Hi guys,
Nick - that sounded like a close call. Good that you could call back on your training to get yourself out of a potentially bad situation. Glad you enjoyed the rest of your ride.
Sorry to hear about the weather - I can't believe you already have snow and it wasn't even November yet. Wow!
JPEE,
I hope you find the issue with your 600. That would be very frustrating to bring it all the way out and it not work. As you said you have months to sort it out. How did the jug do?
One good thing about where your at is all the open space to get used to all the functions your new Mavic has. No airports or other obstructions for it to collide or interfere with. Nick had some nice insight into it with his flight.
I'm glad to have helped you with the prop balancing. It really has helped with my 'shaky' planes. lol
Halloween was really great. I got to take my son out and he had lots of fun. We also carved up some pumpkins for the outside display. All in all it was a great night!
The past few days have been disappointing dealing with my Spitfire. This is the 1200mm Spitfire by Dynam that I got several years ago but really never got flying very often. It also had that terrible paint job that I stripped and repainted. I did maiden it but not much more, basically it sat on the shelf. So I decided to finish it up and get it airworthy again. This is when the problems started creeping up...
Friday morning - I was ready to fly but needed to finish some final work on the plane. First problem encountered - missing screws for the wing attachment and then the wing would not sit flush on the fuse. After fiddling with it for an hour decided as a last resort solution - permanently epoxy the wing to the fuse. Not ideal but it worked. Decided to skip flying to give the epoxy a day to cure.
Saturday - lipo's charged, CofG set, all wiring in place. Everything was a go. Took the plane out on a very calm and cloudless sky morning to get a few 'shake down' flights in. Had my son with me so you can imagine getting everything in the Mustang was a tight fit. Decided to leave the heli at home to save a bit on space.
The plane tracked beautifully down the runway - no sharp pull to the left like my Zero habits to. Lifted off at less than half throttle, gear up, no issues. Flying around at half throttle the plane did very well. A bit of a tail heavy tendancy but I could shift the lipo to adjust later. I did a few approaches to get a feel for how the plane flies at slower speeds, again no issues. My last approach I had to wave off and as I was pulling up and giving throttle - the prop flew off the plane!
Seriously, 15 feet up, slow airspeed, and no prop. Stalled and dropped - belly smacking on the ground. The damage doesn't look too bad - a crack in the right wing at the cutout for the retract wheel was all I could find so far. Luckily the retracts were up so that saved them. I still need to go over the plane more thoroughly to make sure everything is fine.
This plane has one of those slip fit prop adapters which is difficult to get a tight enough fit apparently. The motor does have 4 screw holes for a screw-in type adapter but I need to find one that works for this particular motor. Will be checking the RCG to see if anyone has any info.
So anyways, I'm taking my Zero and Fusion out tomorrow morning to get some trusted flying in - at least I know my props won't fly off!!
Mark