Enjoyed your flight ! Thank you for sharing ! I reside in the USA but visit southern France each year to fly my glider in the alps. I must visit the Swiss glider aero drones soon. Beautiful views from the glider !

Hi Ronald. Thanks for a terrific video. The view alongside and then above the clouds was sweet. Also cool to see how clever the trailer and gadgets for rigging are.

Great video Ronald! Thank you for sharing this. I'd love to see a video on electric self launch and things you are thinking about, and the specific process for beginning the launch as well as "shutting down" and stowing the pylon. BTW - nice salute to Blancolirio lol EXCELLENT choice of music at the end ✌️

@ronaldglider

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the nice comments. Here's a video on the self launch; I will take you up on your suggestion!

Hello Ronald again a cool video. At 03:46 you flew over my place of residence. See you.😀

@ronaldglider

2 жыл бұрын

only 4000M above...

Thanks for the great video Roland! how is the process of charging the glider, the battery is located in the wing, the whole trailer has to be transported to a socket and wait ?

@ronaldglider

4 ай бұрын

When the glider is stored in the trailer, the charging is done inside it thru fixed cables. The trailer is connected to a mains outlet (We have power outlets for most trailers, even the ones with combustion engines to charge the flight battery). If the glider is not de-rigged, just hook the glider up to a power outlet (240V in Europe) with a mains cable. It typically takes overnight to charge the Antares glider engine batteries. When the batteries are not well balanced (typically after a months long winter break) it may take days for the balancing to complete. Charging / monitoring status of the batteries is done by sending an SMS from a cell-phone. *Normal use case of the Antares* (unfortunately I was not able to extend my lease, so I can no longer fly this great glider): -1-Decide to fly around 7am in the morning. _if go:_ go to step 2. *_If NOT go:_* _go to step 6_ -2- perform a 'charge PLUS' of the battery (send SMS): this adds a few percent extra charge in about 90 minutes to the battery that *must* be used in the next few hours, as this extra charge reduces battery life time. -3- Go fly: typically take-off on engine, making sure 50% capacity remains after the launch phase. *What I did in Mollis:* 3 minutes engine to next thermal, shutdown engine, climb to top of thermal, turn on engine again for another 3 minutes or so _to continue to climb to high mountains._ This minimizes engine time and battery usage. Depending on weather, this does not always work. I did not venture on far cross-country flights with batteries used more than 70%. -4- *during cross country:* In case of trouble far away from airfield, use engine to climb to altitude again. After this, take quickest&safest way home (stop task). -5- After landing, charge and balance batteries overnight. -6- Wait for the next good day and restart from step 1. With the Antares, you cannot really share the machine with someone else _on the same day,_ as the remaining charge in the battery after the first launch is simply not sufficient. Sharing the machine using different days works really well. NOTE: The remaining battery capacity shown on the instrument panel is not accurate. When indicated 20% remains, there is a good chance the batteries are empty after a few seconds. I mentally log the time that I ran the engine in each flight, which gave me a much better indication of how many minutes I have left. I typically got 12-14 minutes total. Thanks for the question, RoNaLd.

@AndrewBashtovoy

4 ай бұрын

@@ronaldglider Thank you for your detailed response. Antares is a unique masterpiece glider, also the quietest. Battery in the wing is the safest design solution, in case of short circuit of the cell will not lead to smoke in the whole cockpit. It also has a system of heating elements with electric shade, so recharging the battery before the flight also warms up the elements due to the external power grid. I would also like to have the possibility of recharging the battery in flight, as a wind generator for example moving in an atmospheric wave is quite possible.

@ronaldglider

4 ай бұрын

@@AndrewBashtovoy The amount of energy needed to recharge is huge - on an airplane optimized as high performance glider, there is no solution... Take a look at solar impulse...

@AndrewBashtovoy

4 ай бұрын

@@ronaldglider let me quote from the lange-aviation website archive for 2008: "Is it possible to use the propeller to recharge the batteries while descending? In theory, the combination propeller, engine and power-electronics can run as a wind turbine. However, the propeller is highly inefficient in this mode, so it would not really pay off." In fact, we are talking about recuperative braking implemented in all types of land electric vehicles: cars, bicycles, scooters. For a glider, this solution is interesting because it will not require any additional certification. P=π/2∗r²∗v³∗ρ∗n The formula for estimating the potential wind power gives an understanding of a number of regularities that an unoptimized propeller can be compensated by increasing speed. The propeller mount looks solid, the DC motor works equally well as a generator. Of course the easiest and safest way to perform a proof of concept is to attach the original propeller motor to the roof of an observatory in the mountains and let the Mistral do its work. Similar systems work fine as a backup power source on large passenger airliners, but at much higher speeds.

@AndrewBashtovoy

4 ай бұрын

@@ronaldglider let me quote from the 2008 archive of the manufacturer's official website. | Is it possible to use the propeller to recharge the batteries while descending? In theory, the combination propeller, engine and power-electronics can run as a wind turbine. However, the propeller is highly inefficient in this mode, so it would not really pay off. | In fact, we are talking about recuperative braking implemented in all types of land electric vehicles: cars, bicycles, scooters. For a glider, this solution is interesting because it will not require any additional certification. The formula for estimating the potential wind power gives an understanding of a number of regularities that an unoptimized propeller can be compensated by increasing speed. The propeller mount looks solid, the DC motor works equally well as a generator. Of course the easiest and safest way to perform a proof of concept is to attach the original propeller motor to the roof of an observatory in the mountains and let the Mistral do its work. Similar systems work fine as a backup power source on large passenger airliners, but at much higher speeds. The full battery capacity of the Antares is 8.6 kWh and 11 kWh, with a regeneration potential of up to 5 kW, which is quite reasonable for wave flight.

With the heavy batteries in the wings and the short outboard tips you better be a professional weight lifter to get the wings onto the wing rigger. I'm hurting just watching it.

@ronaldgadget

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah - each wing weighs 125 Kg... I make sure I bend my legs and keep a straight back to lift the wingtip and move the wing onto the rigger. I have now rigged the glider about 35 times in the past 1.5 years and my back is OK. That is really the worst part of the rigging procedure. Otherwise the Antares is easy to rig with the 'ein-mann-aufbauhilfe' as Lange likes to call it. Given the fantastic performance of the glider, it is all worth it!

@LS8eighteen

2 жыл бұрын

@@ronaldgadget After catching severe back pains from rigging my ASH 31, I came up with this device to take the wings out of the trailer and onto the wing rigger. It works beautifully, I only have to lift the wingtip slightly and place it on the lift. kzread.info/dash/bejne/n5iLj9qKfNqxe84.html

@ronaldglider

2 жыл бұрын

@@LS8eighteen It looks great - however, my glider is rented and I have to rig on grass - I will stay with the manufacturer way of doing it for now.

@n2b998

9 ай бұрын

Great video! So, if the inboard panels are 125kg then lifting the tip out of the trailer is probably a 55kg deadlift? I’m thinking about my next glider and an Antares or an ASH31 are possibilities. For reference my current glider is a miniLak FES and the panels are just 42kg!

Un-rigging= de-rigging.