It Flies!
Tim Wescott
weather and holidays I haven't expected much help at the flying field.
Saturday there's supposed to be a fun fly at Delta Park in Portland; I
may go there and see if anyone is willing to help out, or I may call
around and see if anyone is going to brave the cold at our local field.
No, this is a 1/10th scale profile foamy Laird Solution that I designed.
It took two very short & exciting flights to discover that my center of
gravity calculations too far back, and another white-knuckled one to
discover that it was _way_ too far back. Flight #4 has CG a bit too far
forward, but the wind's kicking up. While it'll be great in the back
yard after I get used to it, I need to take it to the field for further
adjustments. I don't want to risk trashing it before it's all the way
done (never fully decorate a plane that hasn't flown -- that's just
tempting fate).
The good news is that the landing gear holds up well through really bad
landings (landing on the wingtip still results in damage, though). I've
designed it to my usual RC rules: control line in the front, free flight
in the back. That way the thing you hit the ground with is strong
enough, and the thing you don't hit the ground with is light enough, so
that everything stops at the same time*. So I've got plywood doublers on
the fuse that catch the motor, landing gear, and the bottom wing, while
the rest is just nice light foam.
It's been an amazingly quick build: compared to the Nobler which took
about six months of concentrated effort, this went together in several
weeks -- with time spent taking pictures and writing notes, and time off
for the holidays and being sick. I think I spent less time on this plane
than I did agonizing over some of the more obscure steps in building the
Nobler fuselage.
I'm not going to say much more because I'm still hoping to get it
published, but if a certain editor continues to not reply to my emails
and if the alternate mags don't show any interest either I'll post it on
my web site for all to enjoy.
Hey! Snow! I guess that answers the "if the weather holds" question.
* People don't often get airplane building advice from tombstones, yet
that is where I was taught this lesson. When I was on iteration two or
three of my first RC design, I lost control and flew into the graveyard
across the street and smack into a tombstone. It punched the motor
straight back into the fuselage, and the weight of the all-sheet rear
fuse pretty much pulverized the rest. Subsequent iterations were sheet
to the back of the wings then stick & tissue past that -- they last much
better that way.
MJKolodziej
"Tim Wescott" <t...@seemywebsite.com> wrote in message
news:sZedndOgGOXY5qfW...@web-ster.com...
Nothing like a tail heavy plane to get your heart rate up!
mk
Tim Wescott
The third flight may have been more fun if I'd been more on the ball -- I
don't know how I do it, but nearly every time I spin a plane I do it by
accident, I spin exactly one turn, and when it's all over I have no clue
what I just did. Apparently my spinal cord knows how to recognize and
respond to a spin, while my brain often takes a second to realize that
one happened at all.
At any rate, there was at least one spin in there, with a recovery less
than one spin's worth above the ground. Fortunately, I made the landing
gear mounts stout.
I'm still waiting to fly it again, to get the CG back where it should
be. This weekend had fairly decent flying weather, but we had scheduled
some pretty extensive rearrangement of furniture. This included flogging
both #1 and #2 sons to clean up their rooms. It wasn't all over until
just before sundown, and since #2 son really, really didn't want us
absconding with his bed we took him out to ice cream to get him used to
the idea.
Sigh. I'm sure that next weekend I'll have time and bad weather both.