FES climb rate at 15kW power?

Shark FES (391kg plus me).. around 2-2.5 knots climb at full power.
Battery empty in 7 minutes (apparently). Haven't tried using up the full
capacity for a climb, not been necessary.

It's more efficient to just cruise home with the vario on 0, you'll get a
longer range out of it. Realistically around 70km without terrain or
accounting for headwind. Less if you climb up to an acceptable cruise
alt.


At 23:18 20 January 2019, Richard DalCanto wrote:
I was looking at the FES manual, and I was curious what climb rates
(in
ft/=
min) people are getting in 18M gliders at the recommend sustained
climbing
=
power of 15-18kW? Are you getting over 3,500ft of total climbing?
I
hav=
e a JS3 on order with FES sustainer option (because I don't plan on
competi=
ng at the national level I'm not too worried about losing 2 pts from
the
fo=
lded prop on the nose).
Thanks,
Rick

On Monday, January 21, 2019 at 4:15:04 AM UTC-7, Shaun Murdoch wrote:
Shark FES (391kg plus me).. around 2-2.5 knots climb at full power.
Battery empty in 7 minutes (apparently). Haven't tried using up the full
capacity for a climb, not been necessary.

It's more efficient to just cruise home with the vario on 0, you'll get a
longer range out of it. Realistically around 70km without terrain or
accounting for headwind. Less if you climb up to an acceptable cruise
alt.


Interesting. Living in the rockies, just cruising home at 0 may not be an option. May need to use it to climb back into the lift band. The FES manual says that the heavier 18M gliders should get over 3,500 feet of climb in a charge. Are you not seeing that?