Er!...something about the pot calling the kettle black
Bill?

My normal weight is in the 14 to 15 stone range, but
due to an even larger and heavier syndicate partner
who fitted quite a lot of lead to the back of the Nimbus
so that he could trim it out when thermalling, I was
actually flying the Nimbus pretty close to the minimum
cockpit weight limit. Still handled OK though.

Derek Copeland
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At 13:18 21 March 2006, W.J. \bill\ Dean \u.K.\. wrote:
Don't overlook that Derek Copeland is large and very
heavy.

C. of G. position makes a lot of difference to the
feel and stability of any
glider.

W.J. (Bill) Dean (U.K.).
Remove 'ic' to reply.


'Derek Copeland'
wrote in message ...

At various times I have owned a Cirrus 75 and a Nimbus
2, both with all flying tailplanes. Interestingly
we
once compared the Nimbus 2 tailplane to that belonging
to an adjacent Standard Cirrus in the workshop during
a C of A and found they were exactly the same. The
Nimbus has a much longer tail boom though. The tailplane
usually either goes on properly, or jams in the up
position if you fail to engage the elevator drive
hook,
so it is obvious if you have got it wrong. As for
all
types a positive control check is recommended before
flight.

The Nimbus was definitely the twitchier of the two
types as it seemed to suffer from aero-elasticity,
i.e. if you pulled back on the stick the wings bent
up first and then the fuselage followed about a second
later. Nevertheless I found it quite easy to fly and
even did some cloud climbs in it.

By comparison the Standard Cirrus was very easy to
fly, subject to the usual provisos for all-flying
tailplanes.
Don't be put off this lovely glider by all the scare
stories!

Derek Copeland
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