I finally finished mine!! Everything was working and with nice calm weather, I maidened it, or at least tried. The first flight my brother's finger caught the elevator as he threw it and the plane was tail heavy. both those ended in a 3 second flight. Next flight, the prop broke when the plane was nose heavy and crashed, but I also noticed it kind of skidding to one side, like the V stab was too small, leading to almost no directional stability. The third and final "flight" ended when upon launch, the plane skidded into a sort of flat turn. My inputs had no effect on the turn-skid and it dove into the ground.
What could be causing it? I immediately thought of the V stab not being big enough, but other people have flown the same plane with no problems, so I don't know.
Sorry to hear it didn't work for you. Sounds like all your issues stem from CG and that first crash. I think I need to write up an article on MM sized planes and triple checking your CG. Would be handy to link in the first post for all my MM sized planes and would save a lot of grief.
When you're flying at this size you need to be really accurate when setting your CG, just winging it doesn't really cut it on small planes as being off by just a little bit is like being off by a lot on a big one. It's really best to measure cg with something other than your fingers at this size.
A pencil stand, or just holding a couple pencils is a really good way to check things. Found this picture on google.
As they say, a nose heavy plane flies poorly and a tail heavy plane flies once.
My guess is you probably messed up your motor angle on the first crash and after each one it got moved a little further. If the motor gets tweaked out of line it's not always obvious at a glance unless you check it specifically. A motor at a couple degrees too much angle in any direction can easily make your plane skid through the air and not fly.
This is one of the most stable MM sized planes I've flown so far, largely in part due to the long moment arm.
I have found the best battery for all of the mini swappables on A-pack to be a 450 mAh 3S. When I move up to F pack, I usually go to a slightly larger 3S, maybe an 800 mAh. I think a 1300 will be too heavy for such a small plane.
Yup I agree. 800-850 3s is pretty much all I use. A 450-500 3s would also be a good size, I need to order a few of those.
While this plane will carry a 1300 3s, I don't recommend it unless you're at the point where you enjoy pushing limits and are sure of your skills.