Myself and Ian went up to the glorious Ashdown Forest yesterday morning for some DLG (Discus Launch Glider) flying. Coated in Factor 30 and armed with a big bottle of water we where away on virtually the first launch. A broken push rod on Ian's new Blaster 3 meant a very interesting launch followed by a crunch into a gorse bush. Luckily Ian had his old faithful DLG in the car so he carried on with that.
The lift was amazing and the DLG's were lifted skywards to become just small dots. This new altitude has been aptly named 'Pauly Altitude' as Ian gets bored over 500' and then comes spinning down to a much more reasonable height.
We visited 5 car parks all with different facing slopes. No slope lift but thermals on every location visited. We managed to climb away from each car park which faced N, W, E, S & SW. The Southerly slope (the last one visited) proved the most difficult as the sea air was on its way inland and was cooling the air and killing the thermals.
Why don't more people do DLG flying? I appreciate it could be the cost but entry level into DLG flying is relatively cheap with my first DLG (Dream-Flight Libelle from Hyperflight) being around £120 and this did me for years. They are easy to fit in the car, simple to launch and could give you hours of soaring or just time on the sticks when all the other types of hill soaring won't have enough wind to fly.
If anyone is interested in finding out more about DLG flying or wants some advice both myself and Ian would be more than happy to try and help.
Invest in a DLG and you wont be disappointed!!
Slope Soaring Sussex is a friendly group of RC glider flying enthusiasts based in Sussex, UK. We slope soar at various locations on the South Downs and have a field for thermal soaring. ‘Slope Soaring Sussex’ is a BMFA affiliated RC Glider-only flying club. We fly many types of RC gliders from conventional slope soarers to Scale, DLG, F3B, F3J, F5J, PSS and more. Our aim is to encourage and promote safe, responsible and enjoyable radio controlled model flying. New and experienced flyers welcome.
What puts me off the idea of DLG is I don't have a lot of upper body strength
ReplyDeleteHi Marc. Fair point! With the little experience I have of DLG flying the power to get a reasonable launch comes from the rotation as you go to launch the model. It the centrifugal force together with a good technique seems to get the result. I did see a Blaster 2 (which is a DLG) with a small motor up front and that negates any type of physical exertion.
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