March 21, 2002
Pointe Annalouseten, Brittany, (France) Temp: 13 C; wind 15-20 knots from the WSW
“The Bunker”
Skies are still gray; the wind has relented a bit this morning. After 10:00 AM, it rained pretty hard for three hours.
However! I got two good flights before the rain started. I started with the mini Pilatus, which had only two flights up to today. The launch was fairly easy; I cranked in one click of down trim, since this plane only weighs 19 ounces. It went up like it was on an elevator. Cruising forward in this moderate wind was not a problem. This is a very easy plane to fly. But I did find that the plane would not roll. So I will have to do some adjustments on the aileron throws.
After about ten minutes, landing was again very easy. The giant “pillow” absorbed any pilot errors that might have existed.
It finally dawned on me that the a good place to launch for the next flight of the Pixel would be from the top of the old German WWII bunker to the right side of the path that worked its way down to the waters’ edge. These bunkers pepper the Breton coast and often can be seen from some distance. I’ve seen so many, that I don’t even notice them anymore, let alone think about launching from the top of one of them. See the jpeg.
Well, I did the launch from the top of the bunker and it was a piece of cake in this more moderate wind. I undid the extra down trim that I had clicked in the day before for the very heavy wind conditions. Again the Pixel moved up and forward smoothly, and the air was not rough today: no bumpiness or jerky movements from the plane today. The plane rolls beautifully, and there was no screaming from the plane in level flight as occurred the day before in the heavy wind I only heard it screaming in dives today.
The Pixel was set down on the soft underbrush pillow after about 20 minutes of flight. I wish all landings were this easy! Yipee! No crashes, not even minor damage on any flight so far on this trip. I’m ready for more flying in the coming days!
At about 3:00 PM the sun actually came out and lasted until dusk. Of course, the wind died. I ran around with the car and took a bunch of pictures to prove that there really is sunshine in Brittany once in a while.
Mirko
