Been Flying

All my powered gliders need DOWN ele held in whilst under high power for the climb, when they are trimmed to fly 'just' above the stall - in the glide.
I could probably go into the mixers and couple down ele to the throttle, but I prefer to use eyeball and a thumb on the stick, as different weather situations call for different power on trim!
If I didn't 'hold them down' they'd loop over my head, and as I'm not gifted with vision above and behind, I try to avoid that!
 

Ah that was what was missing from the videos of the glider launch-to-dart from a few weeks ago - glide tests - one can learn so much from a half dozen glide tests as part of a pre-maiden check list. Early indicators of COG and elevator response.  Brief moments to get to know the new beastie. Also whether there will be a high risk of wing clipping ground artefacts on anything other than a perfect landing (one of the reasons I like a bit of dihedral

Glide-test is fine for a light model - over long grass - but it doesn't work with a heavier one. Can you hurl a 2kg model at greater than flying speed? Power and height are your friend!

There are 2kg and heavier hand launched slope gliders. Yes, they have the benefit of launch height but still no power.

I went flying at 2pm today as it was really warm and the sun was shining! But and there is always a but, not only was there some wind and it was seriously gusty. I would estimate at 20+knots!
Having repaired the Swiss Venom from a hard landing earlier this month I judged out of all the planes in my collection it had the performance to handle the conditions.
 
It certainly did although I had to use rather more throttle than normal just to avoid going too far down wind. The landing proved a bit of a nightmare with gusts and turbulence requiring a burst of power just prior to the touch down until a gust had passed.
Of course a bit later in the afternoon after I had gone home it all calmed down considerably!

Ah - but - - - - 
Slope gliders DO have power, but it is invisible power - called gravity!
You have to understand the principle of slope soaring, to get the full picture.
Gravity (whatever that really is!) is pulling the craft down, but the interaction of the wing and the air makes it slide along as well. THEN, you have to take into account the wind blowing UP the slope.
So although the craft is sliding down, if the updraught is stronger than the downward effect, the craft will go up even though it is going down!
Why is the wind blowing UP? Because it cannot go around, that is full of other wind. (Yes, some curls around the edges, but that is unimportant for now).so it gets pushed UP by all the wind behind it.

Picture a man, with a bag of spuds on his shoulder. For some strange reason, he decides to go down on the up escalator. Halfway down, he gets tired and slows down or stops to rest. 
What happens?
He ends up back at the top!
Replace the man with the craft, and the escalator with the wind.
It also works with thermal lift - the air is moving upwards, different reason - same effect.
That's a very simplistic view of gliding.
 

Yesterday was the perfect day to maiden anything, I had batteries charged, when I turned my TX on the battery indicator showed red!. Oh bugger.

That is one problem with batteries, not easy to see they are leaking, unlike liquid fuel 

Of course gravity is the thrust source of a glider but they do still hand launch 2kg+ gliders which was the issue in the original comment about the launch of BB's glider.
Gravity is also a thrust source for any power plane but as they tend to be poor and fast gliders they really need lots of prop thrust to even attempt a hand launch.
Build a power plane with a big enough wing area even at 2kg it can be hand launched. 

Tx volts in the red? Is this more of an issue with rechargeable? With "dry" cells the voltage declines more slowly so a low(ish) voltage is a warning rather than an immediate flight no/no.    
 

But the topic was over a flat field - not a slope edge.

The topic was Been Flying not.  The TX batteries are almost new Eneloop, however I would never, ever fly with Battery capacity in the red, that's just plain stupid. Carbon batteries  have a much longer discharge slope. But they're much too expensive for me over time.

Any idea what happened? - 'charged' with the wrong setting and killed them?

My bent Decathlon is all back together, with no parts left over - everything works in the correct direction, and it just needs a test fly now.

Nothing wrong with the TX batteries, just down in the red. The Horus with its full colour screen has a relatively short battery life, about 7 hours when new. My new-ish Eneloop pack is about 2 years old. And we have been doing a lot of testing and setting up.

Ah! Charging them got overlooked!  

Flying for us today, 3 went out AND 3 CAME BACK!
First up was the Funcub. 4 minutes in very boyant air. Then we got BB's glider ready, a gentle launch and she was away. I had to reach over his shoulder and give him more aileron movement, even then it wasn't quite enough, after a couple of circuits he brought her in to a good landing, about 2 minutes.

Then the WotsWot, yuck, I battled from the getgo, She slewed to the left as I opened the throttle and I just cleared the tree on the left side of the runway. I had to keep the speed up in order to maintain any kind of altitude while trying to input up trim, I never did get enough trim so scrambled a landing. I'm not very good at holding a constant stick movement (up elevator) and inputting aileron to keep straight and level. About 3 minutes.
BB was convinced I was going to lose her, I came back from the strip absolutely strung out, and this is supposed to be relaxing!

Mary does like filming the grass!
At 1.12. in that first pass, when the model pitched sharply up, I could see the wings bending at the centre section!