On Sunday before first flight some practice tows with a masked DG had been done at Minden with Silvio and same SoaringNV Pawnee that would be used for actual First Flight. Jim was in front with Perlan-style masked canopy and Morgan was in back with clear canopy. Both pilots were happy with the visibility.
On Tuesday the day before scheduled Perlan 2 first flight we performed several runway hops with the actual Perlan2 to test the systems at Redmond. The first 3 were truck pulls behind a van carrying Einar Enevoldson and Dennis Tito to watch for any unexpected handling characteristics. Jim declared the wings were well balanced and the steering with rudder was acceptable like an open class sailplane. We did adjust the brakes for more stopping power. A week prior we had practiced same 3 runway pulls at Redmond with Dennis’ masked DG 1001 motorglider which has about same weight as engineless Perlan2. After the first 3 truck pulls we hooked Perlan2 behind SoaringNV’s strong Pawnee towplane with Silvio as towpilot. That went so well that Jim decided 2 towplane runway hops was enough. We were all very happy to have this phase successfully completed. It bode very well for the actual First Flight on Wednesday morning. Einar and Jim both agreed Perlan2 was ready to fly.
