More on the Cardinal.

I have several full flights on the Cardinal and it really flys well. I think it presents better than all my other planes. It handles the wind pretty well also. I attended the clubs 1/2 A day. A lot of planes with .049 power and some actually flew. My Wildcat got into the air and was a real handful. Something isn't aligned right and it was terrible. It sits on the desk now forever. I forgot to bring the scratch built Golden Hawk. We had a real good time even though most of it was spent trying to get engines to run. It looks like my first contest will be the one here in Zachary. The El Dorado contest in early Nov. will be next. I hate missing the raffles.

Another first.

I've been working on how to paint checkerboard for several weeks. After painting the trim colors on the new Cardinal I had a large open space on the wing bottom. What better place to try something new. If things didn't pan out it's not readily visible. It takes a lot of tape to do even the basic checkerboard. In the end the points were touching and very little cleanup of the bleed through. Now I have to wait for a dyr day to get the clear on. My cheap paint stand worked perfectly. It is made for the Brodak electric conversion kits. There is a piece of angle iron a steel rod and a piece of hose. All stuff I had on hand.

Body in white first flight.

As I sat trying to come up with a trim scheme for the Cardinal I figured I could assemble it and get in a test flight to see if what I did deserved the extra effort of trim colors. I had sprayed the white base coat two days ago. I removed the power package from another plane and installed it in the Cardinal. The motor is an Arrowwind 2820/07, a Hubin FM-0c Tmer, a 40 amp E.S.C., an HRB 4s 3300 battery, an APC 11 x 5.5 prop, a 2 inch plastic spinner. The motor speed is 9000 rpm. I didn't get the lap times. The plane weighs 55 ounces with one ounce of tip weight. I set the flight time to the minimum, about 2 minutes. The plane is stable in level flight but needs more elevator or wider spacing at the handle for better corners. The balance came out within the c/g circle without any other weight added. I was concerned about that with what I did to the design. All in all the plane is worth the effort to paint trim colors, if I can think of a design. These assholes changed the format on the blog and there is no icon to ad a picture. After several hours I figured out how to get rid of the new crap and ad a picture. They are still assholes.

Not your father's Cardinal.

I had the opportunity to buy a Cardinal kit cheap and took it. I had designed a plane around the Cardinal wing several years ago and it flys very well. I figured I could duplicate that success with the Cardinal itself. I turned the wing tips around, added a canopy, sheet aluminum gear, will use electric power and I built a larger and thicker stab/elev. I moved the stab 1 1/2 inches aft. 1/2 vs. 1/4. I figure it's 28% of the wing area now. The fuselage is covered with some kind of tissue and the rest has Poly-Span covering. So far the fuselage is ready for assembly and paint and the rest has two coats of clear.

New paint.

I finally was able to get the clear sprayed when the humidity was low. I ran the dehumidifier for a few days just to be sure. Using dope paint makes a huge difference in how the plane looks and feels to the touch. When I finished this one I brought out another of the same lineage and paint brand and stripped the paint off the fuselage. I sprayed the fuselage with white dope a few hours ago. I'll have to wait a few days for it to cure before adding the trim colors. One of the vendors has a sale on and I bought a kit for half price. Then I got an email ad with 30% off everything so I ordered another 4 station battery charger. $62.00 off can't be overlooked.

A spur of the moment thing.

After flying last Saturday I finally got tired of the paint on the Nomad 4. The paint is sticky and peeling off the wings. It took severl hours to remove all the green, orange and blue paint from the fuselage and wings. Then the filling and sanding started. in between that I did some minor repairs to the frame work. Today I started with some white dope on the canopy and fin/rudder. When that cures I'll give the fuselage some dope paint. I've have several podium finishes and a pilots choice award with the plane. It's a good flyer and worth the effort to re paint it. I made another push rod as the original was too big around and just didn't look right.

First flight day.

I finally figured out what to paint the Jameson and the Flite Streak. I used butyrate dope on both. After painting the base white and red and orange trim colors I had to wait for a dry day to spray the clear. I had my chance and got it done without too many problems. Now they are ready for test flights. I should get a picture or two also. While waiting for a day to paint I took out the Nomad 4. The engine ran well and the takeoff was pretty good. As I pulled into the reverse wingover the outboard stabilizer broke. I didn't see it and when I pulled out inverted the corner radius was way too large and the plane scuffed the ground inverted. The prop and needle valve were broken too. It's fixable. I removed the engine and installed it on the Mo' Best that was to be in the raffle April 4th. I have a few flights on it and it flys better than with the lighter .46 engine. I had to put an ounce of tail weight to get the balance right and the extra weight seems to help. The club has announced a fun day to fly tiny planes. Engine size is to be .049 cubic inches. I built the yellow and red plane for that engine but it's a wall hanger and can't be used, so I'm told. I found another kit at the hobby shop and built that while waiting for a dry day to paint. It went together fast and was ready for paint along with the other two when the dry day came along. The kit said the plane pictured on the box was painted all grey. I didn't have any grey but I did have white and black so I mixed up some grey and painted it. I have to use the engine on the yellow and red plane though.