OK. Ship is built, photos taken of the process. Maiden flights are complete. Documenting of the build to follow.
It's a FLYER!! Initial flight was a bit of a sketchy affair, as I had the roll rates set to high (duhrrrr), but the ship floats extremely well. On the upwind portion of its flights, I had to roll off throttle, leading to floating, or put the nose down, which would really speed the ship up. You gain control over this bird by AOA (angle of attack) and thrust. It is wind-sensitive at these high AOAs. I had one bad launch that (inexplicably) had me launching at 3/4 throttle, and the bird settled onto the deck and took one roll. The nose was slightly scrunched, but not bad enough to prevent further flights. I put the ship up and tried my stabilization system in the Lemon Stabilized, but got the "alieron shakes" at high speed, same as always with every airframe. I will have to turn down the gain and see if I can get it tuned to work with this system. I placed the battery about an inch forward and got less float out of the ship and better speed.
You can get some airspeed with this bird! I made a couple of high-speed medium-altitude passes with it and was amazed at how fast it will go. I'm not a super high-speed flier and I like making controlled flight maneuvers and basic aerobatics with RC aircraft. I did several faultless and "cordless drill" style aileron rolls with it and an Immelman, and it does nice maneuvers, although I have plenty of room to improve, once I get used to the airframe's performance.
Tonight I will fix the nose and put together a scale paint job for this ship.
