Welcome Message

[Jamie Shore]

We have a small but growing group of FES owners that have joined this new email group. At the moment, we have ten members. About half own or operate FES and the other half are receiving their new FES within the next couple of months. Luka from LZ Design is a member. There are another ten outstanding invitations to that I hope will accept the invitation to join. 

Feel free to introduce yourself so we know who is where and what you have or will have. So far, we have a mix of Schempp, Lak, Silent and Schleicher owners. 

To post to this group, send email to 

fes-o...@googlegroups.com

Visit this group at 

https://groups.google.com/d/forum/fes-owners

Jamie Shore

Soaring Club of Houston

mini Lak FES sn#12 to be delivered in August 2018

[davidlessnick]

Hi and thank you for inviting me to join this group. My name is David Lessnick and I fly out of Jean NV 0L7 with the Las Vegas Valley Soaring Association. I am purchasing Luka's Ventus 2cxa FES after flying my Discus CS since 2007. I also created the SSA webinar series recently launched. Super excited to be the next steward of Luka's factory ship and hope to have it stateside in the next few months.

[Jim Greeson]

Hi Jamie and other owners,

I'm Jim Greeson and have owned my Silent Electro for three years. I base the aircraft at LaBelle, FL, USA (KX14) and now have about 280 hours in it. Glad to be in the group and look forward to all the sharing of information.

Jim

JG

Silent Electro

[johnpcarnes]

[Matt Herron]

Hello: I'm Matt Herron (Sr), and I currently fly a LS-6, mostly out of AirSailing in northern Nevada. I have about 1,500 hours in gliders, and none in power aircraft.

In October I flew to Lithuania and spent a week at the LAK factory, where I flew a modified LAK 17B FES with a beefed up battery pack that allowed it to self launch. I also flew the MiniLAK FES and made a down payment on Mini #29 which will be delivered to me sometime next year.

I wrote an article about my visit for Soaring which will appear early in 2019, and I agreed to make my Mini available for SAS conventions.

What follows is a report on my trip that I sent to fellow glider pilots:

Dear Friends:

I just returned from a week in Lithuania where I visited the LAK glider factory and flew three different gliders including the new MiniLAK FES, a self-launching electric motor glider.

The visit began with a certification flight in a Polish Puchacz two-place glider, which qualified me to fly in Europe. (I also underwent a FAA Class II medical exam before leaving the US – also necessary for European flying.)

All flying took place at Pociunu Aerodromas, a huge grass field in southern Lithuania that has hosted at least three FAI international soaring contests. I slept at the clubhouse and had most of my meals there.

Day two saw three more flights in the Puchacz with Vytas Maciulis, the Director of the LAK factory who was my host in Lithuania. Vytas was obviously trying to decide whether my flying skills gave him the confidence to entrust one of his expensive gliders to my hands. Apparently I passed because I went on the next day to fly an experimental self-launch version of the LAK 17B FES, a 18 meter ship that I towed to about 3,000 feet, released and only then started the engine once I felt comfortable with the glider.

Engine starts are dead simple. A master switch is activated, and the engine is started and controlled by simply twisting a knob on the instrument panel. The panel reports engine rpm, current voltage, battery condition, and temperature readings for the battery pack, engine controller system, and motor. The propeller winds up swiftly to a climb rate of about 4500 rpm or whatever you set. Turning off the engine is another matter. The propeller must dock with the blades folded correctly alongside the fuselage, and the docking mechanism depends on the prop windmilling at at least 1500 rpm. It took me a couple of tries to get that right.

I made a second flight in the LAK 17 from a paved runway, this time an engine launch. Again, the launch was dead simple: rotate the knob and take off. I flew for about 30 minutes with multiple engine starts and stops, then landed.

The LAK 17 flights were necessary because my Mini sat on the factory floor in pieces while workers installed various monitoring systems. I was convinced they would never have it assembled by Monday, and normal Baltic fall weather (rainy) also made any Mini flight questionable.

But Monday afternoon was mostly clear, and when Vytas and I arrived at the strip four workers were doing final assembly of the Mini. Vytas flew it first to make sure everything was connected to everything. Then it was my turn.

Again, take off was simple. I climbed to about 3,000 feet, turned the engine off and began to take the measure of the Mini. She was a sweet thing to fly, perhaps the sweetest glider I've ever flown. She was responsive, but not twitchy, settling easily into a 45 degree bank and holding it effortlessly. But the big question remained: could she hold altitude at high speeds? In other words, did she have cross country legs, or like most 13.5 meter gliders would she fall out of the sky when I put the hammer down? Vytas had stressed her wing profile which was slender and designed for speed, and when I pushed her three times she did hold altitude in a satisfactory fashion. The Baltic afternoon was cool and slightly overcast, and so I had no chance to test her in thermals, but a German pilot had flown her 530 kilometers last summer without using the engine, so I would guess her cross country chops are more than adequate. I was smitten, and I decided on the spot to buy her.

The rest is anti-climax. Vytas and I worked out a contract for the glider and a trailer. It will be finished some time next year (I'll probably fly my LS-6 through the 2019 season), and will be delivered from Hamburg probably by auto carrier. Meanwhile, I'm working on an article for Soaring, and have agreed to make the Mini available for display at the next Soaring Society convention.

Thus begins a new chapter!

Matt

PS: For pictures, please visit: www.mattherronwriter.com/mini.demo/