Ellwood Compilation from surfimp on Vimeo.
This is an extended duration compilation of footage of Swiss Peter and myself flying over the last few sessions we’ve had out at Ellwood.
Peter has mostly been flying his all-white 2.1m 635g Big Fish, and I’ve been flying my white-and-black 1.5m 470g Le Fish with Madslide-style stabilizer. Both planes are built with the ultralightweight construction methodology that Peter pioneered, and they allow us to fly in a truly new and unique way.
Conditions varied between 6-12mph over the course of the various days and sessions presented here. This is the sweet spot for this current crop of ultralightweight gliders.
Apologies for the shaky bits of video in the beginning – those were filmed by my 6yr old son who is showing a lot of interest in gliders, especially now that we can make them do flips 
The rest was filmed via my headcam.
Leviathan from surfimp on Vimeo.
Finally! Flight footage of Swiss Peter’s incredible 2.5m Leviathan. It’s his own design and construction taken to the limit. It’s all made of EPP with Depron for the flight control surfaces, and everything covered in laminating film. What a machine! I got to fly it a bit and it is truly amazing, there is really nothing else like it except for perhaps R/C blimps? 
You can read more about the Leviathan here.
Ellwood Duet from surfimp on Vimeo.
Fun single take, uncut video of Peter and I flying a bowl at Ellwood, filmed with my headcam. The wind was a lot better than in most of our videos, about 10-12mph and coming in nicely to this bowl.
We tried to keep the planes in really close, within 5-10ft of the lip, where the compression was working really nicely. It allowed us to get the planes “on step” and really rockin’.
I was flying my 16.5oz 1.5m Le Fish and Peter was flying his 24oz 2m Big Fish. Filmed with a camera mounted to my hat
Slope Aerobatics with Le Fish “Light” from Dawson Henderson on Vimeo.
Dawson is really pushing the limits now… using a new pulley setup he came up with, he was able to get greater than 90* travel in one direction and found that he really liked the result. He’s going to modify his setup to use a larger drive wheel on the servo so that he can have more than 180* of total elevator rotation.
Here’s the original RCGroups post debuting Dawson’s pulley setup and his description of how it works, along with some photos:
“I used the 1.5 to 1.0 ratio to get the 120° to 180° movement on the elevator. I used the large servo horn/wheel as the “core” of my servo pulley. It measured 15/16″ in diameter… so I made the stab pulley 5/8″. That seem to work fine… I ended up with 180° of throw on the stab.
However next time I might go a bit larger on the servo pulley so I could be sure I got at least 90° each way and maybe a bit more. I was really enjoying the 100° throw on my UP elevator (only 80° on down); before I balanced them out to 90-90.”
Mad Elevator Using Pulleys from Dawson Henderson on Vimeo.
Speechless.
That’s a word some might use to describe this beast, the latest creation from the mind of my favorite madman, Swiss Peter. It is 2.5m, 1.5kg and made entirely from EPP. It’s covered in “New Stuff” laminating film and uses a bunch of CF ribbon and tube spars for reinforcement. Full flying rudder and elevator. What an incredible machine…
When I was over at Peter’s place checking it out last night, I told him that never in my wildest dreams did I ever envision something like this.
He said, “Yeah, me either!”
Pretty awesome and exciting stuff!!!
Flight video to follow as soon as possible Flight video here! Peter is not happy with the elevator yet and is going to do some tweaks to get the overall weight down. Will post more details as they come available.
Leviathan Flies!
Cruising at Ellwood Part II from surfimp on Vimeo.
Watch in HD fullscreen for best results!
My 16.5oz (470g) ultralight Le Fish with Madslide-style full flying stabilizer gliding at Ellwood Mesa in very light 6-8mph (9-12km/h) wind. Shot with my hat-mounted camera.
This video was filmed later on the same afternoon as the original Cruising at Ellwood video, but the conditions had backed off some. It was still enough to have a lot of fun with the ultralighweight “MadSwissFish”. The large built-up floater you see from time to time is a kit-built 2m Spirit Elite, and was really the only other kind of plane that would’ve been much fun in such weak conditions.
The song “Star Fire Power” is by Gardens & Villa, an up-and-coming Santa Barbara band that was recently featured on NPR’s Song of the Day.
Perpetual Motion II from surfimp on Vimeo.
This video has some of the craziest stunts I’ve ever seen. These planes are so light, so maneuverable, it’s just incredible. I’ve certainly never seen a slope glider that can fly like this before. Enjoy – we may very well be seeing the start of something truly new
Cruising at Ellwood from surfimp on Vimeo.
Had a really fun day out at Ellwood Mesa with Swiss Peter and Michael Richter. The wind was pretty light, maybe 10mph max and averaging about 7-8mph, straight in. Very marginal conditions for most planes, but not for our ultralightweights!! We had a blast, flying formation, doing fin drags and touch-and-goes, and generally just having a great time. So nice to spend a day at the beach with good buddies
