Radio Control Slope Soaring-2007/12

Author: Dave Garwood

Edition: Model Aviation - 2007/12
Page Numbers: 137,138,139

Radio Control Slope Soaring

An East Coast Slope Soaring trip to Shenandoah National Park

Four New York Slope Dogs journeyed to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia for a midsummer vacation of mountain flying, and it makes for an impressive flying site. Built in the 1930s, the park is a mountain recreational retreat roughly 75 miles from Washington, D.C. It's exceptionally aesthetically pleasing, with a roadway that curves through the typical eastern forest and features scenic overlooks facing both the east and west sides of the mountain range.

There are food, lodging, camping, and picnicking facilities within the park and in nearby towns. The park includes more than 500 miles of trails, including 101 miles of the Appalachian Trail—a well-known 3,200-mile hiking trail that runs from Maine to Georgia. The 105-mile Skyline Drive runs from end to end through the park and features 75 overlooks.

Approximately half of the overlooks we visited would be flyable with suitable slope soarers. Slope finder Terry Dwyer urged us to make this trip for years, and in August we finally did. He sent us maps with 40 flyable sites marked and video of lift that was so good it was sometimes difficult to get his sailplane down for a landing. We were not disappointed with the topography. The scenery was breathtaking, the slopes were steep, and the range of available accommodations was extensive, including camping, cabins, lodges, and motels. You can obtain more information from the park's website and even more, including commercial offerings, from a Google search for "Shenandoah National Park."

Typical eastern forest cover means a slope pilot must find a place to launch where he or she can see the sky and identify a place to land. Luckily many of the scenic overlooks fit that requirement to some degree. Whether one-third or two-thirds of an overlook parking area is flyable for you depends on your individual experience, ingenuity, and piloting skills. This is not a slope-flying training area; if you lose control of a glider, chances are it will be permanently lost in the tree-covered landscape below. No guts, no glory. You'll have to plan your landings carefully; there's nothing casual about landing in forested mountains. You'll have to hit your landing-zone target, whether it's a narrow strip of grass or a spot of asphalt in a small parking area. Sometimes we hand-caught our airplanes on landing, and more than once we landed on the rock wall along the side of the road. However, experienced fliers with bounceable sailplanes can do well here, and we did.

Our travel schedule was based on advance cabin rentals, and of our four days at the park in early August, the winds were light for three days and moderate for one day. If flying is the primary focus of your trip to Shenandoah National Park, you may want to schedule your trip based on a wind forecast. There are steady winds here; the national long-distance full-scale glider records were attained along the Appalachian Mountains range, while the altitude records were gained out West.

Wind direction is not super-critical on the Skyline Drive since flyable slopes face east, southeast, southwest, and west through northwest. Because the available flying sites face multiple directions, if the wind direction shifts slightly there will still be locations where the wind is blowing straight in and lift is strong. You'll want wind velocity of 10 mph or faster.

The gliders that worked for us on this trip were EPP-foam airframes. They ranged in size from the 35-inch-span Weasel to the 120-inch-span Ka-6E, with several sizes in between. Following is a brief summary of each.

Michael Richter Weasel: A 35-inch-span aerobat from Dream Flight. The Weasel is agile, fun to fly, durable, and compact for easy packing. It comes in a high-quality, well-engineered kit. See the July 2007 Radio Controlled Soaring Digest online magazine for two articles about the history of "Weaselfest" to get an idea of the enthusiastic following this model has.

Windrider EPP Bee: A tough, sweet-flying combat wing designed and injection-molded in Hong Kong. See the Windrider website for links to U.S. dealers or order directly from Hong Kong. Of particular interest are Karl Decker's strength and durability modifications for Windrider kits, developed for the serious slope combat pilot; you can see his work at Predator Wings.

Jack Cooper 60-inch warbirds: Leading Edge Gliders (LEG) makes these extraordinarily strong, good-looking warbird kits in 48-, 60-, and 72-inch wingspans. The New York Slope Dogs have awarded this design "must-have" status, partly from our Shenandoah experience, but mostly because of one epic day Joe Chovan and I had at Lake Ontario, during which nothing else in the quiver was as much fun to fly. Now we make sure to have one on every flying trip.

"It's not a crime to fly a model airplane that looks like an airplane," as Dave Sanders taught us. I have my third LEG 60-inch warbird under construction now, and Joe Chovan just completed his fourth.

If you're new to building EPP-foam airframes or would like to learn some of the tips and tricks of the pros, check out Greg Smith's instructional video. The EPP Building Clinic four-disc DVD set from LEG, featuring Jack Cooper building an LEG warbird, is available at slopeflyer.com.

Dave Sanders’ Schweizer 1-26 (2-meter version): SkyKing RC Products currently makes this Dave’s Aircraft Works (DAW) kit. This super-versatile sailplane excels in light lift performance, holds its own in medium lift, and looks good doing it. The 2-meter 1-26 has been a New York Slope Dogs must-have traveling sailplane for six years. With the split-wing modification and the removable tail modification, it will fit back into its original kit box for storage and transportation. See the website for these alterations.

Dave Sanders’ Schleicher Ka-6E (3-meter): Also from SkyKing RC Products, this DAW design is impressive in the sky. Designed as an aerotow trainer, it works well on the slope, even in light lift, because "there’s no substitute for span." You must be on top of your game to land this sailplane in an overlook turnout or on a rock wall, but launching it out over the Appalachians is a memorable experience.

Please use all possible caution regarding safety for people and property when flying at a public location such as Shenandoah National Park. One “memorable” event could result in the U.S. government placing restrictions on our flying, which we do not have now. I cannot emphasize enough that we need to think safety and practice conservative flying strategies.

Know your landing spot before you launch. Keep your airplanes away from people and vehicles in case of a loss of radio link or battery power. When setting up a landing approach, have a spotter courteously ask bystanders to stand clear and be aware during the approach and landing. Do not fly without a current AMA insurance card.

We did have a visit and an observation of flight operations by a park service ranger, who remarked, "I don’t see a problem with this activity." Please, my fellow slope pilots, let us keep this going and fly on public land as safely as we possibly can, and keep our relationship with the National Park Service good. Think for a minute what our chances of flying on the land would be if it were privately held.

I have a feeling I’ll be back to Virginia to fly the Skyline Drive of Shenandoah National Park.

Western Colorado Slope Challenge

May 2007 saw the third annual running of this event. Jim Ferguson, vice president of the sponsoring flying club, wrote the following summary.

"On May 5–6, 2007 the Montrose Model Aircraft Association (MMAA) hosted the third annual Western Colorado Slope Challenge (WCSC). This slope-soaring event, organized primarily for combat, is held on Bureau of Land Management lands just a few miles outside the city limits of Montrose, Colorado. Flat Top, a small 400-foot-high mesa formed out of the local 'adobe' soils, is the traditional location.

The 35 slots available filled early, mostly by fliers from throughout Colorado. In the end, 31 fliers showed up for the fun, including some New Mexico and Arizona slope maniacs.

The competition between the fliers from the Eastern Slope and Western Slope of Colorado leads to good-natured ribbing and some serious competition. Although the Eastern Slope fliers again dominated the contest, the Western Slope boys are honing their skills and increasing in number.

Weather this year—snow, rain, sun, and cold—kept things interesting, but still allowed for groups of 30 Bees in combat at one time. The weather forced a move to an alternate location for day two, which was cloudy, but the rain held off until after the event was over.

The pilots located a good ridge for DS flying (now named Spinal Tap Ridge), and soon up to 25 Bees were in combat clashes while flying in the DS groove. It is a serious adrenaline rush. Karl Decker had the high score.

Tonya O’Donnell (our president’s spouse) volunteered to plan and oversee lunches and an excellent Saturday evening barbecue. Tonya, her mother Lisa, and a dozen other volunteers made certain that no one went hungry. The barbecue and raffle were held at the home of MMAA member Michael Thompson.

"MMAA and the contestants thank the sponsors: Predator Wings, Edge RC, Leading Edge Gliders, Eaton Air, Windrider Aviation, Canuck Engineering, Soaring USA, Dream-Flight, Tuff Planes, Hitec RCD, Predator Wings, Ultra Hobbies (a Montrose CO hobby shop), Lavawing, and Montrose Comfort Inn. For more information on this event, previous events, and announcement of the 2008 event, visit the MMAA website at www.mmaa-modelairplanes.org." MA