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Monday, May 23, 2016

Flying the Weasel TREK !


The maiden flight happened on a south slope by a sunny weather, but when I arrived at the top, the wind was more from west, and very weak. I moved to the west side of the slope where the slope angle is almost flat. Anyway, I could test the Weasel in pure thermal flight conditions and have been very positively suprised. From the first launch, she flew like a charm, no trim needed, recommended settings are perfect. Despite the light weight of 290gr, she has a better lift-to-drag ratio and penetrates better thanks to the combination of the light weight and lower camber of the airfoil, so I could fly very far, transition from one thermal to another very easily, cover lot of distance, like I was piloting a larger sailplane. During the afternoon, I did some very good gain of altitude starting from very low and finishing at 100 to 150m few minutes after. It is true that weasel is desmontrative and indicate clearly the lift which make the thermal hunting easier. In addition, the finger hole at the bottom of the skid provides a very good grip and allow to launch very strongly which help in small conditions. The lift-to-drag ratio is very noticeable with the ground effect when you land and can surprisingly cover a longer distance than expected.


In higher wind condition, the Weasel TREK shows her DNA and wilder temperament. Here again the low camber section provides a better speed range, in all situations. Nose and control surface weight reduction improve the pitch response, so give more manoeuvrability. Same on the roll axis with a crisper response. As you can guess from this, aerobatic capabilities are therefore very good, with much easier and effortless inverted flight, more axial rolls and step rolls, loopings , reversal. But also all these improvements make the Weasel TREK easier to fly VTRP (aerobatics close to the ground), helped with her compact size. In top of this, I found her to have a much better energy retention, in turn and also for vertical manoeuvers, despite her light weight. This is a very good characteristic, which is not easy to obtain ! She carries the 50gr ballast easily but could carry much more weight when the wind is above 10+ m/s.

Finally this new Weasel TREK is a "boosted" and "over vitamined" Weasel version with a wider flying envelop from low conditions to medium breeze, more agile, faster, more aerobatic and provide the same amount of fun and adrenalin whatever the lift ! The Weasel remains definitively one of my favorite slope glider !

and a video filmed the same day:


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