Tuesday, January 26, 2021

Integral, 10 year anniversary

Today I logged several flights on my 10-year-old Integral which survived a mid-air at the 2013 LARKS contest. The goal was to test a refurbished Hacker C50 14xl with a Castle Lite 85 ESC. Motor/ESC combo ran great and the radio setup I flew back in the 2011 NATS in my 14MZ proved more than capable to execute all maneuvers of the current Masters' sequence competitively.

Monday, January 25, 2021

Sun Fli IV tail feathers

Both the horizontal and vertical stabilizers are built and rough sanded. Sheeting was added top and bottom of the stab. I did this to enable sanding and shaping a pronounced symmetrical airfoil shape plus a thicker trailer edge to desensitize pitch. Dowel hardpoints were also added and drilled for control horns to each elevator half.

Tuesday, January 19, 2021

Texas winter flying

Low 70s, light wind down the runway, gotta love Texas/Houston winter. Great day to revisit trim and radio setups. Logged four flights on the Inviation which resulted in minor changes to the throttle curve, elevator AFR and Expo plus down line and knife edge elevator mix. I'm really liking the APC Carbon 22x13 and D3 combo on this plane powered by a C50 14XL. By paying attention to the growl produced by the grear box similar to motor noise when I flew YS combined with the braking ability of the D3, visual airspeed is simple to manage.