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All this time, I’ve been throwing the Zagi too hard! I’ve been giving it this solid baseball arm toss to make sure it launches correctly. Well, it turns out that it’ll get into the air just fine with a little heave. I’ll work some more on finding out just how light a toss I can give it. I’ll also work on my side-arm throw :-).

Upside Down

I learned how to fly inverted today :-)

I had been at it a while but wasn’t getting anywhere. So I went down to Great Meadows today and Julian was there with 2 new flying friends. I mentioned my troubles to Julian. He took my transmitter and asked me to throw the plane in the air. It was nice being a “passenger” on a flight. I don’t get to do that a lot :-). He gets up to altitude and then FLOOP, he starts cruising around inverted. He’s such a show-off ;-). He showed me the controls and I realized that my trouble had been that I was flipping and then trying to level off when the plane was moving too slowly. I’d give it full down-elevon and end up essentially trying to hover. Of course that wouldn’t work because it’s a 25 oz. plane with only 9.5 oz. of thrust… so I’d descend fairly quickly with the nose futilely struggling to reach the sky. Julian demonstrated to me that I needed a little more airspeed before I could fly inverted.

Correct!	Incorrect – not enough speed	Incorrect – Can’t pull out fast enough

Flying inverted isn’t that hard now. The controls are a bit more touchy. I think the plane is constantly trying to right itself (a good instinct in general!). As Cliff Whitney’s email .sig says, “When flying inverted, down is up and up is expensive.” I haven’t figured out the stall characteristics but I think they’re probably much less forgiving.

Now I’m zooping all over the place right-side-up, up-side-down, in-side-ou.. well, I’m not that good yet.

I also worked on flying very low and slow. Some day I’d like to try jumping over the plane in flight.

Zing Wing Fun with the Zagi

Before Julian, Mike and his son left, we had a VERY fun game of catch. First we were playing with the Zing Wings. Mike really liked them and vowed to buy some. I got mine from Atlanta Hobby. Then we tried using the Zagi as a launching platform for them. We’d wedge a Zing Wing in place on the plane, send it up a hundred feet or so and then shake it loose. I got to fly the plane, which meant that, as Julian pointed out to me -3- times, “When the Zing Wing comes loose, you watch the Zagi, not the Zing Wing!” Some of the Zing Wings wouldn’t come loose. Heck, the Zagi looked like a bucking bronco, pulling left, right, left, right, up, and down. But the Zing Wing would hold on tight. Of course, as soon as I’d set it down, the wing would pop right off. Finally the best placement method was found at the end… Julian insisted it wouldn’t work but I tried anyway, and it did! I held a folded wing along the front edge of the plane by the winglet with one hand and launched it with the other hand. Julian gave it full throttle and off it went, Zing Wing in tow. A little hammerhead stall and the Zing Wing was free.