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Photographs of Graham Warren and friends with the Esprit and E-100 on Location throughout the world. Click on the Thumbnails or links for a full Screen jpg - optimised for screens 800 x600 plus | |
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1. Me & the Esprit. Me & the Esprit This is a 3 Metre wingspan, fully moulded
(all fibreglass) F3J or BARCS open thermal competition model. It has the characteristics of being able to launch
high and fast in a variety of wind & weather conditions. It is very well behaved in the air and very manoeuvrable
with full house control (Elevator, Aileron, Rudder, and Flaps). The wing section and loading give it a very low
sink rate, which is ideal for thermal competition soaring and this model was the most commonly used in the first
world F3J championships held in Upton Upon Severn in the Malverns last year. File Size: 50 Kb (jpg) |
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2. Ken. This is a friend of mine called Ken who is launching
the Esprit for me. The glider is attached to a bungee which consists of 30M of rubber tubing and 120M of very
strong fishing line. A ring at the end of the parachute, which you can see stretched into an arrow shape just
in front of the fuselage, slides over a hook which is screwed into the base of the fuselage.
Ken has simply stretched out the line by about 50 paces, held the wings level, and pushed the model up
and away from him. The glider then 'kites' up the line under the steady tow from the contracting rubber and line.
When max launch height is achieved, a 'ping' off the top is executed and the hunt for a thermal is on. File Size: 60 Kb (jpg) |
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3. E-100. Me, the Esprit, and an E-100. The blue and yellow model is an Eliminator 100, and was my first serious
thermal soaring competition model. It is 100" in wingspan, and conforms to a class of glider known as 100S.
It is only controlled by Rudder and Elevator, which believe it or not is harder than flying with a complete
set of dangly bits (flaps etc !). It has served me well in my first year of competition soaring
(despite a couple of serious crashes - one resulting in a replacement of the centre section, the other
resulting in both tip panels being replaced).
The one thing I have realised however is that the model is (was) way too heavy to be seriously competitive....
It weighed the same as the fibre glass Esprit for crying out loud ! So this model has undergone a complete
strip down, sanding and recovering....It still is not as light as the designer says it should be but it is
certainly a lot lighter than it was and a step closer to being more competitive......If only the pilot
could fly it better... :-) File Size: 88 Kb (jpg) |
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4. Me Flying Esprit. Me under the tutorledge of Tony Vale.
Tony is our (Ivinghoe Soaring Assoc) competition secretary. He also flies an Esprit, and it was his help I
sought in flying mine for the first time. I have to say that he made it all seem swimmingly easy despite
the intense look of concentration on my face. He first of all test glided it for me...This is where we switch
on the RX & TX and Tony runs along and lets go of the model, the type of glide path it takes before landing
gives a good indication of flight trim. This photo was taken not long after the Esprits first launch....It
went up the line like a dream with only a smidge of rudder correction to get it tracking up in a straight line.
At the top Tony instructed me to first of all switch out the full launch flap, and then quickly dive to get
clear of the tow hook ring and them climb before levelling out. As it turned out we launched straight into a
thermal, and so he told me to flick in my thermal flaps (slightly drooped) which slows the model down and
increases the amount of lift the wing can produce. It was a great flight from launch to land. Thanks Tony. File Size: 45 Kb (jpg) |
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Movie Files For your enjoyment some small mpg files have been optimized and uploaded here, little quality has lost and the movie files are of short duration (4 Secs), so it won't take forever to download, probably 30 secs depending on web conditions. There is a jump on the Coastal flight but that is due to a change of position of the camera man (Geoff Warren) during the initial recording, both sites are in Scotland. Launch a Glider 169kb MPG file 4 secs duration - more details and comments to follow. Soar Valley Soarers 100S competition - Sunday 16th April 2000 The weather on Sunday was glorious. I got up at ten to seven and there was not a cloud in the sky. The forecast was for light SE winds, and sunny through the day. They certainly got it right, and because it was cold and wet the previous day, there was plenty of temperature differential to create bags of well marked lift. We were of course at Ferry Meadows in Peterborough for the Soar Valley Soarers 100S comp. and it was a perfect day. I can't really remember any of my scores etc because I was very busy towing and timing etc. My new E-100 (well mark 5 I should say - plastic fuz and new wing) flies like a dream. I don't know what I did differently, but as soon as it gets a sniff of lift (and I don't fly out of it !) it screws up into the sky. I think there was only one slot in one round where I didn't spec it out! I didn't win any slots, and in a couple of rounds I had to relaunch. This is because the model requires quite a bit of up trim to fly around normally, but if I leave that trim in on the launch, it stalls off the line shortly after the release. So, in one round I had left the trim in and it came off early - a quick re-launch saw me fly the rest of the slot out. In another round I had taken the trim out, but accidentally pulled back on the elevator too early with the same result. With that in mind, I unscrewed my aerial and put my TX away after my round 4 flight. It was a complete surprise then when my name came over the tannoy to get ready for the fly off !!! I made it in the second to last fly off place and Paul M was the last name called. Paul had to change xtals, but then we were all ready. I had Gill launching me and Pete W talking / timing, Nuno Canterio (who is one of our newer members, and who has my old E-100 to fly at the moment until he finishes his E-100) was my towman - we had used turnaround pulley tows all day. Pete asked me what my tactics were. My brain had fused, I didn't really know what to do for the best. I was up against the likes of John & Sarah Stevens, Mark Easy, Neville warby and others - all 100S superstars ! I decided for R1 of the fly off to wait to see if anyone went straight into good air. The tone went and off they all went. I watched someone head right, and immediately they hit good air, so off I went. I climbed well in the strong lift and went back with it. Pete really talking me very well. Many of the other contenders had missed out, but still half flew the slot out, and I flew it out too. So R2, and Pete says that tactically if I want to get a high placing then I really must go on the tone. We had actually discussed that before R1 ( R1 launch late, R2 go on the tone - that was the plan). The tone goes and off we all go. This time my spotters had to look carefully for who was doing well, and in the meantime I was stooging.....Pete saw someone beginning to get away off to the right again, and over I went. I was able to get it up to spec out height, quite away down wind, I was the highest of the lot, and the last to come out of it. Most of the others had tried to beetle forward through the sink, and many lost out in the process. Pete sent me off to the right (looking downwind now) and told me to come back towards us a bit. Suddenly the wings started bouncing, I had hit another bubble and started circling again. Not long to the end of the slot now, and so Pete thought it wise to start coming back. Gill thought it was a bit early, I could have done with a tad more height. Pete was insistent, as he was worried that I mightn't make it back to the circle in time, but that I should take it easy as I was the last one up. Suddenly we realised that there WAS someone else still flying. It was Sarah Stevens! and she had more height than me and was upwind. I tried to crab slowly back, but was loosing height all the way, and Sarah was circling in good air ! By the time I was over the circle I really was low, and I tried to stretch it out for as long as I could, but I landed a good minute before Sarah. Pete, Gill, Noel and others whispered excitedly to me that Sarah had re-launched, so she hadn't flown the full 12 mins, and it was likely that I was at least in second place overall....As it turned out, I got my first ever placing in the top 3, winning as I did third place. Big Grins all round! |
| Psn | Name | FO1 | FO2 | Total |
| 1 | S. Stevens | 997 | 1000 | 1997 |
| 2 | M. Johnson | 1000 | 769 | 1769 |
| 3 | G. Warren | 934 | 832 | 1766 |
| 4 | N. Warby | 1000 | 553 | 1553 |
| 5 | J. Stevens | 999 | 382 | 1381 |
| 6 | Graham Gilliatt | 717 | 599 | 1316 |
| 7 | K. Tinkler | 677 | 272 | 949 |
| 8 | M. Easy | 549 | 370 | 918 |
| 9 | P. Medcalf | 347 | 0 | 347 |
| Psn | Name | Total | Rnd 1 | Rnd 2 | Rnd 3 | Rnd 4 |
| 1 | N. Warby | 4000 | 1000 | 1000 | 1000 | 1000 |
| 2 | J. Stevens | 3996 | 1000 | 1000 | 996 | 1000 |
| 3 | M. Easy | 3991 | 1000 | 991 | 1000 | 1000 |
| 4 | M. Johnson | 3985 | 994 | 1000 | 991 | 1000 |
| 5 | S. Stevens | 3896 | 994 | 1000 | 992 | 911 |
| 6 | Graham Gilliatt | 3805 | 959 | 884 | 962 | 1000 |
| 7 | K. Tinkler | 3787 | 989 | 948 | 991 | 858 |
| 8 | G. Warren | 3482 | 994 | 894 | 862 | 733 |
| 9 | P. Medcalf | 3407 | 812 | 1000 | 987 | 608 |
| 10 | R. Yates | 3403 | 987 | 1000 | 786 | 630 |
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