Ok, I've had a couple of flights with my newly completed FT Blunt Nose Versa Wing, and I just wanted to log my experiences:
This plane likes to glide. It gets me in trouble, because I'm used to the glide slope of the older Versa Wing, and wasn't expecting this much glide. Because it's heavier, I thought it would drop more when I cut power. I built mine out of a combination of DTFoamboard for the wings and spars, and Elmers Foamboard for the center blunt section and wing tip plates. Covered the entire bottom of it with packing tape (three different colors) for a distinctive high visibility effect (alternating double strips of yellow, orange and black).
AUW is about 860g with the Lazertoyz "beef" package and a 2600mAh 3S slim battery. No FPV gear mounted yet, so I have almost 200g of additional nose weight (included in my AUW figure). My previous Versa was about 650g with a 2200mAh battery and all DTFB.
I used to fly the original Versa with the ESC configured with no engine braking. I changed that configuration to include engine braking thinking I want to extend the glide for FPV so I can maximize flight time, and to reduce the risk of prop damage on a belly landing.
Three observations:
1) On my 3rd day of flying this (yesterday, 21 Apr 2014), I broke a prop on a very soft landing. I may have flared too much, exposing the prop to the ground first... I haven't worked up the courage to perform a hand catch landing, so I may have to install some folding props if I break my replacement prop.
2) With motor braking enabled in the ESC, the prop still spins, but I do believe that my glide is more than double that of my previous Versa. I started a landing approach from 100yds away at tree top level, and cut the motor. With minimal down elevator, it just glided until it was upon me and the chainlink fence behind me. I had to add throttle and go around, this time landing with much more down elevator until I was nearly in a dive, then pull up at the last minute. This resulted in a fairly hot landing, even with the motor off.
3) The wind seems to toss the bigger wing around a bit more, especially with the motor off while gliding. I really had trouble with adverse yaw in gusting wind and had to fly with 100% or 70% rates (and 30% expo).
Otherwise, I'm loving the new wing, and think that it'll be a great platform for my first FPV experience.