Flips and Spins with Le Fish Light by Dawson

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

Another cool new video from Dawson. He’s flying his lightweight Le Fish in some pretty strong conditions at Mormon Lake Overlook near Flagstaff, Arizona. After having his vertical stabilizer once again “surgically removed” at WeaselFest by a ravenous Weasel (this is the second time this has happened!), he’s gone ahead and modded his rudder to try a lower aspect ratio shape. It seems to give some interesting performance changes.

Here are his comments:
“I had just replaced the tail group of my Le Fish Light with something a little different. The vertical stab and rudder were much more low aspect and had about 60° of throw both ways. The horizontal stab had lightening holes cut behind the spar and additional counter weights added to the LE… balancing the stab fore and aft. I liked the changes. The new rudder seemed to help with stall maneuvers… especially the spins and the H-Stab never fluttered.”

Watch for the really cool outside spin beginning about 1:45… he loses almost no altitude (thanks to his Le Fish’s superlight 21.5oz weight) and ends up doing pirouettes around the nose. Very cool! Beautiful smooth flying from Dawson despite what look to be fairly blustery conditions… always a pleasure to watch him at play!! 🙂

P.S. – keep watching till the very end for the surprise bonus segment!