Earthstar Forums

Does anyone have any experience with a single place gull with longer
wings than 24'?

--- In ThunderGull@yahoogroups.com, "danpete5" <danpete1@h...> wrote:
> Does anyone have any experience with a single place gull with longer
> wings than 24'?

My wings are 24', so that's the best I can tell you about. Since you
haven't had any responses, you might give Mark a call and see if
anyone does have anything longer or find out who has a soaring gull.

Jim C

>"Jim C" <jimc@d...> wrote:
> My wings are 24'...

Jim. I see you got the 24 foot wing. Isn't the standard wing length
for the Thunder Gull 2000 a 20 foot wing? What made you go with the
longer length? And do you see an advantage?

I imagine that you'll have a lower stall speed, but what are you
giving up? Roll rate? Top speed? I never did find out what the
glide ratio was for the TG2000 with standard 20' wing, but I imagine
the 24' will be slightly better. Just trying to get as much info as
I can before I order mine.

Thanks.


Will

--- In ThunderGull@yahoogroups.com, "willphelps52" <

> Jim. I see you got the 24 foot wing. Isn't the standard wing length
> for the Thunder Gull 2000 a 20 foot wing? What made you go with the
> longer length? And do you see an advantage?

The 20 ft wing is the starting point - I think it offers basically a
little more speed, a better roll rate, and works through the thermals
a little smoother. I went with the 24 ft wing (that's actually 22 ft
wing with a 1 ft wing tip connection on each side) since I wanted a
little more glide, lower stall and ability to fly at a lower speed so
as to fly both with my UL friends and my C-152 type friends. I find
the roll rate quite good and it moves through the thermals very
nicely as well. I use to have a Challenger II - I fly the Gull in
conditions I would never even consider flying the challenger in
normally. There was another guy (I can't remember whether he was on
this list or another) that mentioned he went from the 20 ft to 24 ft
wings and wished he hadn't. He apparently felt a lot more bumps and
noticed the difference in performance a lot more than I did having
never flown the 20 ft size. I think it also depends on where you
came from and what you want to do. After flying 30 ft wings (OK
29'8") with a large surface area, going to the Gull was a vast
improvement, and it also allows me to fly comfortably with the slower
UL types as well as have some umphhhh. Basically it works pretty
well for me and I am happy with it.

Jim C

Thanks for the feedback, Jim. Think I could put up with a some
occasional bumps in order to fly slower and have a better glide
rate. The 24' sounds like a nice compromise. I'd like to do some
aerial photography, so I think being able to go slower is a plus. I
saw on one of the trike websites that there's a nice camera package
that uses one or more small cameras mounted on the plane. They mount
them out on the tips of the wings, behind the wing and under the
pod. I thought about putting one inside the fiberglass wing tips and
maybe in the nose cone. I'd have to get it at the same time I'm
building my plane to see if it will work.

I don't really have any Ultralight friends yet, but the guys I met at
the local airport have 2 Challengers and a Rans. Should be no
problem flying with them.

I don't know if you're still a member of the Challenger list, but a
few weeks ago there was a lot of talk about the HKS engine. Seems
that it will require major modifications to mount one on a
Challenger. Tom Olenik had some nice things to say about Mark and
the HKS.

Enjoy.


Will