Another Super Slopin' Day In Wisconsin
Posted by Mirko Bodul on Aug 16, 2003, 01:45
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Tuesday, August 12, 2003
Today was an Atwater Beach Park day. The wind was about 12-15 mph straight in from ENE. Nice whitecaps on the lake, blue sky, plenty of sunshine. I again came at noon, and tossed off the "Hornisse." This flight didn't last that long since the plane was sluggish due to the lighter winds. So I landed after about five mines and trotted out the "light" Pixel. I made sure that the stabs were taped on today! Excellent performance with this ship: a kestrel hawk chased the Pixel all over the sky for about three minutes. I simply out-maneuvered him, by turning and climbing after steep dives. He seemed to tire out and was gone.
The best wind of the day turned out to be from 4-6:00 PM. It then tapered off by 7:00 PM and was barely flyable. During the good period we flew the Hornisse, Pixel, ASW-27, Gulp, Extreme, and the Wizard 2X for the last flight. Greg got caught in a traffic jam and didn't make it until 6:00 PM.
The "Hornisse" flew quite well considering that the wind was not as strong as the day before. I brought out the light Pixel and this plane was flown longer than any other; Russ Whitford was driving by (with no planes), so he stopped and asked for a Pixel "fix." So Russ flew this for some time while I answered spectator questions. One of these observers mentioned that he flew power planes, but was mightily impressed by the Pixel: so he also got some stick time.
The ASW-27 flew, but this was somewhat boring as the wind was slowing. So this scale plane was brought in for an uneventful landing. Next, I assembled the Wizard 2X, which took all of 20 seconds, and got ready to launch this all composite plane. It hadn't been flown since mid June. The launch was very exciting, since I forgot to extend my antenna before the throw. About 150 feet away, the Wizard started banking wildly. I immediately realized my stupid move and extended the offending object to its rightful position.
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| Mirko's Wizard Compact II |
Now things got really interesting!
The Wizard was flying very nicely, even in the light lift, when my old buddy the Kestrel appeared again to do some more combat. This time he was really aggressive and more persistent than earlier in the day when he chased the Pixel all over the sky. Even though the Wizard was less maneuverable than the Pixel, getting away was not that hard. I was not worried about him tearing the plane up since it was all composite. Shallow dives and subsequent zooms were hard for this hawk to match. Over and over, he would be right behind the plane during the dive, but I would lose him on the zoom. I don't think hawks were built to zoom. As there were many onlookers all over the park at this time, mass laughter was very audible with each attack of the Kestrel at the Wizard. This was something rare to see.
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| Wizard Compact and a love struck hawk |
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| "Crazy" hawk cahsing Mirko's Wizard |
Well, after a while he gave up and went to practice somewhere else; after a few more minutes I landed the Wizard in the classic soft spot in a very uneventful landing. The whole flight was about 15 minutes. A very memorable evening.
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| Mirko's WIz (again) |
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