We maidened the first of our three VT-16 Orlik, the one built by our chief designer Georg.

As usual we did this in aerotow, yours truly having the honour to be the tow pilot with my trusted Boomster. In our experience aerotow is the safest way to maiden a model where you’re not sure if you got all the settings right – a powerful towplane will at least get the model to a decent height, giving the pilot time to get to know the model and change some of the trim settings.

The first flight went very well, with only a few changes required to the butterfly settings and aileron differentials and some further fine-tuning in-between further flights in the afternoon. Georg will be further fine-tuning this over the next few weeks, giving Andi and myself the benefit of being able to copy his settings before the maiden flights of our Orliks.

The plane behaves as expected. With 6.7kg (4.6m wingspan) and a large wing surface, it’s a real floater and can be flown very slow. The thin wing profile and option of negative camber however also allows for higher speeds. It reacts very well to rudder and ailerons and has a friendly stall behaviour.

I’ve had some time at the sticks as well and immediately fell in love with the plane. It’s perfect for the type of conditions we have at our airfield, where light and well thermalling-friendly gliders are our preference. Can’t wait to maiden mine.