I few days ago I picked up another old glider to try, a Nova Mamboo. The previous owners name was still on the bag and I recognized it immediately. The guys name is Glen Brookes, we met on one of Wingbeats trips a good number of years back and hooked up again when we went to Turkey.
Anyway I gave him a call to pick his brains about the Mamboo, turns out to be very low milage and the recent service gives totally excellent porosity readings. So armed with this knowledge I set out to fly it on Bridend today.
Arriving on site everything looked good so we walked up to find a light thermic breeze kind of day. A good looking sky with a light N/E wind.
A bit off groundhandling to begin with and straight away I am not convinced, the glider is not easy on the ground and keeps dropping off one way or another and sitting back,mmmhh.
In flight its better but it still feels like the wing has poor balance. I am no expert but its not the easiest thing to fly.
So I flew about for a few hours top landing a few times and generally feeling the wing out,and enjoying the sunshine. Around 3.30pm it partially clouded over from the east so I called it a day and flew down.
Still not convinced with the handling.
Tommy.
