My first is still flying...but the wing mounts have been rebuilt so many times I know it's not going to be flying much longer.
So I decided to build a non-removeable wing version and to use minwax coated board to do it this time. Overall it went well. The first one I built in a day, this one I spread out over about a month and a half, 4 months if you count the time between when I coated the boards and when I finished.
I actually had it built almost a month ago, but put off flying it because I wanted to give it a nice paint job first. I knew this was asking for trouble. Always is with me. The nicer job I do of finishing a project the better the chance that it will never fly/float/drive/whatever it's supposed to do. But I really like the look of the spitfire so I decided I'm compromise. I'd put down base color before flying but wouldn't do any decals or final finish. Maybe that will hold off my gremlin.
Finally got up to fly it this morning. First sign of trouble. As I was pulling up at the almost deserted park one of the only 3 people there, the one parked nearest me, who had got in their truck and was ready to leave...saw the plane and decided to stay and watch. Great. Spectators for a maiden. With paint. I should have known better and put the FT Flyer in the air first. I haven't flown in almost a month the warm-up would have made sense. I only chose to fly the spitfire first because with the fixed wing it was awkward to leave in the cab of the truck and I worried about wind picking up and knocking it out of the back. Besides, my first spit handles great. And there was no one around the field and dead calm air so I figured there were also good reasons to do the test flight now.
Prepping the plane went smooth as could be. Triple checked everything and we seemed good to go. Took it out to the field gave it some throttle and a nice toss. But forgot about the torque roll on take off that my first one exhibited...had my rates dialed way back and didn't react strong enough fast enough - right into the ground about 15 feet away. Looked good as I approached. Prop wasn't even broken. But when I gave it some throttle the motor was acting like it had a bad connection. Flipped it over to take a look at the bottom...and the tail flopped 90 degrees to the body. Doh. Bottom and sides of the fuse had cracked right behind the wing. So plane and pod both done after just a few minutes. If the pod was still running I would have just taped up the body and tried again. But at this point I figured it was a sign not to push my luck.
But I still had my new Versa that just needed and ESC and the ESC from that pod was just what I needed. And that would help me figure out if it was the motor or the ESC on the spitfire's pod. So swapped the ESC over to the versa. Got a battery in. Confirmed the motor was going the right way. Noticed the ailerons were backwards...tweaked the TX....ok those are looking good. Elevator looks good. Let's put a prop on. Where's that prop. Um...crud. I'm running the motor I was running on my EA Axon and it's got a different prop adapter than any of my other motors. I only have one prop left that fits it (and one that could if I drilled it) and I left it at home.
Thankfully on a whim before leaving home I had also tossed in my wife's FT Flyer. It always flies and has taken a lot of hard hits and been repaired that not much shy of a chainsaw will hurt it at this point. Get it setup switch the program on my tx over...give it a nice toss...and fly it straight into the ground. What the. Toss on a new prop, check the CG again (all good) scratch my head a bit...give it another toss...and right into the ground. Finally realize I have to identically named programs in the TX and one has reversed elevator and finally it's in the air.
So at least I got a full battery out of the FT Flyer to cheer me back up, even landed it without breaking the prop despite running it without gear.
Spitfire #2 has been glued. Will get a bit of tape and be good to go. Iron should be hot now so I'll go fix the bullet that came loose on the motor in my big pod that I identified as the cause of the motor problems. Wind has picked up a bit though and we may get some afternoon storms. So don't know if I'll get to test fly again today or not. Monsoon season has broken our heat a bit - but brought with it some gnarly winds and quite a bit of rain this year to go with the nasty humidity. Another month or so before my flying season really begins. Just enough time to order some more servos and RX's to go in a Racer and a Dusty
Need to pick up a ESC and more props for the Versa too....
