My First Thermal Flight on my First Club Day! Marymoor Park Redmond, Washington

PLEASE READ

I know 19 min. is not very long but it was my very first flight with a thermal. I barely used the motor at all.

The weather in Seattle today has been stunningly beautiful so there was no reason to sit home and do nothing.

I flew the Cumulus '97, a 10 year-old six-foot wingspan, Nicad battery but damn good flying electric sailplane.

I hit two monster thermals at Marymoor, the first was the best, rode it up to about a thousand feet. The second one I almost gave up at first because all I could find was sink (which meant there was a BIG thermal around). Then all of a sudden at the corner of my eye to my right I see about 4 hawks soaring high with their wings spread out so I headed over there......hit alot of turbulence on the way then....BAM up I went! And I got it all on my inflight camera.

Longest flight may have only been 22 min (it was the second one with the birds which I did not have the camera on), buy hey It was my first thermals so I got nervous once I hit about 900 feet. And I only used about half of my two Nicad 600 Mah and 1000 Mah batteries (I use Nimh and LIPO on my other gliders/planes because Nicad is so outdated). Bringing it down sure is hard! To show what a glider is capeable (barely) of doing I did some loops and rolls on the way down to lose lift.

Club flying is fun because your etheir flying with a big honking gas plane or small sub-3D electric guys swarming your big glider.

Was a great day for me!

And thanks to my dad for hand-launching it and coaching me to the thermals and telling me to get out of the unseen force once the orientation was getting trick for me and my cheap sunglasses.

Marymoor RC Club is now our primary flying field.

Category:

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• Marymoor
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• rc
• glider
• sailplane
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• first
• thermal
• flight
• inflight
• video
• Grayson
• Hobby
• Aerial
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• Cumulus
• '97
• hawks
• sink
• march
• 2010
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• stunning
• weather
• Seattle
• 520

[badgolf1]

sweet and thanks for the story..hey so why ride thermals and normally how high are they?..lol..i guess i need to do some research huh??lol..so going around in circles like that is the best way to climb?..and lol i thought i saw you do some loops in there..i thought u was losing her..but you said you was trying to come down..kool stuff man..thanks!!

[E744763Productions]

@badgolf1 I have to be high because the thermals are stronger as they reach their peak. Flying in circles creates the least amount of drag and I can't fly straight or I would just fly out of the thermal. That plane didin't have any spoilers so looping was the quickest way I could lose energy. Thanks for commenting!

[E744763Productions]

Thanks! It is a 10-year old 6-foot wingspan glider from the German company 'Graunper'. It is called the 'Cumulus '97' because the designis from 1997.

[heffone1]

hope you find many more. thermals make me happy

[Grunta5]

Awesome! Great flying sailplane and a cool video :-)

[DeanC993]

GReat flight what plane is that