Dear All,The moment is finally approaching where I'd appreciate some help with testing my latest toy - the Blanik L-13 ;)Being an unpowered glider it may be prudent for me to suggest that only those keen for gliding should apply - this is not an aircraft for cruising between strips as such. Of course, I'm probably wrong here and you'd all love to try it - I'll find out!So far, I would like to nominate my 'regulars' (Ansgar, Hans-Petter, Glidernut, RobD) but I would like to invite anyone else to have a go - you only have to play with it and tell me your thoughts. Steffen? Andy? Mr Hess?Please post your replies here (even if you don't want to test it - at least I'll know). I appreciate that many of you are working on other things and that gliders may not be your cup of tea, hence the polite request. If someone here (apart from John) is a gliding freak, I would appreciate your opinions :-)PS Because you'll need a strip to try it out with, testers will receive a beta version of 'Twin Peaks' as well, complete with the new (unreleased) models I have been collecting. ETD is about 7 days.:-waveJon Point*************************([email protected])*************************

Jon,I have never flown the gliders before but I will take it for a fly as a novice and see how I get on, although I might not be able to offer any "flying" feedback.Andy

Yes Iill hav it.I am opinionated, Iv got lots of oninions, non of them any good mined, but I wantto see presisly how your doing it, so I can prepair the right instrenents for theASW28 take off proseeder.So I need it.I also want it just to play with.Send it to me as well plees.glidernut.:-wave

Yes.I am also interested to try this very fine glider.Please send one over for testflights.Best regards.Lars Peter.:-wave

Hi Jon,That'll be a yes please then. I'm not a gliding expert or anything but I do get the Stemme out once in a while for a quick go at non-turbine powered flying.Rich.

I posted a reply but it seems to have gone missing. Probably I forgot to hit the send button or something. Yes, I would love to try out the new glider (hey, a week ago I couldn't say Blanik, now I'll be flying one - to paraphrase what graduate engineers say). Twin Peaks - based on any TV shows?Robert.

If you need more participants I'm in but the guy we'll all be watching is Glidernut. If he says the glider is good I'll chime in and say it flies like a real one :-)Hans Petter

Sssh Hans! You weren't supposed to tell anyone else about that plan. ;-)Rich.

Rich/Hans Petter,It won't work...John and I have worked out a special code so we can tell if you're fibbing ;) Besides, he's not posting anything until all you guys do!Oh, you all get slightly different aircraft so I expect different answers :-lolSeriously now, the aircraft WILL be the same (I couldn't be bothered trying to keep track of different flight models any more - the GeeBee taught me that) but the launch method takes a little getting-used-to. I am working towards making it a bit more logical ('page-up/page-down/b' IS a bit strange - but it works). I've found a way that you can just hit 'b' to release the brakes then hit 'e' to signal the winchy (if you forget the brakes, you careen down the strip on your nose and slam into the winch at 60kts :-eek ). I had it running OK last night at one strip on a hill but I need to get the concept extended to valley-floor launches. I'll keep you posted. Please send your email addresses to me now (if I don't already have them) so I can setup the uploads. Make sure your email can handle 7Meg attachments!Jon Point*************************([email protected])*************************

Folks,Thanks for the response. So far I have Glidernut, RobD, Andy Rowson, Rich Wren and Hans-Petter. This should be an ample bunch I reckon!If mail size is a problem, I can split it up for you and send it in say, 3 parts. Using WinAce AND Winsplit, I can get it down to about 3 floppies-worth ;)BTW, I mentioned refining the launch method a bit. Well, finally at 1AM this morning I released the brakes, hit 'e' and a few seconds later climbed at 80kts to 2500ft before releasing manually. Bleedin' thing actually works :-) Of course it still needs fine tuning because the rope's 10,000ft long right now :-eek but that's easy.Oh, and I've redone the fuselage texture mapping to use 3 bitmaps instead of two. I'll post some more shots but it has improved the look of the fuse a lot. The 'Blanik' script was hard to read before, now it's as clear as...:-waveJon Point*************************([email protected])*************************

Hello Jon,seems I nearly have missed here something the last day