Well... I did the maiden flight and and summarily tail spun my buddies Storch! He's still learning to fly and stubborn as hell. Won't let us buddy box be "I don't learn that way"... as he says. Meanwhile, he's just been crashing and repairing his forth plane now. Unfortunately, one was my old slow strick.
He spent hours building this Storch and I told him, at least let me maiden it so we can make sure its setup right. After setting DR/Expos and adding lots of travel to the elevator (first test flight just didn't wanna get off the ground) I got her in the air. Man was she sluggish. Was in a left turn which was hard enough. Felt like there just wasn't enough control surface for ailerons. Or, not enough prop wash going the since they are miles away from the fuselage. Was really struggling to get her to come back. Was trying to get altitude and the elevator got really erratic. All of a sudden, the about 6-7knt wind caught the high right wing and I was in an uncontrolled tail spin. Killed the throttle and tried to neutralize the spin but just ran outta space. Bloody covered parking with solar panels. Might have had to recover in that extra 12'. Eh....who am I kidding😛
Not excusing pilot error here but...that elevator man! Its so huge and he didn't spar it at all. I could push down on the servo side with no movement but on the opposite side it would deflect big time. I suspect that may have been a factor since I was on the elevator pretty hard trying to compensate for it being/feeling so wonky.
Had I built it, I would have made the ailerons inches wider. For the size of that huge wing it seems really small. Felt small too.
I did find out after that he didn't set the low and high rates for the ailerons. Guess I figured he did since he had DRs set. A little too high for a maiden but set. My bad, should have asked.
So, anyone out there have a Storch? Any tips or lessons learned? I'm all ears. I feel bad but like he said, probably better than he would have done. Damage wasn't to bad. Nothing that some hot glue can't fix. I did much worse with my simple cub learning to fly again. Two nose ins and she flew again...lol. motor and electronics are good so....he'll benefit with more build experience. 😋😁
Now, I'm trying to convince him to get a Timber with AS3X. It's such a solid trainer platform. He's been spending so much money being stubborn and I don't want him to give up. Even offered to buy Timber...if he doesn't destroy it, after a couple months for half price. Even told him he could keep the reciever since I really want a Timber just not with AS3X.
other than that... this was technically a crash landing. Tested my new Pinocchio Inflight adjustable CG system in the cub. Aka... forgot to put the bloody skewers in the power pod. Excited to test a new cheap 200mw FPV camera and forgot...lol. Hard landing but no damage.😁