Mods for Nomad 1.

A while back I found that a larger stab/elev. gave better performance. I added a half inch strip to the trailing edges of Nomad 1 and 2. It worked but then I built Nomad 5 with a longer span tail and that worked even better. It's my contest profile plane. Then came my electric powered Nomad 6 with squared off wing tips and tail. That got the longer tail and it flys very well. I measured the span of the stabilizer on 5 and made some pieces to stretch the tail to 5's length and to square off the stab to boot. That gives me even more elevator area than the No. 5 design. I trimmed the half inch piece down to 1/8 and glued the extension on. I flew it this morning and it corners better than anything I have. Still stable in level flight. Maybe it will be compete with 5 for the profile spot. I took the engine out of the SV-11 and put it back into the Mandarin. It was giving me problems with running steady. I changed fuel and propellers before the swap but it didn't make a difference. A while ago I put a velocity stack on the venturi to control the raw fuel coming out during the run. The venturi is very short. I flew the Mandarin and the engine did the same thing. I removed the stack and it seems to run like it should again. I have another stack on the Legacy so that will be removed as well.

Back to glow power.

It took longer to change the front hub on the truck than I figured. It was three hours of hammering and chiseling to get the old unit off the truck. I was exhausted to say the least. I put the electric planes aside and got back to glow fuel power. It doesn't take long to get spoiled not having to wipe oil off the planes and then clean them when I get home. I do have the Twisters flying the best ever and I got some mods planned for the Nomad 1 and maybe 2. I found a piece of balsa interfering with the bellcrank on one Twister. The controls on both were not symmetrical either. I mixed up some fuel with more nitro in it as the temperature here is high. I'm planning to bring the glow powered SV-11 and the electric Nomad to the park in the morning. I flew the SV-11 today and it just didn't have enough power in the heat so I upped the nitro content and put the bigger propeller back on.

Electric P-40B ARF update.

I finally got the plane flying better than it has. I had to drill new holes in the flap and elevator horns so that I got a bit more down than up control. I removed 4 ounces of nose weight but kept the one ounce spinner for looks mainly. One the first flight yesterday I had too much down and had to make a handle adjustment for the second flight. There is a marked improvement in the corners. The driving force behind all this trimming is that the plane is very stable in level flight both upright and inverted. No other plane of mine has ever been that stable. The balance point is a bit behind where the plans say so I'll start moving it back a bit more as I go. It's raining today so I'll prep the pickup for the new front hub that's coming today.

Brodak P-40B Electric.

A couple years ago I bought one with the power system. I've flown it a few times with poor results. Now that I have more batteries I've been flying it more and trimming. The thing has a problem in cornering. It likes to stall or mush. I added two ounces of nose weight and there is some improvement but it still mushes in outside corners. Today I made a new control horn for the flaps. The original was plastic and kinda bendy. I made a copy of it out of aluminum angle and made the flap pushrod hole higher than the plastic one. The flaps move too much, I think, so I took some movement off while keeping the elevator movement the same. Tomorrow morning I'll try it. Maybe shorter lines as well. It has occurred to me that in the profile and sometimes the warbird events appearance points are not awarded so you can fly an ARF if you chose with no penalty. I have the big Nomad and Pathfinder electrics and the P-40 ARF for warbird. I may have to use one for two events or all three events as getting two 60 inch wing span planes plus the 54 inch P-40 into the Hyundai back seat is quite a problem.

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.