off work and took me slope soaring.
 

mayan

Legendary member
There are a lot of things to learn. If you can reach out to an experienced person locally it will help out a lot. I happen to live not far from alofthobbies and the owner took a day off work and took me slope soaring.
Beautiful!
 

bracesport

Legendary member
@thenated0g - I have this hot liner that I have never flown (too scared as rated at 200kph), and I built my own V tail with a FB wing - also never flown yet - as you see I need to start slow with my DL(TT)G and FB DLG first!

You can see the long term potential though!

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1BD6AF3E-8180-451A-BE4F-2D08568BDCE4.jpeg
 

thenated0g

Drinker of coffee, Maker of things
Mentor
YES! it is my goal to get a "noisy" slope soarer like that. When they get movin the sound they make as they cut thru the air is amazing. I was asking Wayne (aloft owner) what he thought would be a good first "glass" (fiberglass) plane. He said i should bring some money with me to a slope soaring event as people are always getting rid of old stuff for good deals.

personally i like flying EPP kits or diy white foam kits. My goto sloper right now is my F-sst epp slope wing. It can take the hits and is easy to fly, but needs like 12+ mph winds.

I have about 7 slope ships to maiden at an event in may. DIY stuff i have been working on and the FT corsair i setup for sloping.
 

mayan

Legendary member
YES! it is my goal to get a "noisy" slope soarer like that. When they get movin the sound they make as they cut thru the air is amazing. I was asking Wayne (aloft owner) what he thought would be a good first "glass" (fiberglass) plane. He said i should bring some money with me to a slope soaring event as people are always getting rid of old stuff for good deals.

personally i like flying EPP kits or diy white foam kits. My goto sloper right now is my F-sst epp slope wing. It can take the hits and is easy to fly, but needs like 12+ mph winds.

I have about 7 slope ships to maiden at an event in may. DIY stuff i have been working on and the FT corsair i setup for sloping.
That’s not even a hill! How? What? Amazing flying!
 

thenated0g

Drinker of coffee, Maker of things
Mentor
The amount of lift going upwards off the face of whatever your sloping is a combination of a few things. Mainly the wind speed and the height of your "hill". You could have a 10 mile an hour wind hitting a hundred foot cliff and all that wind is basically adding onto all the wind on the whole face and you would have amazing lift at the top. In this case i had about 10ft or so of height from the water to where i was but the wind was 25mph with some gusts up to 30mph.

Rule 1 of slope soaring: If you build a glider, there will be no wind ever again.
Corollary 1 to Rule 1: When you finally get wind, it will be too much wind.

lol, thats from the first link below. so true.

This is a good read: https://www.shallowsky.com/planes/weasel/slopetips.html
this too: http://www.fatlion.com/sailplanes/slope.html
slope soaring without mountains: http://www.ov-10bronco.net/users/merlin/Flight/slopesoar.htm

slope specific maps: https://www.slople.com/
this is a nice place as well, look for people flying in your area. Slope people love talking about favorite spots: https://www.rcgroups.com/slope-97/
 

bracesport

Legendary member
I don't know what I was expecting today, but today was the day - I headed up the hill close to where I live with my DL(TT)G and my powered TT determined to give it a go on a slope - it was amazing!

the back story so far - I am not a competent pilot and I have only flown two or three times on calm days with a prop - I can keep the plane in the air for a bit and usually land without too much damage - I have struggled to have the confidence to go high so my flights have generally been short ones!

now to the good stuff - I did it, I actually did - I wouldn't call it slope-soaring just yet, but I had some short flights with some decent lift. I can see the potential for me with this kind of flying (very exhilarating)!

the DL(TT)G seemed to be well balanced and reasonably manoeuvrable with the bank and yank control surfaces - the light breeze was a bit gusty, and when it was blowing nicely I had some awesome lift but no forward penetration.

the TT flew easily into the breeze and I finally got some elevation and distance (if the camera was actually 'ON' the video would have been a good one) - seems I damaged the wing at the centre dihedral on a heavy landing into a bush so I packed it in for the day and headed home.

I am a bit embarrassed to post the video from today - it was the first outing with my new cyclops v3 onboard and I had a few technical glitches - most of the time it was 'ON' when I was on the ground and 'OFF' when I was flying - I did get a few grabs of my test flights so that is all that I could put in the video!

 

mayan

Legendary member
I don't know what I was expecting today, but today was the day - I headed up the hill close to where I live with my DL(TT)G and my powered TT determined to give it a go on a slope - it was amazing!

the back story so far - I am not a competent pilot and I have only flown two or three times on calm days with a prop - I can keep the plane in the air for a bit and usually land without too much damage - I have struggled to have the confidence to go high so my flights have generally been short ones!

now to the good stuff - I did it, I actually did - I wouldn't call it slope-soaring just yet, but I had some short flights with some decent lift. I can see the potential for me with this kind of flying (very exhilarating)!

the DL(TT)G seemed to be well balanced and reasonably manoeuvrable with the bank and yank control surfaces - the light breeze was a bit gusty, and when it was blowing nicely I had some awesome lift but no forward penetration.

the TT flew easily into the breeze and I finally got some elevation and distance (if the camera was actually 'ON' the video would have been a good one) - seems I damaged the wing at the centre dihedral on a heavy landing into a bush so I packed it in for the day and headed home.

I am a bit embarrassed to post the video from today - it was the first outing with my new cyclops v3 onboard and I had a few technical glitches - most of the time it was 'ON' when I was on the ground and 'OFF' when I was flying - I did get a few grabs of my test flights so that is all that I could put in the video!

I haven’t watched the video yet but I have to stop and say congrats on the guys my friend. Now let’s watch that video.
 

mayan

Legendary member
Ok now after watching the video I think you should try going up with a motor in that exact spot with the Simple scout. It will fly there perfectly fine :). My thought.
 

bracesport

Legendary member
@mayan - The powered TT went up well and flew into the breeze quite nicely, it's such a shame I didn't have the camera on as it was one of my longest flights and at one point I had the power off and it was floating in the breeze - I had a bit more fun than flying on the park!

It's still a long way to go!

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mayan

Legendary member
@mayan - The powered TT went up well and flew into the breeze quite nicely, it's such a shame I didn't have the camera on as it was one of my longest flights and at one point I had the power off and it was floating in the breeze - I had a bit more fun than flying on the park!

It's still a long way to go!

View attachment 129432
Then you should go there more often!