At the recent Perry contest I was able to try the chute and it worked fine after a few small changes. Trish Drury was nice enough to make a series of very good pictures of the Concordia landing with chute deployment which was very helpful in sorting out the small issues. The Drogue chute is…
One afternoon last week, I found myself on a Munich underground train holding a slice section of a sailplanes´s outer wing. Pretending to be untouched by everyone’s weird looks, I took the time to examine my precious gift. Although I handle entire gliders and intact wings almost every day, seeing the inside of a wing…
DB flew yesterday for the first time with a full load of water — and, still not at gross weight. I did my best to take some air-to-air photos but this proved to be harder than I thought … or, I’m just terrible at it. I’ll try again today. The Concordia thermalled and cruised well…
Dick Butler (DB) has test flown Concordia and is delighted with the ship’s handling. In June and July, Dick will be busy flight testing, tuning the glider, and practicing for this summer’s WGC in Uvalde, TX. He has limited time to provide updates; however, the Café will post an occasional photo as flight testing proceeds.…
We hope you enjoy these higher resolution videos of Concordia’s first and second takeoff and landing. The videos were recorded by Soaring Café Publishing Editor Bill Elliott, who used a camcorder generously loaned to us for the occasion by Jackie Perry. Thanks Jackie!
I had the extreme pleasure of flying with Dick Butler today along side his new Concordia. His new ship is absolutely gorgeous! The weather was fabulous with a 6,000′ cloudbase, 5 kt lift and nice streets. Ted Beckwith gave us a tow and we were off flying in the local area while DB flies off…
The Café thanks Antonio Gemma More for these two beautiful photos of Concordia on tow at William Northern Field in Tullahoma, Tennessee. Antonio is a mechanical engineer and professional photographer.
After Dick’s second test flight in Concordia on May 25th, we interviewed him (still in the cockpit) and his wife and lifelong crew, Sarah. Tow pilot Ted Beckwith and Soaring Café Publishing Editor Bill Elliott also appear in the video. We apologize for the wind noise in the second clip. Unfortunately, we didn’t have our…
Here’s a video of Concordia’s first test flight on May 25, 2012. We’ve also included several photos that didn’t make it into our May 25th post. We apologize for the quality of the in-flight photos, which were extracted from a video taken from the tow plane. As anyone who’s tried air-to-air photography knows all too…
We are delighted to report that on Friday, May 25, 2012, at approximately 9:00 AM CDT, Dick Butler successfully completed the first test flight of Concordia. With his wife Sarah running the wing, DB launched from runway 18 at William Northern Field in Tullahoma, Tennessee and made a short tow to verify that the controls…
