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spinchip · 1 year

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NEVER THE DARK

chapter 2

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Prologue - Chapter 1

Warning: canon typical violence, grief

TASTE THE SALT OF FRIENDSHIP// NOTICE THE MOVEMENT OF A STRANGER// HOLD YOUR OWN

Jay is not new to the life of a ninja. In fact, he would even call himself a veteran (especially at the coffee shop next to the arcade, where he took full advantage of the ninja discount,) and as such, he knows that there’s a rule about being a ninja. A universal truth that simply states this: It will always get worse before it gets better.

What happened with Pythor? They failed, and he awakened the great devourer. Giant mythical world eating snake, ring any bells? Unable to stop one measly normal sized snake, they couldn’t win until they had to stop a massive apocalyptic ruiner. (Well, Garmadon had defeated him, but the ninja definitely helped!) And then there’s The Overlord, Who they had to kill twice, if he’s even really dead… Then Chen, who managed to succeed in turning his whole cult into snakes because the ninja failed to stop him when he was a human… Next is Morro and right after him the time twins, all of their plans fully realized until the ninja managed to save the day in the knick of time. Don’t even get him started on the whole Sons of Garmadon and Harumi disaster. The point is, they’ve never managed to stop the newest villain's evil scheme before it snowballs out of control and becomes nearly ten times harder to win.

They’ve unintentionally lived by this creed since Jay first stepped foot in the monastery courtyard. Instead of analyzing the current playing field and structuring a plan around that, they should all hunker down and think of the worst possible outcome and then go off that. Which is why it always baffles Jay how it surprises him every time. At this point, he should just tattoo Murphy’s law to the backside of his eyelids so he remembers the most important rule of being Ninjagos greatest heroes.

Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

Why he pulled on his ninja suit expecting that tonight of all nights would be the moment they broke the cycle is a mystery to him. Maybe it’s a good thing the ninja lifestyle hadn’t stolen all his naivety? He should be touched that he’s still innocent, right? Something like that.

He’ll be honest with himself. Jay let his guard down just a teensy, tiny, itty-bitty bit. When they started their patrol less than 24 hours after Kai chased off the thief, he wasn’t as on edge as he could have been. He didn’t meticulously check the dark corners, or make sure the windows were properly latched, or carefully examine the room of creepy wax figures for a possible not-so-wax interloper. Nobody was there, anyway. He was antsy to get home, as were Nya and Kai, so when the clock struck midnight and the time to swap out came they were already standing outside the front doors as Cole and Lloyd pulled up.

The chances of the thief coming back the following night were just to the right of nonexistent. A few nights for the previous encounter to simmer down was expected. Jumping back into the museum so soon after almost being caught would have been a stupid, foolish mistake on her behalf. The woman from last night was inexperienced, but even the most clueless of thieves would know not to try for two nights in a row. It was common sense! A courtesy, even. That’s the way things were supposed to go.

“How’s it going?” Cole asks, stifling a yawn as he walks up.

“You’re in for another slow night.”

Lloyd groans, “Not again. I almost wish something would happen.” He jokes.

Coles communicator make a loud, shrill series of beeps. They’re completely unprepared for Wu’s phone call, the emergency alarm tone ends the conversation as Cole scrambles to answer it, getting his finger on the button to hear Wu’s urgent voice, “Left wing, coming out of the storage area,” He relays quickly, “She’s back!”

“Me and my big mouth.” Lloyd facepalms before shooting to the front of the group and leading them inside.

Jay's heart rate jacks up in anticipation and Lloyd breaks into a run, “Come on!” He calls, throwing open the doors. They fall into line behind him, sprinting through the clean and cozy halls. It wasn’t surprising Kai had lost the thief the night before- Krux had designed the museum, and it was all so purposefully confusing that it would be easy to lose someone if you guessed the right turns to make. It was like a massive maze. They pass by cursed paintings, ancient swords and racks of armor, fragile and crumbling scrolls of times long past, and a great deal of magical artifacts graciously donated (forced to surrender) by the Explorers Club that are clearly untouched. The Museum's alarm system would have told them if any exhibit had been disturbed, and Wu had said the woman was coming out of a storage closet. Hopefully they caught her before she got her hands on anything dangerous, since she didn’t have time to hunt down something like the Scroll of Forbidden Spinjitzu by this point. They finally emerge into a large grand hall. Old bones of long dead beasts are carefully strung up, put together with the utmost attention to detail to make large hulking goliaths stood around the room. Information stands decorate the room, happily informing the night air of the Dromaeosaurid Theropod Grundalicus intricate mating dances. On the other side of the hall is a door painted the same color as the wall with a white sign that says STORAGE. EMPLOYEES ONLY- but the woman closing the door behind her very clearly doesn’t work here.

“Hey!” Kai snaps as they come to a stop, the ninja fanning out in a semicircle across the hall in case she tries to flee. Slowly, they close in one her one step at a time.

She turns around and- well- she’s… not the same thief as before. She’s got tan skin and an angular face and short cut hair dyed hot pink that’s faded from a few washes. Jay tries to take it all in at once. He analyzes her every detail: A button up shirt several sizes too big, black on one side and stripped on the other, gray shorts, hot pink flip-flops that aren’t quite as vibrant as her scalp. She smiles lazily, black lipstick quirking to her left as a horizontal scar on the corner of her mouth pulls taut. She’s completely unconcerned with her predicament. Dangling from her left hand is a plastic grocery bag sagging with the spoils of her thievery.

“The ninja,” She says, sweeping her mismatched bluebrown eyes over them, “What an honor.” She doesn't sound a bit sincere, her eyes half lidded and tone bored and flat.

Jay blinks, “Who the heck are you?” He asks point blank. They know every major criminal in Ninjago! Sometimes personally! So this had to be another rookie, right? A team of two randos had actually managed to get a step ahead of them?

“I’m sorry, I don’t have much time to chat.” She sighs, not sounding sorry at all. She turns and starts walking over to a window, casually ignoring them. The echo of her flip flops slapping disrespectfully on the linoleum is the only sound in the room.

“Uh. excuse me?” Cole says politely, stepping forward. She hums in response, prompting Cole to continue, “We're not going to let you just leave with… whatever you stole.”

She doesn’t miss a beat, “You don’t really have a choice. You won't be able to stop me.” Her tone isn’t cocky or arrogant, she just delivered the statements as facts. Simple confidence. She’s well aware of her disadvantage but she doesn’t break stride, she’s not even a little bit bothered by their presence. If anything, she's making Jay nervous. She feels… dangerous.

“Oh really?” Kai reaches for his swords, “You said it yourself, lady, we’re the ninja. I think we can handle you.”

She stops walking, turning her head to scrutinize him with a bored expression on her face, “Maybe you could have, once.” she says frankly, and then she sighs, “It’s been three years, and your team hasn’t recovered yet. You’re not a threat anymore. I’m going to walk out of here with this-” She holds up the bag for a moment before dropping it back to her side, “-and the only thing you get to decide is if we’re doing this the easy way or the hard way.”

The air grows thick with tension, nobody moves.

“If you want my honest opinion,” She says almost gently, “Take the money the city owes you for all you’ve done and enjoy an early retirement. You can’t function a head short, It’s time to give up.”

Zane. Jay's chest constricts painfully, and before he can convince his lungs to take a deep breath the room’s temperature rises by several degrees. Kai's fury tastes like sulfur on the roof of Jay's mouth, hot and burning and rotten. The sounds of his swords unsheathing scrapes violently in the silence of the museum, “Fuck you.” Kai spits, and before the others can say anything he lunges directly for her. In the dark of the empty hall, his swords catch and seem to glow with moonlight, glinting deadly sharp.

For one horrible moment, it looks like Kai’s swords are going to aim true and skewer her. She steps to the side at the last second and Kai’s swing goes wide, missing her and causing him to stumble. She twists, plants her feet before turning back and delivering a textbook perfect hook kick and- crack-! Her heel connects with the back of Kai's head and sends him sprawling to the ground in an undignified heap. His swords clatter to the floor and go sliding across the room as he fails to catch himself. She steps away from him, standing confident and flat footed before looking at the rest of them, clearly waiting to see what they’d do.

It happened in the blink of an eye, so fast Jay nearly couldn’t keep up. She dodged Kai's attack. She’d dodged Kai’s attack-! That just- it didn’t happen. And she didn't seem scared or worried at all- still with that flat, bored expression. Like they were a minor nuisance.

Kai groans, “I… still hate you… but great form.” He grunts from the floor.

Her lips quirk into an involuntary smile before she looks back to the remaining ninja, “I’m assuming this means resolving this peacefully is out of the question?”

Nya growls, stepping forward and putting her fists up. Water gathers around her fists in tiny droplets, “Not out of the question, as long as you’re the one to surrender.” Her voice nearly trembles with rage, her eyes flicking to Kai as he brings himself to his hands and knees, shaking his head to clear the spots from his vision.

The woman shrugs, “I’m not going to.” And just like that the fight is on.

Nya breaks formation next and the others follow her, rushing the woman. She dodges each of their swings easily, weaving between them seamlessly. She seems to find and take advantage of every gap in their offense, and Jay can see her eyes flickering around them as she works out the perfect escape route. Jay realizes with a start that she’s not swinging back- not really. Physically, she can’t take them. The kick was a lucky shot and she only put him down because of how perfect the set-up was. If Cole were to land a blow- hell, any of them- they’d stop her in her track. If only she weren’t so. Damn. Elusive.

Cole swings his fist at her face and she plants her feet, raises her hands, and catches his fist mid-air. It takes both hands and all her strength to stop the blow but she does. It happens too fast for Jay to warn Cole- now that she has him, she’s set up another finishing move. She steps forward, throwing one arm over his shoulder and uses the other to push his fist down. She swings her leg around his, hooking the back of his knee and twisting just enough to knock his feet out from under him.

He falls directly to the floor, unable to counter it in time. Cole is not exactly a small man- how the mystery woman managed to execute that drop while being dramatically shorter than him he’ll never know- and when he falls he falls hard. He smacks into the ground gracelessly and lets out a stuttering wheeze, the air brutally knocked from his lungs. She releases him just in time to duck Lloyds arms attempting to bear-hug neutralize her and he trips over Cole, face-planting on the floor next to him.

Cole's rolls over and pushes Lloyds solid frame off his belly, “Can’t breathe!” He gasps out, still struggling to catch his breath. Lloyd presses the sleeve of his gi to his nose, his expression relieved when he pulls back to see no blood.

Jay goes to Cole’s side, helping him sit up. He looks up to see Kais rejoined the fight. His swords are forgotten and he's fighting with his fists, and again the woman seems to easily be dodging their uncoordinated attacks. Nya and Kai, as siblings, are the most naturally synchronized of the team and Jay can tell she’s putting more effort into dodging them than she was before. Lloyd and Cole follow Jay to their feet, preparing to jump back in. Kai gets a lucky swing in and clips her shoulder, and her expression goes from bored to mildly annoyed. She leaps to the side, transitioning into a roll to gain some distance. She takes half a second to gather her bearings as they all race towards her, narrowed eyes taking it all in. She breaks into a sprint, coming right towards them-!

And she runs right between Cole and Kai.

There had been a gap in their formation. Jays heart constricts again, and Kai and Cole stumble as if suddenly reminded they were missing a limb. Nya recovers the quickest, turning on a dime to chase after her. She pulls out a handful of throwing stars and flings them at the cables holding up the grundle bones- they come crashing down right in front of the woman, who skids to a halt. They’re blocking the path to the doorway out, and she won’t be fast enough to climb over them before Nya closes in on her. Whipping around to face Nya, she readies for a fight.

The bones don’t stop at the door- they crash backwards as well, spilling across the floor and separating Nya from the boys, leaving her and the thief circling each other in the arena of fossils.

“Not so tough now, are you?” Nya grins, the two of them keeping their distance. Nya walks carefully in a circle until she’s blocking the exit and the woman's back is to the boys, who are climbing over the mess to get to them. Perfect! She’s trapped!

She does that involuntary smile again, waiting until Nya is directly in front of the doorway before charging her. Putting her fists up, Nya waits for her to come to her. The woman bends as if she’s going to tackle her and Nya responds in kind, ducking down and widening her stance, stabilizing her form.

And then the woman leaps up into the air. It’s so surprising Nya doesn’t know how to react, looking up at her in shock before realizing she’s aimed directly for her. Before she can raise her arms in defense, the thief’s sandal comes down directly on her face. Using her forehead as a springboard, the woman flips off her head and across the room clear of the bones and debris.

She lands on her feet with the barest stumble before turning around and offering them a small salute.

Then she takes off down the hall.

Nya crashes into the bone pile, the force of the blow sending her sprawling. She groans as the boys finally manage to get past their obstacles, running over to her to check her over.

“I’m fine,” She grumbles as Lloyd helps her stand, her hair flies left and right as she shakes the blow off, “Just a bruised ego.”

“You got a little…” Jay gestures to his face.

Nya glaces at her reflection in a glass display case. Stamped across her expression is a perfectly preserved shoe print. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” She grunts, scrubbing her face with her sleeve until the mark is gone.

“Come on, guys.” Lloyd calls firmly from where the other three have cleared the bones out of the pathway, “We gotta go after her!”

“No arguments from me,” Nya says, cracking her knuckles before they all race down the hall after her.

Despite her lead, she hasn’t gotten far. Jay nearly thanks Krux in his head for the absolute nightmare of the museum's architecture, which is finally working in their favor. He could thank the mystery woman too, she made herself an easy target to track. All it takes is following the sounds of flip flops slapping.

Still, Jay has a bad feeling about all this.

#ninjago #jay walker #kai ninjago #cole ninjago #nya ninjago #lloyd garmadon #ninjago never the dark #ninjago au #spinchip fic #somewhat of a filler chapter sry

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jacewilliams1 · 5 years

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A glider with no tail? I flew one

My search for a flying wing sailplane ended with the purchase of N86TX and its relocation to Hangar 115 in New Braunfels, Texas (my brother’s three-car garage). For the next several months he, with help from my cousin Rayford and my father Tom, did the remaining 30% of the work to get the sailplane to a finished state and ready for inspection.

I called the FAA and they sent an inspector over. For four hours, I answered questions from Mr. John Irwin on just about everything you could think of. “Where is the engine? Where is the fuel tank? Where is the nav system? Where is the EGT? Where is the rubber band to launch it?” Not really; he was nice and very professional and I appreciated every nut and bolt he checked. My brother Buddy passed and this is his recollection of N86TX. In his memory, I post his version of “Our Wing.”

Buddy’s Story

I have known my only older brother all my life—TV producer, private pilot, sailplane pilot, Hobie Cat owner, AMX owner (a rare sport vehicle), and recently a flying wing owner. He lives about fours hours away by ground transport so he contacted me on a 30-minute communiqué via satellite. I got this excited and almost unintelligible conversation that conveyed the following, where I did manage to pick out the basics:

He wanted me to travel about 50 miles to look at a “Mar-ski” flying wing. Yeah, right! I was thinking, “Not another radio controlled project!”

Check it out to see if it is capable of being finished. (Now I knew the real reason for the call: I get to finish it).

Send pictures so he can consider the purchase of same. This could be a profit center for me if I could just bill him travel time. I had all the mechanical aptitude and inventiveness, the workshop to support the project, and a massive Snap-On roll-a-round with all the required tools. I also had four years in the Air Force as a weapons system technician and a year in AC-130 Gunships—and big brother has a really big selective service number and the time and resources to fly. Ain’t it always the case!

I grabbed my favorite traveling buddy, Ray Silkwood, fired up the weekend road warrior (a 1972 Blazer with a more than stock power plant), and took to the road on the first free morning for all involved.

The backup reason for the excursion was a stop at several of my favorite pawn shops and secondhand tool stores, just in case this was another Piper Cub in need of several years’ worth of annuals, lots of navel jelly, and a whole lot of rat poison.

Now what???

We located the correct driveway and rumbled in… There it was… .

There was this little bitty cockpit and these massively long wings and it was all supposed to be stuffed in this crafty little trailer.

My first thought was, “how am I going to get the entire 50-foot wing into that itty-bitty trailer?”

My second thought was, “if there is just a little bit left to do to make this bird flight-worthy, how come my brother said it was only 70 percent complete?”

My third thought was, “how come it was not complete and not flying?”

Ray and I tore through the inspection covers like a “Tim Allen modified Binford ten horse shop vac” and found almost nothing wrong with the interior of this really unique looking, stubby little flying wing. It did not have a motor or a visible means of pitch control but it did have a conventional stick and rudder.

I was thinking, “Maybe I can put in a Rotax and gear it to push a prop through the hand crafted gear reduction linear inter-digitized rectabular extrusion three-to-one… nah, maybe not!”

Paint was not great but adequate—basic white with a really poor red stripe job.

Again I was thinking, “Maybe some ghosted flames in neon green with a false flying tigers shark teeth in matching yellow along the canopy … nah, maybe not!”

The instruments needed a little TLC. The panel was really basic and the interior was pretty functional except for the bicycle handle grips on the spoiler and stick–maybe a porcelain gearshift knob would fit.

One thing had to go, though: those stupid looking trailer wheels. (Maybe a Boyd’s inverted-finger wing-three spoker with center covers… Yeah, that will do it!)

Sure as there is ridge lift in the Rockies, I didn’t get to stop off and see any of my favorite pawn shops.

I ended up with this little sweetie in my workshop and a promise from my brother to come down on the weekends to “help me a little” with the process of getting this bird flight-certified.

So with Ray, my dad Thomas M., and my only older brother and this Mar-Ski flying wing in my front yard, we started off what was to be a great part of life for me and my only older brother.

Next day was a wash job, complete inspection of every moving part, and an agreement that the PVC pipe bushings in the wing ribs (installed to ease the friction on the push tubes) had got to go. The noise of aluminum tubes and PVC rubbing when aileron was actuated was like a fingernail on chalkboard symphony!

Nine weeks later and with just a few hundred drops of red and white corpuscles on the shop floor, the FAA inspector was in my workshop and spending time with my older brother to determine if all of Irwin’s and my work was government-approved or not.

I watched with amazement as document after document and photograph after photograph were detailed with more conflagration of verbiage than the control tower at O’Hare has ever heard.

Needs a little TLC, as they say.

Sure enough, after an hour or so the inspector had to 10-100 and the pow-wow between me, my Dad, and my only older brother centered on how we were going to have to deal with this inspector to get the ticket we needed.

Back he came and he wanted to see the wing disconnected. Mind you, we had spent several hours in the early morning sweating the process of getting the wings all aligned perfectly and this guy wanted me to remove a wing!

So with a little banter about the time this might take and a raised eyebrow of disgust on my part, I agreed to allow this government inspector to view the ballet of professionalism required to dismantle a single wing.

I found out that when he spoke to me he was a pretty nice guy who really liked my workmanship and was fully satisfied with the inspection process – and signed on the dotted line and it was all over!

My little sweetie had official governmental approval for N86TX to be stenciled on my… my only older brother’s bird.

Lloyd’s Story

One early Saturday morning in mid-April of that year, I rolled over and asked my wife to attend the test flight of my flying wing. She was up and was ready almost as fast as I was. What a blessing to have such a cool and supportive wife!

We could read the thoughts in their eyes: “You’re not going to get me in that thing!” Several walked around to the rear of The Wing and one said, ” Where’s the rest of the tail? This thing can’t fly!”

I asked if I had any volunteers for testing. Immediately there was a mass exodus to the coffee lounge. With the parachute, we did another weight and balance check and all was well. As I walked to the FBO at 9am to use the facilities, I overheard one instructor telling another that planes without engines don’t fly very well. He continued, “You are too busy worrying about where to land to enjoy the flying.” Boy, is he wrong.

I have to admit that for many nights prior to the flight I had gone through the checklist over and over. I imagined every possible scenario and even wrote a detailed test program with emergency procedures that my brother and helpers could put into action if needed.

The day came and much of that got stored away to be retrieved only if really necessary. My brother Buddy had checked the wing over a thousand times. He had butterflies.

My dad handed me the canopy. The time had come to set her free! Butterflies were there, but I had explained to myself, “Self, it is a sailplane with many hours of hard work to build, a very, very good designer, Jim Marske, working out all the problems, and she’s just waiting for you to say, ‘Let’s go!'”

“OK, let’s go!”

Silently I said, “Now, Lloyd, shut your mouth! Go into the restroom and ponder.” So I pondered.

Ralph Thompson, a member of the airport board of directors, was going to fly chase with his 115 hp Citabria. He was also there to allay fears of the airport manager. Ralph found himself caught in a political squabble about my testing my flying wing glider at their airport. Thank you, Ralph, for all the Unicom and traffic advisories.

Time to test the new bird.

The airport manager had given me a really hard time prior to flight, including some guff about not letting me do my auto test tow on the airport. I did those at another airport. I wanted the runway length here for safety. Finally, he came around.

I had thought several times about letting someone else do the initial test flights. After getting my commercial glider pilot ticket and thinking about the wing and studying every article I could get my hands on and with the support of Jim Marske by phone over several discussions… I decided to go for it.

I wanted to take my time with these flights, but things quickly changed. The tow plane landed 30 minutes late. As he rolled up, the pilot told me he had a flat tailwheel and bad battery. We needed to go ASAP! Across the taxi way we went—crew, wife and Wing.

I had chosen the runway into the three knot wind. As I strapped on the parachute, out of the clear blue it hit me: “I am going to test fly this Wing?”

I stopped momentarily and had a quick conversation with my Heavenly Father to say, “Thank you. Please find the time to assign a few more angels to me today. And bless my family if anything goes wrong.”

I stepped into the cockpit and for some reason felt calm and warm.

Everything slowed down. Radio check… release check… control check… seatbelt check… kiss from wife… thumbs up from my brother on the wing after attaching the tow rope. He checked it twice and then once again. I was not sure the Super Cub pilot was sure what to expect towing this white custom sailplane down the runway.

The radio crackled, “N86TX on runway 17 New Braunfels for glider tow and test flight.”

With that the rope came taut and we rolled down the open runway. In the first 200 feet, I was focused on deciding if it was going to be stable. Jim Marske and Mike Hostage, who design and build wings, had given me all their words of confidence, but this was the true test. Lift off and in ground effect.

The Cub accelerated to 70 mph and we started to climb. The airport has three runways in a triangle so we turned left to always have a place to land if needed.

At 300 feet it was calm and The Wing was just beginning to relax. Me, I was sucking about 40 cubic feet of air so there was no way the canopy was coming off. “Fly the plane Lloyd!” I just kept telling myself that it is just like the test auto tows.

“Ah, right! It really is flying just like Jim said it would!”

Check roll carefully. OK, check airspeed. 70 mph, now at 1000 feet. If all went well, I had planned to go to 2000 ft. on the first tow to give me 100 ft. to just fly smoothly. The air was dead calm and very smooth. One circle of the airport and we were now at 2000 ft., northeast of the airport. I reached to pull the release and everything stopped for a second. I had done the dozen ground tows but now we were at 2000 ft.

Flying free!

A nice calm voice said, “I want to be free!” So, with a smile I pulled the release. For the next 20 to 30 seconds we flew without a single input. I slowed to about 55-60 mph and just flew.

I said to myself, “Lloyd, this is what it’s all about!” I just let her spread her wings without a single touch; she was stable and flew effortlessly at 60 kts with not a single hiccup. I opened up the NASA scoop more and what little noise there was disappeared and we just floated. The air was very calm and I just gave her time to breathe as well. What a rush. What a great time to be alive.

Slowly I turned to the left to overfly the airport and head south. It was as though The Wing was stretching its wings after a long, long sleep. No surprises, just very smooth. We did some slow turns, 45 degrees then 90 degrees at about 10 degrees of bank and no more. I was always talking on Unicom to ensure ground and chase knew my intentions. I took The Wing down to 1500 ft. and decided to slow down.

At this height, my mind turned to the pattern and landing. The tow plane was down and the chase plane was clear and advising traffic of the test flight.

I turned downwind and found myself at 1200 ft. for runway 17. Without even thinking “full spoilers” The Wing said, “OK!”

At this point I realized my toes were starting to hurt; I was trying to push the rudder pedals out the front of the plane.

Down we came, going crosswind at 600 ft. I had full spoilers while turning to base at 400 ft. so I retained full spoilers with plenty of room.

A small voice said,”Just watch this squeaky clean touch down.  Coming in for a landing!”

I did not even have a second thought and I said “OK.”

We rolled to a stop about 300 ft. down the runway from the numbers and a wing touched the ground.

I had a few seconds after stopping to thank the Great Designer of Life for everything, to thank him for my wife and my family and the dream he gave me and also to tell my Wing, “Thank you!” before all the crew arrived.

Time to celebrate.

The next tows were each to 4000 ft. We found a heavy mush to occur at 40 mph but we still had some nose weight to remove. The first 4000 ft. tow was quiet and peaceful. We did some 90 degree turns with the bank angle at 45 degrees and then 75 degrees with good response. The Wing had a tendency to slowly lift the left wing (we adjusted that later).

The Wing and I tried some stability tests on pitch. We increased speed to 85 mph, released, and did two cycles of pitch until The Wing stabilized at 60mph, maybe 58mph, in level flight. Then we tried several 360s left and right. The Wing wanted to turn better to the right but we would see after adjustment. We did some more stall approaches and there was no tendency to fall off.

The Wing was heavy with nose weight, parachute, and an overweight pilot! The landing was pleasant and very comfortable. My wife and the crew and the rest of my family rushed over to tell me how good it looked.

The joy of the successful test flights! Thanks to my wife, Denise who gave me the support needed to complete and fly the Pioneer!

The post A glider with no tail? I flew one appeared first on Air Facts Journal.

from Engineering Blog https://airfactsjournal.com/2019/05/a-glider-with-no-tail-i-flew-one/

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