Here is an item I picked up on the RCSE summary this morning:

"Jim,

I got to fly Dr. Drela's Bubble Dancer last summer. The first flight was
off a hand toss. I circled around and came back. All felt fine. The next
throw was a little harder. I caught a small thermal about 10' off the
ground. Mark said to go ahead and treat it like a hand launch, which I did.
There is something a little unnerving about flying someone else's 3M plane
10' off the ground, but I put it into a tight core and up it went. That
flight lasted about 10 minutes.

The appeal for me was a very easy handling big plane that goes up on just
about any type of lift. It also flew slowly very well, nice for landings.
In fact, I don't recall ever throwing spoilers as it was just crawling in.

It is an extremely well thought out design, beautiful to see. It is a
builders plane, but anyone would appreciate the detailing and smart
engineering put into the structure.

The only downside I saw was coming back from downwind. There was a slight
(7-8 mph breeze) and it was the first time I've flown a plane that was too
light. This is a nice problem to have as long as you can ballast easily.
With a couple clicks of down it moves, but nothing like a camber changed
wing. Once again to be fair, this was totally unballasted and it was my
first time flying it.

I have a Bird of Time that I would say is the closest feel in flight. I
watched Mark fly off the winch later in the day. The wings flex, but he was
zooming pretty nicely off the top. Not monster zooms, but you don't really
need that for this plane. It has a great L/D just floating along. You can
burn plenty of minutes just cruising around.

JE
--
Erickson Architects
John R. Erickson, AIA"

Here is another:

" Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 05:42:32 +0000
From: "Jeff Nibler" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [RCSE] Bubble Dancer

Yes. To add to the comments others have made... it could be a sport flyer or
a RES competition ship. It's capable of full pedal zooms. It's wingtips
are extraordinarily light... far lighter then any composite RES wingtip,
which makes for great yaw response. The main idea behind the plane is an
extremely light wing loading (to go up in minimal lift) with a fast thin
airfoil (to range out). This allows it to have a fantastic L/D, yet if you
put the nose down, it will move out nicely without a gigantic loss in L/D.
You get the benefits of a floater and a led sled all in one."