UltraBatics: Long Beach Session from surfimp on Vimeo.

Had a great session with the 16.5oz Le Fish ultrabat at Bluff Park in Long Beach. The wind was a steady 10-15mph and I was able to really enjoy myself in all the diverse terrain offered by the man-made environment.

One of my main goals was to try and railslide a section of smooth rail at the far east end of the park. As you can see in the video, I succeeded

Fun Acro de BLH Andorra, voltigeur de pente from jivaromodels on Vimeo.

Here’s some great video from Laurent Berlivet of Jivaro-Models.org of the Fun Acro by BLH Andorra. What a fun little machine! 1.2m (48″) wingspan, about 470g (16.5oz) and all wood construction… very cool!

The Aero-Glide UltraBatics Slope Glider Prototype from surfimp on Vimeo.

This is the Aero-Glide UltraBatics prototype. It is a collaboration between Michael Richter and myself, Steve Lange.

With the goal of successfully performing the first “rudder flip” (a 360* rotation in the yaw axis), I started working on a pod-and-boom aerobatics glider prototype called Le Cygne in March 2012. Shortly thereafter, I began collaborating with Michael on this design, which he built using input from me as well as his own ideas.

The Aero-Glide has a fully symmetrical fuselage pod based on the Alula fin. It uses a full flying stabilizer and full flying rudder each capable of 180* rotation, allowing it to do flips in both pitch and yaw – the latter being an heretofore elusive move, to the best of our knowledge having never been performed before on the slope.

The stab and rudder are controlled by Henderson Pulleys, invented by our good friend and collaborator Dawson Henderson from Flagstaff, Arizona.

The Aero-Glide also owes a deep inspiration to the ultralight aerobatics pioneering of Peter Richner, upon whose innovative ultralight construction techniques the UltraBatics movement was founded.

Initial impressions of the Aero-Glide are extremely positive: as shown, knife edge performance is excellent, and the core goal of the design, performing a rudder flip, is also successfully demonstrated. It’s fast in light lift and very smooth… overall this is a great start!!

Oh man, this video is fantastic… there is a tremendous slope aerobatics scene going on in Italy and this video is a wonderful example. Look at all those beautiful large molded gliders, and what a flying site! Simply wonderful!!

The Flow from Paige Anderson on Vimeo.

I’m so stoked! This is the Flow, created by Paige Anderson of Future Slope Designs. It is the result of a journey beginning many years ago now for Paige, and the culmination of countless hours of research and refinement. It is a plane designed precisely to suit the needs of the UltraBatics movement and I’m tremendously excited by its potential. The initial run of pre-orders sold out immediately but the next batch should be available soon. If you’re looking to jump into UltraBatics, you’d be crazy not to seriously consider the Flow – it looks like it can do it all. I can’t wait to fly one!

We call this UltraBatics not because it is better than any other form of aerobatics – it most definitely is not, and we have absolutely no interest in such comparisons – but because it is oriented towards ultra-light, ultra-maneuverable, and ultra-durable gliders made from EPP and/or Depron that fly in a unique ultralight style, very often in ultralight lift. Hence, Ultra-Batics or UltraBatics.

The previous phrase “California Style VTPR” doesn’t really capture everything we are doing with these gliders, in the sense that people outside of California are actively building and flying them, and that the gliders themselves can be adapted to a range of flying styles, sites and pilot preferences. More importantly, we do not limit our approach to only flying close to the ground (although we frequently do that); in fact, our preference is to merge traditional aerobatics, VTPR and Madflight – all performed with the unique capabilities of an extremely lightweight glider of 4-6oz/sq.ft. (12-20g/dm^2) wingloading – into the same flight routine.

The core focus is to explore this new realm of possibility opened up by ultralight gliders. What are the limits of what we can achieve in slope aerobatics? We want to find out. We want to fly in a radical style everywhere, to engage with the terrain in new ways that are more akin to skateboarding, surfing or snowboarding than traditional aerobatics, but also to see what new artistic possibilities arise when the wingloadings become so low that the airplane can hang in the air for long, fascinating moments, creating the illusion of slow motion in realtime.

We of course cite the French influence as being very central to the development of this style of flying. Without the French having perfected the aerobatics glider – specifically via specialized airfoils such as the SB96V/VS and TP42/29, the development of the Madslide-style full flying stabilizer, the “fish shaped” fuselages, the inspiration of the VTPR videos, amongst many other examples – we would not be where we are today. We will always make reference to the French inspiration for this flying style and if nothing else, we intend UltraBatics as our own contribution to the larger effort of pushing slope aerobatics forward that the French have lead for so many years now.

In addition to the French aerobatics tradition, the Weasel and Alula by Michael Richter of Dream-Flight have been tremendously influential for Dawson, Peter and myself. Those gliders were our introduction to ultralight flying, and in many ways that experience is what set us down the path to exploring glider aerobatics and thereby discovering the French aerobatics scene. For my part, my own Le Fish design was meant to be like “a Weasel with a rudder and perfect inverted” first and foremost. Here in Santa Barbara, we have always flown in an “in your face”, close to the ground style; when Pierre Rondel first introduced the term VTPR to us on RCGroups in 2005, I immediately understood the core idea, because it was how we already flew.

UltraBatics is our attempt to synthesize all of these significant influences into a new and exciting flying style. We are only at the beginning of the beginning, and the possibilities are limited only by our imagination.

See you in the future,

Steve Lange
SlopeAerobatics.com

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Core examples of the style:

VTPR California Style from surfimp on Vimeo.

Flips and Spins with Le Fish Light from Dawson Henderson on Vimeo.

Natural Mystic from surfimp on Vimeo.

Paige Anderson has been working towards this style of flying for quite a long time. This is The Flow – one of the very first purpose-built ultrabats.

The Flow from Paige Anderson on Vimeo.

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Also, this style of flying is spreading already… our own pgts is experimenting with it with his The Poisson design in France

The Poisson : Inverted J-Flip and play… from pgts on Vimeo.

John Scahill and Dan McCleary have been very busy working on ultrabats, too. Here are some of their experiments:

Dan’s 40″ 12oz. Extra from John Scahill on Vimeo.

Slope Shark from John Scahill on Vimeo.

Jlink and his dad have just maidened a 2m, 33oz plane called the Acro that screams “ultrabat” to me:

Acro from John Scahill on Vimeo.

Dietrich Meissner of Germany is getting into the act with a multiflip ultrabatics machine:

Segler mit +-90° HLW-Ausschlag am Hang from Dietrich Meissner on Vimeo.

There’s a lot going on… this is just scratching the surface!!

The Poisson : Inverted J-Flip and play… from pgts on Vimeo.

Stéphane “pgts” Combet of France saw my J-Flip video (posted just yesterday!) and is seen here, the very next day, performing some J-Flips of his own along with some other fun ultralight aerobatics with his own-design The Poisson, a 1.2m Depron aerobat inspired by my Le Fish. It looks like so much fun!

I love the internet; we like-minded people can take immediate inspiration from one another, and really help push our sport forward very quickly. All it takes is an open mind, a willing heart, and the desire to invent the future. I love it!

The J-Flip Tail-First Takeoff from surfimp on Vimeo.

I was inspired to try this tail first takeoff after watching my seven year old son, José Luis, playing with a chuck glider. He launched the chuck glider tail-first and inverted, and it did a half flip and then flew away upright.

I figured why not? Here I am performing it with my 17oz ultralight Le Fish. I named the trick the J-Flip in honor of my son.

Traditional vs Ultralight Builds of Le Fish Aerobatics Glider from surfimp on Vimeo.

Got a chance to fly Ellwood in 12-15mph wind, which is quite a bit stronger than usual, and coming in offcenter from the right. I had both my traditionally-built Le Fish as well as my ultralight-built version, so I took some video of each flying to help illustrate the differences in how they fly. The flying itself is nothing special, but I hope it helps show how differently the design flies at each weight.

The traditionally built Le Fish is the original prototype that first flew back in 2006. It weighs 38oz and is covered in Solartex and Ultracote, along with thinned Goop both under and over the covering for extra durability. It has a traditional fixed elevator. Overall, the lift allowed it to fly pretty nicely, but it felt very heavy on the sticks compared to what I’ve become used to from the ultralights. It’s nowhere near as agile, which is to be expected since it’s more than twice as heavy.

The ultralight built Le Fish was first flown in the summer of 2011 and weighs 17oz. It is covered in laminating film and has a Madslide-inspired full flying stabilizer capable of about 150* of travel, allowing for tight flip maneuvers. It too enjoyed the lift conditions, although like with the heavier Le Fish the offcenter wind direction wasn’t optimal. It’s clear that the ultralight plane is much more agile, though with less energy retention, than the heavier plane. Again, to be expected given the weight difference between the two.

Overall, for me and the kind of flying I’m interested in doing today, the ultralight plane is a far better match. The heavy Le Fish was flying OK in these conditions but really would’ve come alive had the wind direction been more straight-in. The light Le Fish, by comparison, was quite happy to fly in a small space and perform trick after trick, able to be manipulated into all sorts of interesting situations thanks to its light weight and extremely low inertia. Honestly it’s a totally different philosophy of aerobatic slope flying, something that comes from flying the Dream-Flight Weasel and Alula more than any other influence. I dig it!

The kit for the very cool Akhenaton all wood (‘tout bois’) aerobatics glider is now available through Silencemodel.fr. The plane has great specs and looks like it will be a fun performer for all kinds of aerobatics and VTPR.

The Akhenaton kit is complete and includes all the wood required to construct it, sheeting, longerons, epoxy control horns, carbon wing joiner, and similar. All that is needed to complete the plane is glue and covering material.

Akhenaton specs:
Span: 1975 mm
Length: 1290 mm
Weight: 1070 grs
Wingloading: 31 g/dm2
Profile: TP29-9
Radio: 4 servos