Got the Seledkin assembled and made the first test flights on Wed. As luck wud have it, with the 18 cell packs, and the MaxCim motor, the CG came out perfect for the first tests - rite at 2-1/4" in. I ended up putting the rcvr behind the main bats, velcroed to the bats, and the motor cntlr and rcvr bat in the nose with the motor. The elevator servo went in with double sided tape, with a piece of 3/32" ply to give the servo arm some room, taped rite into the tail. Thanks to Tom Broeski, Eric Weder, [EMAIL PROTECTED], Alex Larionov, Bruce Davidson, Anthony Brindle and Sal for lots of help and suggestions - everyone seemed pretty happy wih theirs. The 3 piece wing is especially compact. I set the trims so the ailerons and elevator were flat, and set the travels for as much as the servos wud drive to start with - I like to be able to wang it hard if I have to, even tho the March 99 S&E article had very small travels for the controls (less than 1/2 what I'm using). First launch was almost perfect trim - only slight adustments needed. 1/2 throttle is plenty to climb out with, and full throttle, altho not vertical, is darn close. The first thing I notice is - wow - efficient flight - it doesn't want to come down. On the 3000 mah 18 cell tests, I flew for 45 minutes on a still air day at the Marina, and typically was running 1/2 throttle for 1/4-1/3 the time (lots of aerobatics, too). The time of gas, the beauty of electric. Yes! I did it again today - 45 minutes, and I still had battery left! It just keeps going back up to 1000', can do plenty of aerobatics, then back up again - maybe 20-30 times! Ok, u glass ship guys, are they all like this?? Surprisingly easy to fly inverted - lots easier than my flying wing. On a REALLY long steep dive, I could do almost 3 rolls on the climb back up, without stalling. I tried stalling it and was surprised at how slow it wud go - it was WAY mushed and pretty high angle of attack before it stalled - I was 2/3 to 3/4 stick back before it wud stall (pulled back SLOWLY). I was warned abt keeping the speed up - maybe the stall characteristics are worse in bank - didn't try that. Rolls were a bit tricky at first, but I worked up to 3 consecutive horizontal rolls - oh, yeah! Loops - wide, big, fat, or sharp and quick. Tried a lot of vertical climbs all the way to stall to see how it wud pitch over, and tried a few 180 degree turns like that - before it wud reach the top - but cudn't quite get it aligned rite. Well, of course as u can imagine as a newbie, I had trouble with my landings. I didn't set up the airbrakes the first day - I'm used to LONG finals and ground effect - but this was a BIT much. I flew it about 300' in ground effect, finally stuffed it. Knocked the nose cone off, and one of the outboard sections popped off (I didn't tape them the first day). On the 2nd flight, the Nicd's weren't charged rite, and I had to do an aborted landing - again knocked the nose off and a wing section. The last flight of the first day went great, until I prepared to sink into ground effect, when it suddenly dipped and cartwheeled - I DIDN'T do that! I found out later the antenna wire had come loose from the tail, and there was just a ball of antenna wire in the fuse behind the rcvr. Oops. Broke one of the carbon connector wing rods. Little did I realize at the time that the rods are bent to get the slight dihedral. To make a long story short - Richard Graham, machinist par excellance helped me drill out the glued part, and we bent a 5/16" Al rod into perfect replacement position. So back in the air today!. Had 2 early AM flights - I set up the airbrakes, checked them in flight - there was a slight pitch down when activated - of course this was due to my setting the elevator 15%, instead of the default 10% - in fact the defaults on the Futaba 6XA were dead on for ideal - 50% on the ailerons and 10% on the elevator - no pitch change when activated. End result - 2 perfect landings - hurray! I was surprised how much the airbrakes slowed it down. Anthony Brindle suggested I make the ailerons move as much as possible to get the most airbrake effect - you can hear it when on, too - the air whine gets rougher. SPeaking of which, anybody know why that is? My flying wing doesn't make NEARLY as much of a whistle, even at the same speed. Anyway, last flight today, dropped into ground effect, and while reaching for the air brake switch, must have pulled down too hard - wham - one wing caught - scraped a hole in it - and broke the fuse abt in the middle. Rats. 2D tape is holding it in place at the moment. Fixing suggestions, anyone?? I dunno, maybe this machine is a bit on the sensitive side relative to tolerance to crashes - but it sure flies sweet. Maybe it's just that glass ship brushless electric rush...but I like it! Anybody have a favorite 2m electric like this ship that they feel qualifies as the ruggedest? Bigger than 10 cells, please. Thanks, Sal, for such a fun intro to glass ships! Tom Rust Nanochip Inc Box 13249 Oakland, CA 94661 (510) 339-6263 (510) 339-9636 FAX http://www.nanochip.com RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
