So I had an AWESOME time flying these at Flite Fest East!
First up, I took the prototype v3 33" wingspan up with a new motor shaft in the only Keda motor. No luck - she tumbled and again broke the motor shaft. So that's two shafts down, and time to switch motors. I moved the CG a little more, put in new motor, and again she was a mess in the air. So I took out the electronics and gave the parts to random people. :black_eyed:
On to prototype v4 - the full 1/6 scale 44" wingspan. I had a new 4s3000mah battery, and with shaking hands, got a hand launch for the pylon race. And she flew!! A little bit of a hand full on the roll axis, so I kept her up high during the race. I was the last one to finish - but I did finish 11 circuits (one of them cut the pylon so I went around an extra time). Landing was perfect too! :applause:
So for the next day it was the endurance race, and I didn't want to try to balance her out or fly her with the prescribed 3s1300mah battery. So I went up for a fun flight with everyone else and had a blast doing big circuits up and down the field! After my timer beeped I called out for a landing approach, and felt I was a little high still so I should go out a little further before making the base leg turn. And that's when I lost orientation, came straight down from about 50 feet up, and almost hit the well
Yep - almost a direct hit on the steel.
Came down so straight that the prop and spinner survived just fine...
Needs a new nose though... pretty funny that it unplugged the motor on impact :black_eyed:
So I'll be replacing the nose and racing her around the local field this summer.
Thanks to everyone who has provided advice and encouragement for my first design effort, and especially you crazy few who took the time to build a copy yourselves. It's been a blast! :applause: