Soarers' Slot

摘要

Last thing first this time, chronologically that is. At the first Northern eSoaring competition at the end of May the weather conditions in the early part of the day produced some very powerful lift, which led to the loss of a Pike Perfection. This model was being flown with four others in a slot; I was one of them and from the 'off it was clear that models were still going up strongly, even after the power was cut. Checking my logger later I discovered that the Maxa was at more than double launch height in two minutes, at which point I purposely held it at that altitude by flying fast in distance trim. But at four minutes I started downwards. I very rarely use the brakes to descend as it takes so long with slow airspeed but I tried them this time to see what happened. Even with the model held vertically down it seemed not to be descending and with any relaxation on the down elevator the flap just contrived to keep it 'stopped' in the thermal and probably therefore going up again! So I did what I usually do in such circumstances and flew down in speed trim, away from the thermal.