Birdman Flugtag 50+ metres winner smashes into crowd!

This is footage of my gliding buddy George Reekie's record setting 50metre flight from a 10m tower at Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra Australia in 1991.
Developed in a shed at Bathhurst NSW by his dad Colin Reekie, the glider is constructed of Duralium , polystyrene foam, plastic and heat shrink Mylar.
I was a member of the launch crew.
Notice at how at the end of the 50 metre course George flared upwards and landed at the top of a 1+ metre stone wall into the crowd, knocking a young girl into the water before falling back in himself.
The organisers had probably never expected anyone to fly further than 50 meters so when George came to the end of the course still in ground effect, he had to flare up to clear the stone wall and land in the crowd, but fell back after knocking over a little girl.
If the course aimed further out into the lake rather than aiming towards the bank he may have vastly improved on that distance!
I found this footage recently on a mislabelled Video 8 tape.
George and I taught ourselves to Hang-glide in this period.
George and I are presently not quite so airworthy.

Category:

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• wayne

[woodyapex]

Can I ask what was the frame made out of ? And I've seen the plastic coating before isn't I shrink wrapped over the frame ? What's it called .

How did you stop it from snapping in the middle like most do ?

Sorry for the questions and if you'd rather email it's woody@apexloft.com

Thanks woody

[GregOrca]

@woodyapex

Heat shrink Mylar

The wing has a full span aluminium Cylindrical spar with all bending moments and forces calculated using engineering science. You can look up specs for bending moments etc in engineering textbooks and materials suppliers.

The glider was all carefully calculated with wing LD ratios and wing loading and tip losses carefully calculated on paper before any building began.

You can easily get specs on wing sections online nowdays.

[woodyapex]

great flight !

My team has just got in the 2011 Flugtag in yorkshire england .

Could do with some advise please !

woody

[GregOrca]

@woodyapex

Um, Make sure your pilot is very fit and not fat and actually knows how to fly.

Practice flying the glider on a hill MANY times.

George flew the glider numerous times over land.

Understand ground effect.

Most of your flight will be in ground effect.

Get lots of airspeed by diving gently initially. Don't try to stay high or you will stall. Convert some of the initial height into airspeed and then you can cover a lot of distance. Try to get as much airspeed as possible on the ramp

[Vortex42]

Very cool flight!

[leokimvideo]

ah yes the adventure of flight, nice look back into time via the video camera wayback machine

[peterlelievre]

Georgie,

What a great flight! Best Birdman in Australia.

Such a spring chicken your were too.

Thanks Greg for positing this.

Cheers,

Pete