20-02-2011, 07:28 PM
Date: 20 Feb 11
Conditions: Strong and gusty (even gutsy?) westerly winds, good visibility, OK strip
Aircraft: Blu-Baby (http://www.parramatta.rcflyingclub.com/m...hp?tid=262)
Pilot: "Junior" Murray
The Blu-Baby seemed to be ready for a test-flight - I was happy to delegate the honours to Junior who is a way better pilot than I'm likely to be. With a 9 x 6 propeller it looked to have an acceptable power-to-weight ratio (thanks fort the help JohnH) and so we decided it was ready to go. The wind was the only concern, it wasn't what most of us want when doing a maiden, but we were slow out of bed and late getting to the field, so it was our fault anyway, I guess.
Down on the cross-strip it wasn't really looking good - too many gusts were getting in under the starboard wing and turning the plane away and off the strip as it was commencing its run-up. We moved to the main strip and it was more of the same. One of several aborted take-offs saw my crappy wheel-retainers exposed as one went AWOL, leaving one wheel only. A hand-launch was still possible even if landing was going to be more difficult - no worries, he was flying it, not me
With the others at the field (KevB, JohnH, Paul, Claudio, Gazz, Darren ...) smiling and enjoying the anticipation I threw the thing.
In the words of the pilot ... "as soon as Dad let go, I could feel it needed trimming. I did some small right aileron clicks on the climb out. I got three-mistakes height and went hands-off. Needed a little down elevator, and some left rudder trim. Hands-off again and it needed a little more aileron trim. After about two minutes it was all trimmed. Powered up, climbed and cut the throttle to test the stall - nosed over and behaved itself. Power levels were good, landing was tricky for the maiden as I noticed it didn't like low throttle. With a tad of throttle, it landed nicely on its wheel."
Darren suggested that it looked a little tail-heavy (just marginally) which is not bad news. Some more weight up front won't hurt wind penetration. I've yet to calculate the wing loading, but it's clearly very low just by inspection (I should calculate this, just for interest's sake). There are a few unanswered questions at this stage (why Junior found it unhappy with low throttle, for example) but I'm hoping to get to be a confident pilot on this plane and then try out a few other things as mods: Flaps (I'll retro-fit these later) and NACA leading edge cuffs/droops (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leading_edge_cuff) and use the plane as a test-bed.
Conditions: Strong and gusty (even gutsy?) westerly winds, good visibility, OK strip
Aircraft: Blu-Baby (http://www.parramatta.rcflyingclub.com/m...hp?tid=262)
Pilot: "Junior" Murray
The Blu-Baby seemed to be ready for a test-flight - I was happy to delegate the honours to Junior who is a way better pilot than I'm likely to be. With a 9 x 6 propeller it looked to have an acceptable power-to-weight ratio (thanks fort the help JohnH) and so we decided it was ready to go. The wind was the only concern, it wasn't what most of us want when doing a maiden, but we were slow out of bed and late getting to the field, so it was our fault anyway, I guess.
Down on the cross-strip it wasn't really looking good - too many gusts were getting in under the starboard wing and turning the plane away and off the strip as it was commencing its run-up. We moved to the main strip and it was more of the same. One of several aborted take-offs saw my crappy wheel-retainers exposed as one went AWOL, leaving one wheel only. A hand-launch was still possible even if landing was going to be more difficult - no worries, he was flying it, not me
With the others at the field (KevB, JohnH, Paul, Claudio, Gazz, Darren ...) smiling and enjoying the anticipation I threw the thing.In the words of the pilot ... "as soon as Dad let go, I could feel it needed trimming. I did some small right aileron clicks on the climb out. I got three-mistakes height and went hands-off. Needed a little down elevator, and some left rudder trim. Hands-off again and it needed a little more aileron trim. After about two minutes it was all trimmed. Powered up, climbed and cut the throttle to test the stall - nosed over and behaved itself. Power levels were good, landing was tricky for the maiden as I noticed it didn't like low throttle. With a tad of throttle, it landed nicely on its wheel."
Darren suggested that it looked a little tail-heavy (just marginally) which is not bad news. Some more weight up front won't hurt wind penetration. I've yet to calculate the wing loading, but it's clearly very low just by inspection (I should calculate this, just for interest's sake). There are a few unanswered questions at this stage (why Junior found it unhappy with low throttle, for example) but I'm hoping to get to be a confident pilot on this plane and then try out a few other things as mods: Flaps (I'll retro-fit these later) and NACA leading edge cuffs/droops (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leading_edge_cuff) and use the plane as a test-bed.
Steve Murray