I
had the opportunity to fly the revolution 28 a few weeks ago here in
Here
is what I experienced.
Summary:
My opinion-- It launches like an Edel and maneuvers
like a Muse 2 with trim tabs in the down position. With the trim tabs up it is
a rocket and is very stable in rough turbulent air. With the speed bar enabled
it appears to add 5-10 more miles per hour to my ground speed. With a 7 mph tail wind I was doing 40-45MPH
with the speed bar fully engaged. I did not have a GPS to measure my speed only
a road with a 40MPH speed limit requirement and I was slightly passing traffic.
What I liked the most is it seems to be
2 completely different wings with tabs down versus up. In the up position I felt I could travel
almost any ware even at 12 PM in cloudy edgy turbulent conditions and with the tabs
in the down position my takeoffs and landings along with climb outs were
comparable to a beginner wing like the Edel. Trim tabs down takeoffs were easy and
resembled a beginner wing. Landings were
light with lots of flare for easy touchdowns even in nil wind conditions. I did notice however I need more power and
burned more gas with this wing than I did with my daily flyer (sting-160). I
did also try soaring light thermals and it appears a bit inefficient (sinks out
easily) in the light stuff.
On
my first flight: A storm had blown
through earlier that day churning up the upper and lower level air mass. Ground winds were light but about 300 feet
things got dicey. I took off first in
about 4 MPH winds and had no problem taking off. See the video
of my first takeoff. I had only
kited the wing for 15 seconds prior to my first flight. But getting the wing off the ground was so easy, there was little or no familiarization necessary. Take off was really easy and very
smooth. At 100 feet I configured the
trim tabs into the full upright position. At about 300 feet I met very strong
winds with heavy gusting. About 7 on the
bump meter. My partner who flew right
after me suffered 2
light frontal wing collapses and landed immediately. I continued to fly for about 15 minutes
feeling fairly secure. Keeping my hands
up and off the brakes allowed the wing to naturally fight off the turbulence. My reaction was to apply brake pressure, but
following the manual written for the (Action), I kept my hands off the brakes
in the face of the turbulence. This took
a lot of getting used to..
Takeoffs
in light and no winds were as advertised with the trim tabs in the down
position. Comparably, the forward launch
in nil wind conditions were the same as the Edel. Reverse launches were the same. Once the wing rises overhead it sits giving
the pilot time to make the turn. I liked
the fact that it did not over shoot me.
My sting has to be stopped with vigorous break inputs to keep it from
over shooting which ultimately drains the energy on reverse and forward
launches. The revolution sits
nicely. See the
nil wind takeoff video
Landing;
With Trim Tabs in the down position the landings were very light and slow at
touchdown. My nil wind landing went like
this. At 300 feet horizontal from
touchdown point I was at 40 feet above ground.
I removed brake pressure to trade off altitude for more ground
speed. At about 10 feet and began to
flare which flattened my flight path at 2 feet covering about 20 feet of
distance. Feeling the energy run out of
the wing I nailed the brakes which nearly stopped my forward motion. I was incredibly surprised, for as fast as
this wing flies (trims tabs up), how slow it lands with the trim tabs
down. I continued to do power on and off
landings most the afternoon and usually came within 5 feet of the target
point. I thought landings were a blast
with this wing. See video
of the nil wind landing.
Trim
Tabs Up : After
Takeoff, I positioned the trim tabs all the way up. Climb outs were flat with a noticeably slower
ascent rate. I also had to stay deep
into my Flyproducts powergold
130 throttle since the wing needed more power to stay
afloat. Maneuvering takes some getting
used to with trim tabs up. Also I burned more gas flying this wing than the
Sting. My buddy who flew this wing using
a snap had a difficult time getting to altitude.
With tabs up, the wing wants to remain in the
upright position and making a right or left hand turn needs coordination. The
faster the glider goes the more stable it becomes and the greater the brake
pressure. When applying light break pressure only to one side it wants to slip
like a fixed wing aircraft when applying only rudder when turning (a feeling
like it wants to turn the opposite direction or an uncoordinated turn in a
fixed wing airplane). To counter this I
applied break pressure on both sides and added more brake pressure in the
direction of the turn. This happened
only during light turn corrections. With
tabs up, brake pressure is really strong and hard turns and maneuvering
requires some muscle. Wing-overs and 90 degree banks were a blast with tabs up or
down. The turn and decent rates were
faster and G-forces were stronger.
In
the end what makes me want to keep flying this wing is
the speed and the multiple wing configurations.
That
weekend I put about 10 hours on the wing.
It seemed like I couldn’t get enough of it. Definitely
the wing is built to fly in greater wind speeds but maybe not that
strong.
Mike
Brown.