Just realized we didn't have a thread here for the Dynamic series of planes. Time to fix that!
The Joe Manor is an iconic glider for the world of Dynamic Soaring (DS). Capable of amazing speeds and built for massive strength, these planes are no joke. You need some good slope experience before you attempt to mess with one of these, but when you are ready, these planes can really deliver. The big boy of the family (over 40 lbs), the Dynamic 130 has a recorded flight speed of 514mph. The D80 holds a speed of 453 mph, D60 = 360mph, and the little D40 is just a bit behind at 305 mph recoded just last year.
Joe Manor with an early D40
But it is also much more than raw speed. Many people enjoy the smaller D40 and D60 gliders as dedicated front side gliders that will handle a ton of abuse and cary lots of energy. (The bigger planes are not a good option as their airfoils are for pure speed.) We noticed this trend and now offer new versions of the 40 and the 60 just for the front side pilots. At least that was our original intention. We call these the F40 and F60, the F stands for Frontside, as in the frontside of the slope. We use the same exact molds as the D versions, but we change the layup and use modern spread tow fabrics to keep a lot of the strength while saving a lot of weight. Then we added some area to all of the flight surfaces to make the planes a little more fun. This means bigger ailerons, flaps and elevator. Now imagine a plane that weighs less, and can land slower, but still offers pretty insane strength. I think you get the idea.
F40 prototype.
Then we handed the prototype F40 over to our tame test pilot Bruce Tebo. I asked him to test it out on the frontside of the slope and report back. He did and all was going well, he couldn't help himself and clocked a speed of 194mph on the maiden flight! The next day he clocked in at 217, and then a speed of 240mph. Wow, not bad at all. So even though we lightened the plane, she still turns great speeds. I doubt many people in the world could fly a 40" plane to this sort of speed, these are really small planes.
Next up we gave the 60" version the same treatment. Then Covid broke out and we had to wait until shipping of planes was permitted again. We finally got them in and we sent an F60 off to Bruce and he has been flying it with great results. As he says, the light weight (AUW=49.6oz) makes him think he forgot to add something to the plane, just feels lighter than he is used to for a 60. He has been able to fly it in lighter conditions than a D60, it lands with better authority and slows down (or even fly backwards) with the larger flaps. So far I think he has the plane up to about the 250mph mark with no issues.
We are looking forward to more reports on the F60 as we did sell several of these, they sold out FAST.
We will be altering the tail layup a bit on the F60 as we think we can get them stiffer and lighter, thus saving even more weight.
We just got another shipment of D80s in today, so those are up on the site. They are beasts!
The Joe Manor is an iconic glider for the world of Dynamic Soaring (DS). Capable of amazing speeds and built for massive strength, these planes are no joke. You need some good slope experience before you attempt to mess with one of these, but when you are ready, these planes can really deliver. The big boy of the family (over 40 lbs), the Dynamic 130 has a recorded flight speed of 514mph. The D80 holds a speed of 453 mph, D60 = 360mph, and the little D40 is just a bit behind at 305 mph recoded just last year.
Joe Manor with an early D40
But it is also much more than raw speed. Many people enjoy the smaller D40 and D60 gliders as dedicated front side gliders that will handle a ton of abuse and cary lots of energy. (The bigger planes are not a good option as their airfoils are for pure speed.) We noticed this trend and now offer new versions of the 40 and the 60 just for the front side pilots. At least that was our original intention. We call these the F40 and F60, the F stands for Frontside, as in the frontside of the slope. We use the same exact molds as the D versions, but we change the layup and use modern spread tow fabrics to keep a lot of the strength while saving a lot of weight. Then we added some area to all of the flight surfaces to make the planes a little more fun. This means bigger ailerons, flaps and elevator. Now imagine a plane that weighs less, and can land slower, but still offers pretty insane strength. I think you get the idea.
F40 prototype.
Then we handed the prototype F40 over to our tame test pilot Bruce Tebo. I asked him to test it out on the frontside of the slope and report back. He did and all was going well, he couldn't help himself and clocked a speed of 194mph on the maiden flight! The next day he clocked in at 217, and then a speed of 240mph. Wow, not bad at all. So even though we lightened the plane, she still turns great speeds. I doubt many people in the world could fly a 40" plane to this sort of speed, these are really small planes.
Next up we gave the 60" version the same treatment. Then Covid broke out and we had to wait until shipping of planes was permitted again. We finally got them in and we sent an F60 off to Bruce and he has been flying it with great results. As he says, the light weight (AUW=49.6oz) makes him think he forgot to add something to the plane, just feels lighter than he is used to for a 60. He has been able to fly it in lighter conditions than a D60, it lands with better authority and slows down (or even fly backwards) with the larger flaps. So far I think he has the plane up to about the 250mph mark with no issues.
We are looking forward to more reports on the F60 as we did sell several of these, they sold out FAST.
We will be altering the tail layup a bit on the F60 as we think we can get them stiffer and lighter, thus saving even more weight.
We just got another shipment of D80s in today, so those are up on the site. They are beasts!
