August 2006 Vol. 23, No. 8 – R/C - RCSoaring.com

Phil explaining how to set up and perform a discus launch - flat and with the release in the direction of your objective.
This event came together at the last
minute, although there had been talk
about it since last year. Gary Guinotte had
been up to a number of SASS events at 60
Acres and conferred with the Seattle fliers
about hosting a clinic in Olympia. He
convinced Russ McMillan to join him in
driving up to a SASS contest earlier this
year, so Russ had the chance to meet Phil
Pearson, Adam Weston, and some of the
other DLG fliers. Russ was hooked on
RC-HLG, and it was agreed to put
something together after they had
returned from Poway.
Some time had passed, and Gary was out
of town when Russ got a query from Red,
two weeks before the weekend they had
talked about having the clinic. The group
literally started from scratch and put the
clinic together over the next two weeks.
E-mail announcements went out to Puget
Sound Silent Flyers, and Red reached out
to the SASS fliers and posted a notice on a
few forums, including the Northwest
Soaring Society. Nearly twenty
participants showed up!
Clinic coaches were Adam Weston and
Phil Pearson.
Phil Pearson is the man behind Encore kit
production and one half of Maple Leaf
Designs. The Encore is a contest-winning
airframe available from Maple Leaf Design.
(Don Peters is the other half of Maple Leaf
Designs, and he’s the one responsible for
production of the Icon.)
Adam Weston flies RC-HLG exclusively,
and can discus-launch an Encore to a
measured 165 feet plus.
The following commentary is based on my
notes taken during the day long clinic.
Phil Pearson started out by explaining the
evolution of RC-HLG launching. The
original launching method was the
“javelin throw,” similar to that used for
free flight HLGs. The designs of the day
used a finger hole in the lower part of the
August 2006 49