I have ventured into this and would like the experienced turbine glider pilots to explain their take-off techniques please.

My first attempts, whilst ultimately successfull, have been less than satisfactory. Currently it goes a bit like this:

Advance throttle, try to get the wings level to stop one wingtip from dragging on the ground. By now the nose is grinding itself into destruction on the runway. Keep it going and hope for a bump....and enough runway left for eventual take-off.

I think there must be some sweet spot somewhere between full power and not enough to get both wings off the ground, before it noses-over and start skidding on the nose.

Your expert guidance will be appreciated (before I too resort to the common fix of adding a nose wheel).

Thanks,

Jan

The wheel free movement under load of the model is critical, on the Blanik, full up smooth application of full power, on grass it would nose forward for a few feet till the elevator 'bit' that's about the time the ailerons could pick up the dragging wing.
For our formation team I added piano wire tip skids to keep the model level.


Messy flight at JP a couple of years back where we had not flown the routine for some time before, but you can see with a greased wheel and the tip skids its smooth.

Here is Glenn's method

Mine has the nose wheel and a couple of little wing tip wheels that are mounted with double sided tape. Pretty much takes care of the scraping on hard surfaces. Now if I just had Dave's flying skills.

Get yourself a dolly! Espritmodels sells them in 2 sizes

Nose wheel helps, especially on paved surface, that's all you need.

Dolly is a great idea but I'm not a good enough pilot to hit it on the landing on hard surface -- thus the wheels.

Flew my 4m Fox this weekend with 1mm piano wire wing skids fitted. What a difference, no longer having to concentrate on getting the wings level and immediately able to concentrate on throttle management avoiding the previously, dreaded, nose grinding. Good solution to my problem.

Cheers,

Jan