Story: Don Quixote Zagi Combat

Don Quixote Zagi Combat

Flying is fun! As I wrote in my last story a few weeks ago, due to multiple high-wind plane crashes with my scratch built HLG's, I wasn't going to build another glider until I finished my Zagi LE. Well, I finished the dude out in red and orange, tweaked it out, and went flying several times since then. It tends to fly a lot faster than my HLG's, but it is certainly fun to fly. (What isn't fun to fly?)

I've taken to launching the Zagi on an upstart at work a couple of times a week because I want to get in as much stick time as I possbily can. I hope to develop better flying skills for the HLG's and other planes on my building board.

The first few times I flew the Zagi off the upstart really astounded me in terms of the plane's durability because I really augered that dude in getting used to landing my first aileron plane. The first really hard Zagi thunk would have definately ruined any of my HLG's and maybe even damaged a Highlander. But as I walked to the plane, dreading what I would find, I found that the controls wiggled appropriately and no radio equipment or weights extricated themselves from the plane when it stopped suddenly. I just picked her up and flew again (and again.) After the first 15 minutes of flying I had the hang of her and didn't crash anymore.

I know one of the goals of combat flying is recovering from a hit, and this past Friday I got some experience with Zagi Combat flying that I wasn't expecting. If you recall from past stories, my work flight site consists of an adjoining soccer and softball field with really big, huge, light poles on the perimiter of the fields. I have lost two HLG's to either direct light pole contact, or light pole avoidance crashes, and thus don't feel qualified to fly my fragile little dudes around those big mean poles. But the Zagi! That's another story. No fear flying that durable dude around the light poles!

I had launched my Zagi for the nth time (n being a number I can't recall) and had started practicing one thing - thermal turns. My thermal turns look like the herky-jerky, and I loose more thermals jitter-bugging out of them than I care to admit. So I launched between the light poles to a goodly height above them, and practiced turning. I actually flew some almost smooth turns, when that perspective thing bit me again and I turned right onto the top of one of those pesky poles. It looked like I attempted to land on top of the light bank. Fortunately, I had too much momentum to park up there, so my plane bounced and plummeted earthward.

Wow! Visions of Zagi-splat! But, I recalled, in that split second of adrenalin panic, that people crash these things in mid-air combat on purpose with the perfectly reasonable expectation of being able to recover and continue flying before reaching the ground. So I wiggled sticks desparately, and a couple of porpoise wallows later, had my plane flying under control and flew in for a nice landing. (I don't think my heart landed for another ten minutes!)

Now, Don Quixote I'm not. I don't plan to joust with those light poles on purpose anytime soon. The next time I might just end up parked up there. But it was nice to see that I really could recover a falling plane. It's also nice to have a flying field right out my back door, and I am hoping to pick up a Zagi THL before this summer so I can actually thermal out there without fear. I still encounter those poles too often to want to fly anything that ain't made of EPP. But at least I am getting good stick time.

John Gossett

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