SLOW STICK

If you've been in R/C flight for longer than 20 seconds, you've no doubt heard of the GWS Slow Stick! Most every grizzled electric R/C pilot has to have one in his hangar. Mine is light as far as Slow Sticks go, I run a geared 010 in it on li-po's. It flies for a LOOOOONG time on this setup! The picture above was taken just after I won the All-Up-Last-Down contest at the 2003 DEAF fly-in. I think the winning time was 75 minutes (tromping 2nd place at 45 minutes), I had to land prematurely because the prop spun off in flight. The competition was much more fierce at the 2004 DEAF fly-in, Ralph Bradley came ready for a fight! We traded friendly barbs throughout the long flight and battled for best use of the thermals. I bested Ralph by only a few minutes with a winning time of 1:39:30. Incredibly I was at risk of losing battery power on my transmitter rather than my plane!

The Slow Stick has very light wing loading and as a result can carry some heavy payloads. Above is a picture of my SS dropping some parachutists from a drop box I rigged up for it. It can hold up to 5 parachutists. I did several drops at the 2004 DEAF fly-in for the kids that were there and let them keep their "prize"!

Above is a picture my wife took of the kids going after the chutes in out back yard. These were the test drops to make sure the box worked OK before DEAF.

My son got in on the action too :-)

My SS is also equipped with an MPI light kit. Clear LEDs light up the underside of the wing  and tail while red LEDs blink at the wingtips. It makes a wonderful night flyer even in total darkness.

It is currently equipped as follows:

Astroflight 14t 010 w/ GWS gearbox

GWS 12x8 prop

3x1200 Kokams (for duration flights, I equip it with 3s2p 1200's)

GWS Pico servos (x2)

Berg 4 receiver

Wingspan is 44"; weight without battery pack is 11.1ounces, 13.8 ounces with one 1200 pack