I've been flying a 6' polyhedral for a year now. Phil has been talking about slope soaring, and the few attempts made seemed to batter the planes. So I decided to get a foamie. But a combat foamie probably wouldn't fly well in weak conditions. I'd need something that could at least thermal. The DAW TG-3 is a poly ship, the one I should have started with. But I wanted to fly sailplanes with ailerons. So I chose the DAW 2m 1-26 foamie. But not only does it have ailerons, it's a mid-wing design. I finally finished and flew it Memorial Day weekend, but not without putting it through hell.

I started in the lot next door, just trying to hand toss it and fly it straight and level. I never realized how difficult flying with ailerons was going to be. But I was laughing the whole way, not just at my flying (or lack of), but the abuse the plane could take and still fly, especially when landing on wing-tips and doing cartwheels. I would have had to rebuild my poly ship a dozen times, just that night.

The next day I flew at a field. I started with a shortened hi-start, and was able (barely) to get it up, and again tortured it with many tough landings. Once up, I asked another pilot to check it out and see if the controls felt right. Turns out the elevator was way too sensitive. It has a relatively large elevator surface. Easy correction with a computer radio.

Then I tried the full length hi-start and struggled with early pop-offs. It seemed with every correction is just wanted to flip over. Fortunately the landings were smoother. It also dawned on me that the tow-hook was back too far. After moving the tow-hook, the plane flew much better, and went straight up like the poly. In the air, its more modern wing (SD7037) seemed to penetrate and fly much better on this windier day. It was a blast for me to finally fly a plane with airlerons.

After some indecision whether its time to go, or time for one more, the indecision had its affect. The one more lauch was made with the receiver turned-off. The plane did a graceful swan dive, up and then down, and once down, the hi-start still kept pulling it, tumbling it over a few more times. But it ended up in one piece, with what seemed liked only a broken rudder push-rod, and some torn covering.

Next days postmortem revealed that the rudder control system was really hammered, the linkage on the servo also broke loose, the metal connecting rod was bent, and the rudder servo had stripped gears. The torn covering also revealed that the foam wing had cracked, but not the wooden spar or trailing edge, and an aileron servo also had stripped gears.

It seems that the plane really took an impact, but remained intact. The wing can be glued, and the gears and pushrod replaced. If this had been a wooden plane, it would have been a complete loss. Instead, it only requires a few hours repair (unfortunately I don't have replacement gear sets lying around).

If I were to never fly this plane again, it would have been worth it. I learned more in two days, than I ever would have been able too with a balsa plane. I tortured that foamie more than any wooden plane could survive ten times over.

Good luck to all, but foam may be a lot better than luck!