Maiden flight of the L213

I managed to maiden the L213 on Saturday. The wind was 27 mph gusting up to 38 mph. The para and hang gliders were there but there was no way they were ever going to get off the ground with those wind speeds.

Mark launched, but the L213 nose dived into the ground. So three clicks of up elevator trim saw it rising up fabulously.

The only trim I had to alter was the elevator, which then needed down trim to stop it from going up, and up, and up.

I cruised around for a couple of minutes to get a feel for it, and it was feeling very nice indeed. 

I had aileron DR on a 3 position switch but I found that my max setting was fine with the 30% expo I had set.

Loops were fine, and HUGE in that lift without using any snap flap. Rolls were great, but when I engaged the flaps mix, the rolls were superbly crisp and axial.

Four point hesitation rolls were dead easy, and I even managed to knife edge it. Inverted only needed a tiny bit of down elevator.

Thermal flap needed a reduction in elevator compensation. Speed flap, (I had set about 1 mm of reflex) saw a slight increase in speed and the nose came down just a smidgen. I shall experiment with this setting to get the best amount of reflex/speed.

CROW was perfect at height with no tendency to rise or dive, so it appeared I'd got the elevator compensation about right.

My first landing and I deployed crow. She slowed down nicely but hovered about 8' above the ground, so instead of adding down elevator I decided to try the spoilers.

I'm so glad I put the spoilers on a slider and not on a switch. With about ¼ movement, she came down to a nice landing, the spoilers killing the lift.

Here's a video of the launch. Unfortunately my head cam wasn't set correctly and I missed most of the action. Hopefully this Saturday will be better.