...for about 30 seconds. :-( Got it all put together and tweaked out, balanced, etc. Came out to the softball field at work to give it the inagural flight. Got to easy-toss it four times. On the first toss it kept climbing pretty steeply but I got it back on the ground and gave it a few down clicks. (I was frustrated last night trying to get v-tail to work on my flash 5x until I remembered someone saying it required elevon mixing to work right.)
Next toss was still shakey, but still got it back on the ground safely before twiddling switches some more. Next toss I made a turn and came back to me! (stick under wing! Lookin' good!) Last toss I tried turning again, but stalled in the turn too close to the ground and a wing tip made first contact. That tip panel separated itself from the main panel at the epoxy joint. I can see where the epoxy actually went into the little pricked holes in the foam, but it just came right out of there. Lesson learned - tape the joints. More weight :-( Speaking of weight - I am so embarassed by how heavy it is all-up that I can't even bring myself to write it. I'll just tell you the weight of the two components and let you do the math - Ready-to-fly Fuse - 9.8 oz. Wing - 5.4 oz. Sigh - I learned a whole lot in building this first composite plane. Everything about the fuse is too heavy - 3oz glass (too broke to by more) - too much glassing epoxy (not carefull enough in blotting excess epoxy) - Too much epoxy required to join arrow shaft to fuse (should have carved a new plug after I broke the foam trying to shape the nub where the shaft would go.) The joint shape was roughly conical and a good 1/8" spacing between the shaft and the fg fuse at the narrowest point. The entire cone had to be filled with epoxy. Even with microbaloons that was a lot of weight to fill in that volume. All of those taught me that I am going to carefully plan and carve a wood plug from which to make a mold. I've still got lots of 3oz FG to make a mold with! Then I will get the 1.5oz glass to make the fuse with. I know where the weak points are now to reinforce with carbon tows. As far as the wing goes - next one will be vacuum bagged fiberglass covered all the way. It will take awhile to get the equipment, but once done it should be lighter. (scrape, scrape, scrape.) Gotta go glue that wing panel back on and tape it up this time. Looks like I need some hefty thermals to make that dude rise! John Gossett Austin, Texas __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. http://personals.yahoo.com RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
