While in Berkeley I typically work from 4:00 AM to 12:00 Noon each day. This gives me the afternoons off.
This day after my shift I was leaving the lab and there were goats! Apparently, they had hired a herd of goats to eat the weeds on the hillsides for fire prevention! Pretty cool! The herd included many momma goats and baby goats too.
This day I went to Point Richmond to fly some of my gliders. Pt Richmond is at the Northern end of San Francisco Bay. It is a very good place to fly gliders because there are several slopes that come up to a single point so that you can fly there when the wind is coming from most any direction. The trail to get there is quite steep but it is worth the climb.
This is a QuickTime VR panorama of what it looks like while you are on the top of Point Richmond. Click and drag in the panorama to look around.
Today I was going to try to fly my 2 meter 1-26 and my little Albatoss. I hadn’t flown either plane since before my trip. It turned out that the battery on the 1-26 was shot. It had apparently melted down while charging, so bad that I couldn’t repair it in the field. The Albatoss however just had one stripped servo. Fortunately I had a gear set for the servo and was able to repair it in the field.
I had a great time flying the Albatoss. It is probably my most reliable glider. It only has rudder and elevator, but that is just fine for a lazy afternoon of gliding. I learned today that it is very difficult to fly a model plane and take pictures of it at the same time. I had to train myself to fly with my left hand (normally I use my right) and then take the pictures with the right hand with the camera. I ended up zooming in and following the plane by looking through the viewfinder. It works OK but I crash much more that way!
When it was time to go, I packed everything up and headed back down the trail. This is the view of the trail going back down to the car. While I am up here I often see joggers who run up this thing! One of the best things about flying gliders is the places it takes you. The views are just fantastic!
After I got down I decided to go over to the Berkeley Marina again and fly my Zagi some more. (You can’t fly electrics at Pt Richmond) I had modified one of my folding propellers to work in the reverse orientation on the Zagi, but it didn’t work well. It vibrated a lot once I got it on. It must be out of balance. I just put the regular prop back on and flew for a long time at the marina. I used it like a motor-glider and only used the power to take off and increase altitude. Otherwise I would glide on the air currents.