On Monday, December 14, 2020 at 11:16:22 AM UTC-8, Eric Greenwell wrote:
kinsell wrote on 12/14/2020 10:35 AM:
On 12/14/20 9:54 AM, 2G wrote:
On Sunday, December 13, 2020 at 8:25:36 PM UTC-8, Eric Greenwell wrote:
Eric Greenwell wrote on 12/11/2020 2:05 PM:
Charles Zabinski wrote on 12/11/2020 1:48 PM:
There are 16 Silent 2 Electros in the FAA Registration Data Base. 3 are for sale and are all
low time. Any thoughts? Are they uncomfortable, poor penetration, what?

Call the owners and talk to them. The Electro owner I know likes to talk about his, but he
also
flies it a lot. Here is his OLC logbook for the 2020 season:

https://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-3....t=olc&pi=10497

Here's the OLC logbook of another 13.5M/FES glider pilot I know: Phil Rose. He flew seven
flights in Ely this year in his miniLak, garnering several state, national, and World records
in the process. He might be a good source of information for choosing the miniLak over an
Electro.
--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1

And he is also the pilot I cited who landed his miniLak out, stating to me that he didn't
think he had the battery capacity to do a self-retrieve even though he was quite a bit less
than 100k out of Ely.

Tom


On the seven flights Eric showed, he was taking tows to conserve battery. If these things were
marketed as sustainers with limited range, that would be more accurate than calling them
self-launchers.
Taking tows was a tactical decision, made by a pilot seeking records and big flights in tiger
country, a situation making an airborne motor use more likely than otherwise; normally, he
flies in Washington state and self-launches. Jeff Banks, the Electro pilot I mentioned, mostly
self-launched while at Heber, Parawon, Nephi, Stout Field, and Richfield this season - 26
flights in all.
--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1

All of the bullet points I made for Charles are valid. As happens for most things in life, there are tradeoffs to be made and the manufacturers tend to obfuscate these tradeoffs to make their product look better. The bottom line is if you want to self-launch you ARE going to sacrifice self-retrieve distance. It doesn't matter if you think that Charles doesn't need that much of a self-retrieve - that is totally up to him (and I actually made that point in item 4).

Tom