On Aug 24, 9:31*am, "kirk.stant" wrote:

Crow hops for testing a new design or for no-instructor primary training is a
completely different thing.

I'm with Kirk on this. For a new pilot in a proven aircraft, I would
recommend a high tow that gets as far from the ground as quickly as
practical so you can figure out how to fly it and use its systems.

I'm one of the folks who recommended that Brad use what you might call
"crow hops" on his latest completion, the Tetra-15. The situation
there was very different from the one at hand. Brad is an experienced
pilot in sailplanes and hang gliders, but the aircraft was an unproven
example of an unproven design. And I should know, I designed and
helped build most of its important bits.

I supervised the main wing rigging and conducted the static test to
Utility category load factor, and I was pretty sure it was all going
to work out fine, but there's still an anxious gap between pretty sure
and absolutely certain. The crow hops ensured that if we miscalculated
or just plain missed something, it would come to light at a potential
energy (altitude) state and kinetic energy (speed) state such that
both could be brought to zero without bringing to bear a lethal energy
gradient (deceleration).

For the first flights, my main concerns were that we would find that
either we had mis-rigged the wings and it would have turning tendency,
or that we had miscalculated either weight and balance or stability
and control and it would not have good stability or control in pitch.
The "crow hops" would have revealed any of these conditions with ample
margin to rein it in before anyone or anything gets hurt.

However, it all turned just as we had hoped and planned. It flies
straight, has good stability and good control response, performs well,
and I can't get Brad to stop flying it long enough to show it off on
the ground. Which is as it should be, I think.

Thanks, Bob K.
http://www.hpaircraft.com
https://www.facebook.com/pages/HP-24...t/200931354951