Cool New Stuff
Our monthly round-up of exciting, must-have merch.
Alpenbrise
A brand new 4m (157") Alpine/GPS soarer from Aeroic.
This story goes back at least 40 years to — well — ‘back in the day’ they say. In this case ‘the day’ was when one of the loves of James Hammond’s life; the droolingly lovely Multiplex Alpina seduced him into the thrills of slope soaring.
He was lost from the moment he saw her. To misquote a pretty good Meryl Streep movie — from that point on he was ‘in her thrall’. He waited a very long time for the next generation Alpina but in his opinion, alas, a worthy successor never emerged.
So, after more than four decades, James decided to do it himself. He took nothing whatsoever from the original design but did try to capture that beautiful, thoroughbred feeling in the air and on the ground that the original emanated. Whether he hit all the targets — those are some pretty big boots to fill — but you can tell you he did have a darn good try. Thus, the Alpenbrise.
By the way, if the slinky soarer looks familiar, that’s because it was the subject of one of the articles from James Designing for… series right here in the New RC Soaring Digest. Get the inside scoop on all of what went into this new design. We have linked the article in Resources, below.
So, how to get your hands on your own Alpenbrise before your head explodes? In Germany and greater Europe, contact Composite RC Gliders and in the US or Canada, contact Aloft Hobbies.
Resources
- Designing for an Alpine Soarer — “The hills are alive…with sailplanes designed for for the rigours of mountain soaring” James Hammond describes the design influences and details of the Alpenbrise.
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