12-12-2010, 03:09 PM
Hi all - thought that a dedicated thread for maiden flights might be interesting, so here goes ...
Date: 12 Dec 10
Conditions: Strong westerly winds, good visibility, rough strip
Aircraft: Wattage PC-9 (955 mm wingspan, 715 mm length)
Pilot: "Junior" Murray
We collected a partly assembled kit via eBay. Nice little model - plastic fuselage, built-up wings. Not bad scale lines, but the fin is undersized for some reason. There are only two blemishes - the wings have the standard Wattage "starved horse" look (the leading half of the wing should have been sheeted) and there's no battery hatch which means removing the wings all the time. The kit was designed for some ancient "Cobalt" brushed motor, of which I know nothing - our sample didn't have a motor. In the end we installed a KD A22-20L (thank god for HK, http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store...oduct=2106) with a left-over Parkzone ESC out of a Trojan. Tested out a small prop 8 x 6 on our Himark static thrust stand (a recent acquisition off eBay as well) and saw it pulling 700g at 17 Amps on a 3-cell 1300 mAh battery. Set the CoG about 20 mm forward of recommended. Good to go.
Had to start out with a hand-launch because of the state of the runway.
It was twitchy on the ailerons and was a handful in the high winds. It has plenty of power (could get away with much less) and was quite fast at two-thirds throttle. Landing was similar to the Seagull PC-9 - it has to be flown down to the ground.
The outcome was pretty satisfying - we're looking forward to toning the ailerons down a little and really opening up the throttle on a calm day.
Date: 12 Dec 10
Conditions: Strong westerly winds, good visibility, rough strip
Aircraft: Wattage PC-9 (955 mm wingspan, 715 mm length)
Pilot: "Junior" Murray
We collected a partly assembled kit via eBay. Nice little model - plastic fuselage, built-up wings. Not bad scale lines, but the fin is undersized for some reason. There are only two blemishes - the wings have the standard Wattage "starved horse" look (the leading half of the wing should have been sheeted) and there's no battery hatch which means removing the wings all the time. The kit was designed for some ancient "Cobalt" brushed motor, of which I know nothing - our sample didn't have a motor. In the end we installed a KD A22-20L (thank god for HK, http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store...oduct=2106) with a left-over Parkzone ESC out of a Trojan. Tested out a small prop 8 x 6 on our Himark static thrust stand (a recent acquisition off eBay as well) and saw it pulling 700g at 17 Amps on a 3-cell 1300 mAh battery. Set the CoG about 20 mm forward of recommended. Good to go.
Had to start out with a hand-launch because of the state of the runway.
It was twitchy on the ailerons and was a handful in the high winds. It has plenty of power (could get away with much less) and was quite fast at two-thirds throttle. Landing was similar to the Seagull PC-9 - it has to be flown down to the ground.
The outcome was pretty satisfying - we're looking forward to toning the ailerons down a little and really opening up the throttle on a calm day.
Steve Murray