It flies!

Since May, the Bocian has taken to the air several times, in quite varied landscapes.

The first flight took place at the Port de Balès on the NE slope. A good moment of satisfaction, with only quiet flight, without accelerating too much, which went well with the madstab which held the road well, no bad surprises. A few seconds of inverted flight (which made me feel the drag of the fuselage), and there you have it! The challenge of the madstab for 7.7Kg being truly essential in this project, accomplishing a simple flight was an intimidating step.

The other flights took place on the slopes of Revel, Trefeuntec, Menez-Hom, and Port de Balès Sud.

What I can say at this stage is that the inertia of a glider of almost 8kg provides really different and unusual piloting sensations for me. It's very nice for quiet flying, very stable, on rails. On the other hand, for aerobatics and maneuverability, it's really new for me because the machine requires space and consequently a lot of anticipation of trajectories. We are far from the nervousness of a Svolazzo obviously.

In addition, at this stage I have an instability in pitching (which is slightly visible in the video, I sometimes make waves). It is especially marked when I gain speed, and even becomes very unpleasant on the take-off before the aerobatics. Which has prevented me from really flying aerobatics with the Bocian until now. I got really scared, several times I thought I would lose the glider when I felt it "dive", then make a violent move up. The structure held, but I wasn't confident.

By discussing with a few experienced modelers, I identified several areas for improvement - which I will implement in the coming months. Among them the installation of turbulators on the horizontal stabilizer, and seeking to further increase the precision of my elevator control.

Here is 4 minutes of video, for the result of 4 years of thought and construction!