On Sat, 02 Nov 2019 09:12:57 -0700, Nick Kennedy wrote:

Looking closely at the photo of the plane it looks like it has gear
doors, meaning it has retractably gear?

Only the first few 201s had fixed gear, and AFAIK they all got
retrofitted with retracts when the Standard Class rules allowed that.

Mine (S/N 82) predates the B series. It has retracts but still has balsa
in the surface skins of all flying surfaces.

The conversion to B series was relatively gradual, starting with s/n 111
(first airframe with foam in the wing skins) and completed with s/n 182,
the first 201 airframe to have foam skins on all flying surfaces and a
modified airfoil for the tailplane.

Its probably a good idea to walk away from anything with balsa wing
skins, i.e. s/n 111 and earlier, that has ever had water ballast fitted.
Porous glass on the inside of the wing skins did for a number of 301s, or
so I've been told, because water percolated through the inside glass
layer and rotted the balsa cores.

I'm intrigued by this thing for some reason, perfect thing for my kid
when he gets older.

I find Libelles a delight to fly, and that they will let you know if they
feel they're not being flown right. Feel is good and all controls are
very light up to Vne. Things to watch:

- thermalling a little slow with top aileron applied can stall the inside
aileron. You get an uncommanded inward roll but no nose drop. Standard
spin recovery works fine or simply centering the stick will instantly
unstall the aileron. I saw this 2-3 times when I first got mine and
never again after that after I'd got dialled in to flying it.

- airbrakes are weak but easy enough to live with, particularly as
slipping it brings it down like a sack of anvils and centralising the
controls snaps it right out of the slip. The main gotcha here
is at even with full airbrake, the weak brakes mean it will float a
long way on landing and if you're trying to two-point it, raising the
nose a bit early will cause it to balloon, which needs to be dealt with
NOW to avoid a hard landing.

But, if your field has a long, hard runway and you normally touch down
on the main wheel this isn't an issue except for a field landing.

- as others have said, there's no crash protection, but then again that
is the same as any glass glider built before the ASW-24.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org