The TESLA of Aviation? New LAK17c FES glider review 

Hi Stefan, If you were flying thermals with full aft flaps, that is pretty draggy on a LAK 17. The sweet spot with my 17a was thermal postition 2 and CG about 80+%. In 15 meter mode I could fly all day with a 27 in strong conditions and any slight differences in climb and glide would be insignificant. CG at anything less than 70% would degrade the climb enough to be difficult to climb with other well flown ships. It took me a while to get the best out of my LAK, after several years in a Mini Nimbus - big difference!

LAK 17 is the most underrated glider, tbh

I proud that it was produced in Lithuania! Good glider, isn't? Surprisingly, this my lovelly country has a long-therm aviation history.

Thanks for the interesting review, Stefan. Was pleased to see how well you did in the E3Glide beating 3 of the 4 Ventus 3F's. A great achievement in an unfamiliar glider.

While I fly jets for work I might start gliders again. You make it look so fun and I haven't glided in a while so you inspired me. Thank you

I do love your e-glider content. Looks like it's a growing area.

Seems a lovely glider. Those wingtip could do with a little more width which might make them more effective. I hope you did well in the competition with it. I enjoyed the views from that canopy. Thanks for the fliers eye view of a competition sailplane. Happy flying, Dave W 😊

Being Lithuanian and living literally 5 km away from where these beauties are produced is amazing! Spent some summers gliding at the air filed next to the production plant. These are beautiful gliders filling our sky every summer.

Well done with the video editing, you're getting better and better :) Cheers!

Hello, This glider is a marvel of technology, Thank you for the commented presentation, the very short trip and the sharing ...👍 👌

The LAK is great value for money for most pilots. Being able to choose from 15, 18 and 20m wingtips is fantastically versatile. Hope they get self launch certification soon which will make this glider a very tempting choice

Awesome timing with the js3 res maiden flight!

When my anxiety is flaring up and I am feeling stressed, your videos help calm me =]

Pretty nice video Stefan! Keep doing!! Thanks

When you often fly with ballast in gliders it seems like an obvious opportunity to use that for batteries and self launch it. As great as gliders are they really need an engine :)

Hi Stefan, Another change made to the 17C from the 17B to facilitate self-launching (besides the longer undercarriage for prop clearance) was to alter the angle of incidence of the wing on the fuselage slightly to help with launch phase handling. When the first 17C was flown in comparison flights with a 17B it was discovered that the 17C was better in climb despite having the same wing... Why? Because the new wing/fuselage angle was more efficient at high angles of attack. This caused much mirth at LAK

I really like this video. It eases my mind watching this. Music was good too.

Hi Stefan, you are right, that´s may be the future of soaring. Although it is still very expensive.

i know nothing of this arena, but watched it fully to the landing. Wow!

Great Job Stefan, I can't wait to see the JS3 RES review next year :D

I used to own a Lak 12. It was such a lovely aeroplane and it could stay up for ever, and had a min. sink rate of about 95fpm, and L/d of 50:1. It was rubbished by nearly all (most of all by people who had never seen one, let alone flown one). I was just so impressed with it, and never experienced a moment's perspiration in flying it over about 100 hours. I did hit some very nasty ground effect with exceptionally strong sink once on short final, and a measured lowering of the nose kept the airspeed just right. It was a gorgeous aeroplane to own. I used to hangar it, and it was taken apart once a year for its annual inspection. The maintenance engineer, german born and very highly educated in aero engineering and practically experienced was reluctant to take it on because it came from one of those communist countries, and he was schooled in beautifully built german sailplanes, but after the first annual, he reported that the metal work in them was excellent, but he didn't think all that much of the glass work - fine, strong etc. but not so pretty here and there. But it was a very handsome aircraft to the eye, too, with the low mounted stabiliser. Anyway, family and work got in the way, so I sold it most regretfully. If I was looking for an up to date aircraft now, the type I would first look at is a Lak 17b or c. The main problem with the 12, other than blind prejudice, was the weight of the wings - about 210 lbs from memory but three people could take it out of the trailer on quite uneven rubble ground, attach the one man rigging wheel, turn it through 90deg, and slot the wing roots in ... but after that, to close them to the correct fit was a pain, and you certainly needed one man to be strong at that point and it took a bit of wiggling around up and down at the wingtip, which I did and I am as strong as a 10 year old girl. But we only did this a few times, and we could have improved with practice. Hoteliers snapped in perfectly and simply. This talk of needing a rugby team is complete bulldust. Ground handling and towing to the flight line was no problem. It is very nice to be up there in smooth evening air when all the other gliders pilots are pushing their aircraft into the hangar. Lak were certainly making a nice product in the 1990s.

Love your video's. I need to get a ride in one of these some day.

Nice glider. During flying nice playing flute skills. Respekt

Man, what a gorgeous video

Vielen Dank, Stefan - sehr interessant!

Love your experienced reviews. What is your all time favorite glider to fly?

Hey, I am new to this.... Fantastic Video... Man that looks like fun!!! Thanks ...

Thank you. I enjoyed the commentary. When are we going to see photocells on the wings?

Beautiful video.

Parabéns pelo voo top , muito bonito.

Cool glider, I’d love a go!

Using the flaps in the air, how do you decide what position is the best ? Could this manouver be automated somehow? No matter how fancy the meter panel is, tape and the wire remains on the canopy ! :D

Nice landing 👍👏

Best value for money - BY FAR!

Thank You for a great review! This seems like a very nice glider, perhaps one of the best values for money in this class. I knew very little about it before watching this. I would like to know how the cockpit works for tall folks like me, I am 1,93 AGL?

Thank you for the beautiful video. Would a 2m tall person, 95 kg, feel comfortable? I am too tall for Schleicher up through the 31. I think high aspect ratio (giving better finesse) improves the winglet performance. However, I am a contrarian on the role of winglets, as I hypothesize that winglets do not significantly improve the wing's finesse (by behaving like some kind of lateral air 'damn'), but instead winglets generate a minor bit of thrust by turing the, wind root directed, spanwise airflow rearward, and in redirecting the airflow, generate a small thrust.

Gerade erst hab ich mir den Vergleich zu anderen 18m-Fliegern gewünscht - schon kommt er 😉 Dankeschön! Weißt Du, wann die Zulassung für den Eigenstart kommen könnte? Alex

PERFECT VIDEO THANKS

I suspect it would be worth installing solar panels on the wings, it should increase range by about 30%

Outstanding

Great job

Белые, прекрасные длиннокрылые птички,на радость пилотам-любителям !

So cool!!

I follow you and I really like your channel so fierce it makes me relax and happy keep doing it I like it

Hi Stefan, as far as I know you are the only racing glider pilot who tested 3 FES gliders. LS8 - HpH Shark- LAK17. Which of them would you buy ?

Hi! can i ask what's the endurance of that glider? How long does it last before charging again the battery?

I fell from my chair dizzy watching this. You kept flying round and round.

Hi Stefan. At 11:23 when the start gate opens, I noticed that you may have pulled the dive break. Was this intentional? Great video, thank you.

If I was a million air, I would live in a modest house, drive a modest car but own the most magnificent sailplane/Glider! Not unlike this lovely! I fly at my local club, I have never seen one glider with suede trim. Seen some sustainer motors and cool electronics, but not like this :O

This is awesome ☺️

Awesome video :) I hope someone here can answer my question. What glider pilot license do you need to fly internationally in all these races? Is the ICAO sailplane pilot license the one to get? I’m in Australia and I’m not sure if they offer that here so any advice would be great :) thanks

Where is that beautiful location? I want to move there, and they also have a large glider community!

Comparative glide ratios of the different models? Battery technologies? Great upload and editing.

Looks great! where exactly is that?

this looks like a bigger version of the hobie hawk plane now i want one ☝️

Thank you for the review, Stefan. 👍 It does look like a very nice glider, I wish I had about 110k Euros in my back pocket to buy one. 😀

Did you also get any whistling noises from the folded prop as with the LS8? And is that still the case with LS8 FES or was that a weird one-off?

Do they have an option to Eject the Battery Pack ?

Could you have braked harder at the landing? I hope so since it looked pretty close to the end of the runway

What does the beeping in the cockpit indicate?

Is this more heavy than a typical 18m span glider of a similar price point?

I suppose it's a weight issue to carry solar cells? Or the power gain from them is insufficient?

Hello.pilot license is necessary to use it???

Competitive gliders have water ballasts & negative flaps to help speed up flight while inbetween thermals. Would a new design with variable-sweep wings benefit to further increase speed during certain high-speed runs? Then mechanically switch back to straight wings & positive flaps while thermaling.

The winglets add drag without accomplishing increased glide ratio or electric range in a glider.

Any recommended flight clubs?

Hi. Great video. Question: Are there any systems in place that detect if the pilot is in any way incapacitated (stroke, epilepsy..) and is not responding. I would think there is an autopilot that would at least try to improve the situation.

What happens to the cable on the tow plane? Does it get automatically winched back inside the tow plane?

Wow best, nice view

Beautiful place looks like Pokhara Nepal

if I ever win the lottery I'll buy an electric glider for video production to promote gliders in the USA. I was working towards my Glider Lic. back when I was a teen (I'm 56, so it was a LONG time ago lol), but got involved in videography, and now I'm a retired Disabled Army Veteran with time on my hands but no money roflol

Where’s the airport? Lake varesse in Italy ??

Isn't that @CitationMax's music? ( at about 1:30)

Just curious, what is the cost of these model glider’s?

OMG where is that beautiful location?

Did I understand your comment correctly, the Lak 17 is better than a Asg 29 in feedback from the thermal but not as good as the unballasted LS3?

Great!

hey Stefan, I have a question. I have 0 knowledge on gliders but what is that constant beeping thing?

Would be interested to hear how the handicap system works in more detail when you have a spare moment..

We all came here for the FES, but what we got was a 16 minute video with 3 seconds of FES action. Thanks bro.

Hi Stefan. You mentioned a thermalling speed of 115kph. That is the speed with maximum water ballast? How much would it be without water ballast?

Una Muy Linda Vista Genial...

At what point should the water be discharged?

SALUDOS DESDE PANAMÁ PARA STEFANO. ME ENCANTA LA IDEA DE VOLAR CON UNO DE ESOS AVIONES.. BENDICIONES PARA TODOS Y ÉXITOS DESDE PANAMÁ LES DESEO LO MEJOR PARA USTEDES Y ABUNDANCIA, FORTUNA, SALUD, FORTUNA, PROSPERIDAD Y FELICIDAD, PAZ Y MUCHA COMPRENSION Y SABIDURÍA Y AMOR PARA TODOS, 😀🇵🇦🇵🇦💪🇵🇦💪🇵🇦💪😀💪💪🇵🇦💪🇵🇦🇵🇦🇵🇦

A couple of stainless steel hard wires on the wingtips would have less drag than those rollerblade wheels.

wow!cool!

7:13 - Please tell us what is happening with the cable? Does it fall down? is it then picked up?

Bom dia. Achei muito interessantes seus vídeos, será que poderia deixar habilitada a tradução para o idioma Português do Brasil?

you should make JS3 res review

If you hold hand partly above the gear handle - your hand will be in the wrong position for that procedure. Practice grabbing handle correctly while on the ground.

Wo liegen denn die preislichen Unterschiede bei den Modellen?

where can i buy that?

Here is a theory of centrifugal momentum: The propellor of a winged flight device ought apply 'centrifical' force in its design. Were props encircled with a bike-like wheel to add weight, what then? Prop weights with properties of flight beyond electric? Centrifical force applied to EV propulsion. A theory.

Is it able to start on its own?

perfect

I want to try 😍😍😍

mt bom Deus te abençoe amigo! tmj!

Where is that beautiful place and airport ??!! 😍

cool gadget

Stefan, what was the intro song? Sounds pretty cool.