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The Rise and Fall of the Frankenradian

The last week has been rough, but it ended well. Long story short, I destroyed my latest sailplane on its maiden flight. I did everything right except keep myself in check. I'm terribly overconfident because I have quite a bit of old experience. That's precisely the problem, it's old. Old experience will help, later. It doesn't really help on day one. I haven't flown in quite some time.

I threw it into the air, full throttle and it climbed out steeply. I knew the motor was strong but as it continued to climb up on to its back, my old experience was not fast enough, and I could not roll out or anything but slightly delay the inevitable.

I destroyed it.

It's a week later and it isn't so difficult to write, I want to move away from that memory and my journey has me already flying since then. Friends came to the rescue. I now have a Radian XL and have flown it on my own.

I have another complete Frankenradian kit that I've started but I may put it on hold, I don't know, I have some thinking to do. As it stands now, I'll finish it, maybe a two piece with, no flap or I'll finish it and use it to transition into the Yellow Jacket that I have 80% built.

My goal is to be ready for the 2025 F3L season and I'm still on track however, I had a major setback in destroying the FR. It is nearly mid-June so if I finish it mid-August, I'm still good. I'll fly the Radian XL and work on the FR and complete the YJ and be ready.

There, that's what I'm doing.

I'm going to just copy my social media post from yesterday and place it right here...

"I got to fly today! After last weekend’s terrible ending to my freshly built sailplane, it was good to shake that off. My friend Ken was so kind to push a Radian XL my way and I accepted his gift AND the suggestions from he and John, “Just fly the Radian” which now I will. I came down to the field to just pick up the Radian but John was like, “You want to fly?”

“Hell yeah!” I wasn’t feeling too well from a bender last night but he got his beautiful sailplane up over the North end of the field and handed me the transmitter, “here you go” I flew around on ailerons and elevator (no rudder) and finally lost it, “take it, I lost it, disappeared…” and he gently takes control, “Adam, just pull up when you lose it so the wing shows.” It’s quite a ship, large span and it was way up there like small. He handed me the radio and I flew it around some more. John spiraled it out of the sky and landed it at our feet.

He is an amazing pilot and a pretty good teacher too.

We sat under the shade structure and Ken and Randy worked on mapping control throws for flying and a little later John goes, “You want to fly that Radian?” “Yeah, that’s a good idea, can we do that?”

Like before, this is the second time with a different glider, he dug around in his truck for the receiver, plugged in the servos, created a new file in his transmitter and configured the controls.

I was really tired, hot, dry, but I knew this was my lesson that I needed, again to get going.

He threw the glider with no motor, “Do this first.” Flying it to a soft landing. Then he motored it up describing how he controlled it and handed the transmitter to me. I flew a circles, reversed then he motored it up again handing me the controller. I flew another big circumference of the field as he talked to me while observing and I brought it in for a landing not to far from us.

“That’s how to do it” he said.

The next time he coached me, “Motor on (he had the throttle on a slider) and pushed it into flight. I flew it up keeping it level and steadily climbing out again in a big leg. I flew a circuit again and he said, “you are pretty far away, bring it back and land” which I did. Again, pretty close to us.

“John, I’m getting baked by the sun.” It was only around 10:30a and already 105 degrees. Tired, hungover but very happy. I shook off that bad feeling from last weekend.

“You did good.” And I could hear Ken say something to that affect as well.

So happy but I needed to get some water in me and cool off.

I broke the glider down, stuffed it in the Forester and waved goodbye driving off.

I was happy, I wanted to share my moment with my wife.

The “I” came on in the dashboard and the TPM idiot light blinked on. I scrolled through the car’s menus and got to the tire pressure. Left rear 25 lbs, now 24.

“Melissa, I think I’m getting a flat tire.”

22, 21 and then 0.

Pull over in a horrible spot.

Changed the tire, ugh.

Home.

Shower.

Discount Tire.

Tire no good. Tires halfway through their life.

The heat is just starting too."

So, I did learn something, I'm overconfident and I will fly a Radian (XL) and rack up hours. This one was given to me, it doesn't need much and it has spoilers. It's heavy and wants to come down and that's ok.

I'm back at it.