Last Saturday, before the bad weather reaches east of France where I live, I drove to a slope to enjoy the sunny weather and the south wind (about 30 km/h) and try the Willow with some ballast.
During all the afternoon, I used 700g of ballast (which was the maximum I had with me. Now I can go to 900g). Ballasted, the Willow felt still light on the stick, and didn't show any noticeable bending of the wing which is a good point. I tried different turn styles with no difficulties. The Willow likes the "half roll and pull" where agility is a plus. In EM, it is fine but not superior like some planes where the section especially contributes to the acceleration with load of ballast like the Alliaj HM or the Pike Precision (to compare with planes I know well). Gain of altitude was great and the thermal position of the flaps+ailerons works good.
Speed position bring also some additional speed, but needs a bit more snapflaps to compensate the lower camber of the section for equivalent grip during the turn.
I really enjoyed this afternoon, and people present on the slope appreciated Willow capabilities. Nicolas even tried it for few minutes and really was surprised by the agility of the plane compared to his F3F model.
I did some nice footages with my GoPro I fixed on the plane. Vimeo is always slow in the evening, so I couldn't upload the video. Tomorow morning should be OK.
Great ! Can you tell us name of the village just under ?
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