Flying in Spain - Video

It is winter time, the period to sort photos & videos of the flying season...

Here are some "souvenirs" of energetic flying with AD from Jaca airfield.

Nice shots in la Montagne Noire

Very nice photos taken during the last 2008 SWAF meeting :


http://julienbersheim.blogspot.com/2008/11/week-end-swaf-la-montagne-noire.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wabgs/sets/72157609168824410/detail/

http://yves.calzetta.free.fr/Telechargements/Videos/Grandeur.wmv


Sadly I was not flying this day, even if it was planned...

Article published in Technical Soaring

Last July my article on Flight Template has been published in technical soaring. Flight Template is a tool to be used for aerodynamic optimization, based on statistical study of igc files.


See also the article from Christof Maul, another kind of statistical study based on IGC file.

NB : a copy of Technical soaring can be get at OSTIV : http://www.ostiv.fai.org/

New technical paper

I have issued a new technical paper on my (old) web site. It is concerned with some method to implement automated wing optimization scheme with constraint span.

The paper is available on my publication page.

Visiting OSTIV congress - WGC 2008 in Lüsse

I did take some time to go to Lüsse (near Berlin) during last World Gliding Championnship, in order to attend OSTIV congress


It was a nice occasion to see a big competition running (more than 130 gliders !).





Among the glider where the last up to date gliders : ASG29, Ventus 2cxa, and also Diana, Lak 20 and JS1 from south africa.



And there was also "nice oldies" on show...

In the Alps - Video

Back from the Alps

We have spent 2 weeks in Aubenasson, over the "Roche courbe" moutain.
This is a very nice place, were you can fly and benefit from the family as well !




Here is a summary of the flights perfomed from this airfield, between 50 and 440km per flight. It is possible to have some wave, both with NW & S winds.

Flying to Le Pic de Bure from Ceüse

Lac de Serre-Ponçon

Grand Veymond & Mont Aiguille

Glacier Blanc ...

... & Glacier Noir

Finally a nice "shot on top"

This was a very nice holyday period !

More info on Aubenasson at :

http://aubenasson.volavoile.free.fr/
http://planeur-aar.over-blog.com/

Another photo in Spain

AD taken from the Midi-Pyrénées DG1000 :

Flying in spain

I recently spent one week in Spain, flying from Santa Cilia de Jaca. Here are some nice pictures !

Santa Cilia Village

The airfield

The colleagues who helped me discovering this nice region in flight

AD ready to go

Here is a summary of the 4 flights performed with AD during this week :

Also some nice pictures from the sky during those flights :

Cross country sailplane computer

Here is a computer for sailplane cross country flying. It helps at flying in security while taking the full benefit of sailplane performance.

This is "old school" stuff, I have been taught into this by François Ragot, who was in the WGC once in the 50's - 60's. It is a 100% failsafe device !


Two version of the computer are available :
- The initial "big" version, ideal to learn to compute with.
- The panel version, to be placed among others instruments.

A short user book is also provided.

Download the computer.

The panel version is installed in my LS6, I use it in parallel with Cambridge 302/303, as another (failsafe ;-) ) source of information.

If you happen to build this computer, just send me a photo of it : matthieu.scherrer 'at' free.fr

Results from the Wind Tunnel

Some time has been already spent analysing wind tunnel results, they can now be presented, at least partly.

Here are screen shot of drag polars, as obtained during the test.




Note that the test were repeated over the different days : it can be seen that reproductibility of the result is not garanted at low speed (V=20m/s).

The Excel file containing the summary of results versus predictions can be found here.

Thanks again to the participants for accepting their prediction to be compared to measurements from the windtunnel !

Nice shot !

Here is a nice photo arrangement of AD in the garage, made by my brother Vincent.

End of the wind tunnel cession

Today was the last time of wind tunnel testing.

Some bugs in the coefficient have been detected, some post processing will be necessary before releasing official data. So that comparison will not be possible before some days.

Please be patient !

Some news from the Wind Tunnel

Here are some photos from the wind tunnel.

As the operating & recording system of S4 wind tunnel has jsut been updated, it is likely the release of the results will be delayed. Proper check of all the results will be necessary first.

Aerodynamic prediction worshop - End of prediction period

The Jibe 2 is entering the windtunnel this week. Today was riging period, tomorrow will be the first test with wind on.

Now the period for prediction has ended ! Here is a summary of the result i got, from 6 differnt people / team.

The excel file with more results.

Next part will be the comparison with the outcome of the test !

Here are some details about the methods used for those predictions.

	Method
MSch	Wing & tail + interaction : Miarex (Xfoil/lifting-line coupling, N=9 for wing, N=2 for tail) Fuselage : Xfoil + Mangler transformation Lateral : AVL + drag effect in aero axis (Miarex)
TPla	Xfoil plus 3D transpositions Simplified Cdi assumption Fuselage effect on Cm from in-house rule (from flight test & statistical approach)
ADe	XFLR5-V4
Jo&Stef	VSAERO : Linearized potential code, coupled with BL calculation
PLu	AVL for stability & induced drag Xfoil for airfoil drag with N<5>
FMe	XFLR5-V3

LS6 interior refurbished !

The interior refurbishment of my LS6 (AD) is now finished.

The masterpiee (if I can says so...) is the hand carved wooden stick, made from a footboard...


At least it makes it unique !

The fuselage was also polished.
I am now thinking of which decoration to create for the season to come.