Another first in my life.

I took the big Nomad to the park this morning. I had moved the leadouts back a bit and upped the power a bit and shortened the lines a foot. I was looking for lower lap times and more line tension. The first flight was another short one and it felt pretty good. Good tension and lap times at 5.12 seconds per lap. I put in a fully charged battery and turned the timer up for a full pattern flight. The plane flew quite well and total flight time was 5.45 minutes. I put in another charged battery and turned the timer down a bit and flew another full pattern. This time it ran 6 laps after the last maneuver or 30 seconds less than the other flight. It's ready for competition. I brought the Pathfinder in case the Nomad needed some adjusting at the shop but it didn't. I have 3 more batteries on order.

Now it's ready to fly.

Every night during the design and building phases I scribble out color schemes. It takes me longer to decide which design I like than to build the plane. I finally settled on this design. I had the electric Pathfinder fuselage done up in a similar scheme until the rebuild after the wing folded. It gained about an ounce of paint and after it is really cured it may lose another tenth or so. It weighs in today at 64.3 ounces. The fuselage is Randolph dope and the colors are Rustoleum 2X. I checked the leadout placement and that hadn't changed but I moved them back a 1/4 inch anyway. From 1/8 inch per foot to 3/16 per foot. It's been raining here for a few days now and is forecast to rain until Monday. I think the camera lens fogged over in the humidity a bit. We got a new computer over the week and what a difference. The colors are a lot better now.

The planets have aligned for another first flight.

The field was mowed last Thursday so the grass was up a bit. I set the plane in position for the first flight after bench trimming as best I could. 63 x .018 lines a 11.5 x 6 APC E prop, the motor set for 9500 rpm and a 3300 mAh 4S battery charged for the minimum time flight. The scary part is when the plane is released will it come in or stay out on the lines. This one stayed out on the lines for the takeoff and througout the short flight. It was nice and stable in level flight with a nice turn in the square loop. I thought the outboard wing was a bit low so I tweaked the wing tab a bit for the second short flight. I am surprised at the light line tension, more like my .46 powered planes. I didn't try anything up high so I may need to do something about the tension. If not I'll switch to .015 lines. I think I have a color scheme figured out for it so that will be next.