Bill Daniels,
You may find stall testing on the most recent version of the Pioneer IId
found on our web site which we did yesterday. I did post two interesting
photos on the Pioneer IId site accessed from our home page. This glider is
equiped with a moveable CG. The plane was tested in the rear most CG
position.


http://www.continuo.com/marske


We filmed the attempt stalls and have numerous stills from that filming. I
had great difficulty doing a gradual stall at first and had to resort to an
accelerated stall to get it to break. We now have the stall starting at the
tips and progressing slowly down the wing. Surprisingly the stalled wing
does not break immediately, and even with a down aileron to increase the
angle of attack, the wing experiences more of a yawing motion and
eventually dropping. As the pilot in this testing I felt very comfortable
and in control at all times even in the a turning stall.

I have also investigated the death rate in gliders and it does indicate that
those gliders that will spin will kill more pilots. Something to be said for
gliders that do not stall!

Something of note in the filming of the Pioneer was the fact that the Chase
plane, a grob 103 could not keep up in the lift to the Pioneer and I had to
repeatedly deploy the spoilers or move outside any lift. On a run to about
90 mph the Grob and Pioneer seemed fairly well matched. This is actually
very good considering the wing loading of the Pioneer IId at about 3.8
lbs/sq ft compared the the Grob at over 7 lbs/sq ft.

-mat
Marske Flying Wings
http://www.continuo.com/marske