This is a record breaking flight for me. I’m often asked “how fast will it go”, or “how high will it go”, or “what’s the range”. You may be surprised to discover that the limiting factor in how far away or how high is your eyesight. After all, if you can’t see the model, then you can’t control it.

On this flight over Kelsall Village I powered up for two minutes to an altitude exceeding 2,000 feet, cruised around for a couple of minutes and then deployed the flaps and air brakes so that the entire flight could be captured on the tiny video camera, unedited, in one single action. “How do I know that it flew to 2,000 feet?” Good question. The answer? It’s fitted with a variometer and radio transmitter.

So the aircraft is transmitting telemetry to me via a radio receiver hung around my neck. In this video, there’s no music or video editing, just the recorded sound from the variometer as it speaks altitudes every 100 foot boundary (or when I flick a switch on the transmitter). You’ll also hear some beeping.

High pitched beeps indicate the aircraft is climbing, the higher the pitch, the higher rate of climb. Conversely, the low continuous tones indicate the model is sinking, lower tones indicate a greater rate of sink. You’ll appreciate how calibrated the altitudes are, because when the model lands it should say “zero feet”. This was the first opportunity to fly the model in calm conditions, again between rain showers (evident from the video footage). I’d also like to point out that the model is made entirely from foam and a little carbon fibre in the wings.

Not bad for a piece of foam eh?