Last night at 21:40 MDST C-FGEV - Schreder HP18

C-FGEV

Last night at 21:40 MDST C-FGEV - Schreder HP18 - Kit #70 had its first flight! It wasn’t long... but it sure was exciting! The flight was on winch using the nose hook. Take off was OK but a slower transition from L13 might have eased the stress levels. After giving the order to take up slack it took me quite a while to give the ‘All out’ order. Some thoughts - I have no past experience so am I really ready? - What am I doing lying here? - Is this really going to fly? But it did and the one minute flight down the field went like this:

full checks of controls - 30 degrees flaps

ready or not here we go

quick acceleration to flying speed

pull up a bit - ohhhh - not too much!

Hey! I’m going too high - oh yes - pull the release

nose down - nose up - nose down - nose up - hmmmm - sensitive elevator

I want to be over the grass strip - why am I over the paved strip

Ok - I’ve settled into a steady flight about 10 to 15 feet over the pavement - but the thing won’t come down and the end of the runway is only 1,000 feet away!

it just keeps flying and doesn’t seem to be losing any height! Should I put in more flaps - No - just fly the glider!

OK I’m just a few feet off the ground and the attitude feels very nose down compared to anything I’ve ever flown (especially the Blanik)

Better get over to the grass strip - touch down on pavement and turn between runway lights toward grass

smoke rising - billowing smoke??? - the brake sure isn’t very effective and the tire smokes when it is fully applied

left wing bumps runway light (small ‘ding’ half-way between leading edge and spar - (smoke still filling cockpit)

just as I’m coming to a stop the aircraft rolls into the deep hay on the edge of the field and ---- I’m down - safe - LETS GET IT IN THE AIR AGAIN!!!!

So I’m now the owner and pilot of HP18!

Thanks to so many:

Beth - my patient wife - (only a kit builder has any idea how patient she has been)
Glen Buhr - it was his initiative that got the original kit started
Tony Sawatzky - Pinewa, Manitoba - he built the first 95% of the kit
Walter Mueller and Karl Soellig - they helped in so many ways
Beth, Walter and Les Oilund for helping with the first flight
Joseph Villiger for helping with all the aircraft mechanic things - checking everything twice. Thanks to you all!! There are lots of miles ahead!

Phil Stade

Grande Prairie Soaring Society, Canada

WINGLETS

I found out why the going price is $500 US for winglets! It took a year of research and about 4 false starts before I got a design that seemed good. They actually are still in their rough stage. My first aerotow was great but it occurred in the evening with no turbulence. My second convinced me to quickly file the rough fiberglass edges off the winglets and attach them. The difference is remarkable. As many have said "I wouldn’t fly without them!" Yesterday (August 9, 1998) I landed "long" and rolled about 800 feet with a 10 mph cross wind at about 70 degrees. The wings were easy to keep level and aileron response was maintained to the very end of the roll. I’m really pleased with the results.

The design is my own but I used the PSU 90 125 airfoil (slightly thicker for the first 25% from the leading edge as recommended by one source of info) with an out turn at the base of 5 degrees and the tip turned back 3 degrees. The cant is about 2 degrees to just offset the dihedral. I suspect they took 100 hours + to make not counting the year of research and learning how to use Styrofoam and fiberglass. But the second set will not take as long. In fact I think I could now produce a better set in 20 to 30 hours. The winglets bring the wingspan to more than 15 metres so the next set take that into consideration. For now these are great and the first 24 hours of flying has been a lot of fun. My longest flight to date is now 5 hrs. 50 min. and I have 3 or 4 that exceeded 3 hours. Quite a change from the L13!!

The next photo was taken August 29, 1998 after my first major cross country flight which was 4 hours and 19 minutes. I flew from the Grande Prairie Soaring Society's field at Beaverlodge Alberta to 29 km west of Peace River Alberta (about 150 km) and back to the Fairview Alberta airport (119 km from home field). I chose to land in the stubble field alongside the paved runway after taking a closer look at the landing lights while on final.

The flight had begun with a winch launch, in windy conditions, to about 1,200 ft AGL. I caught a thermal nearly immediately that took me to over 9,000 ft and I was on my way east. I was trying to do 50 km. but that only took a few minutes at a ground speed around 200 km/hr. so I decided to head north to Fairview. There was still lots of lift and I was over 10,000 ft. ASL so I made a turn to the east and headed for Peace River. 30 minutes later I was down to 6,500 ft and thinking about heading toward home to land out when I hit a boomer that took me to over 11,000 ft. in only a few minutes. The phone rang and in the second before it went dead I figured out that my friends were wondering where I had got to. About 11/2 hrs. later I landed at Fairview and took this photo. It was a memorable flight for me and on a cold January night like this it makes me smile to look at this picture and remember how pleased I was with myself.