Thursday, March 22, 2012

Wild Hawk vs Wind

For all of you who think you can't fly a foamie in the wind, let alone a Wild Hawk, I'm here to tell you you're wrong!

I had the opportunity to go out flying with my Dad (for my birthday,thanks Honey) this past March 10.  I like to go to his place because he has a really nice park to fly at, with lots of room and either dirt or paved areas to use as runways.  The week up until then was beautiful and really fooled us that the weekend would be great also.  Well, by the time we got there, the wind had really picked up.  We waited around his place doing misc. fixes and playing with other stuff hoping that the wind would calm down.  No such luck!  We decided to just go and see what would happen.

We got there and I think the wind was worse.  Easily a 15mph steady wind with gusts from 20 to 25mph!  There was another person their flying a 40 class Cessna style plane, and struggling with it.  He soon landed and started to pack up.

I decide what the heck, I'm here to fly and I'm gonna fly!

Now my plane is a bit modified with substantially more power and equipped with ailerons, and that really helped my confidence.  (Click on some of the pictures for a link to the item I added)


So I took out my Wild Hawk and struggled to get the wings on without them being blown out of my hands by the wind.  I got everything together and walked out a ways from our cars and set the plane down facing into the wind.  We were all worried that the wind would blow it away.  A test bump of the throttle showed that it would push into the wind.  I sent the plane off and it popped right up into that head wind.  I flew full power and my Wild Hawk had no problems climbing.  It did take a lot of aileron to keep the plane level and to keep it's heading as the gusts really bounced it around, but it flew.

I made many passes flying full power into the wind and then shutting down the motor while banking over to let the wind take it.  I would let it cruise by with little to no power and then bank it over again with full throttle.

Considering the wind, my beat up and mended Wild Hawk flew like a dream.  I even did many touch and go landings with now crashes!

I really had a good time!  Easily one of the best times flying yet.

Servos connect to the fuselage
I do have to admit that I did crash twice.  The first time I came in too low and turned the wrong way with the wind and ended up cartwheeling the plane.  No damage though (thank you tape)!  The next crash was kind of crazy.  Some how a gust of wind moved the wing enough to pull out one of the aileron servo connections and I could only bank one way, the wrong way!  I ended up out of control in a kind of death spiral and into the group watching!  Fortunately there were no injuries, and the spectators were OK too.

I had hoped to post some videos of this but my little video recorder was on the fritz and I got no usable video at all.  That was a real bummer.  I am posting this video because it is the same site and it too was a bit windy, not as much but fairly steady 7 to 10mph with gusts to 15mph.


So, If any one says that you can't fly a Wild Hawk in the wind because it's a foamie, send them to this site and I'll set them straight!

As usual, thanks for stopping by my blog and please post comments, good or bad.  Be sure to come back and check for future posts.