RCPtero

Thanks Barry!

It went better today than Memorial day did. She came home in one piece!! First takeoff run did the same thing as first one last time. Got up to speed, tail came up, and kept right on going over the top!! Quick look over and no damage. Took her back to the bench, restarted and taxied out again. This time I held more up elevator to keep the tail down. Got a straight and smooth take off. She started to climb out. Got up about 40 feet AGL, running under full throttle. All of a sudden, she snapped to the left. Ailerons were ineffective. I chopped throttle and immediately, the ailerons took effect and rolled her back level. From there, I basically dead sticked her in to the end of the runway. My left retract took the brunt of the landing and bent. Right gear also seems to have some issue, but I've not eyeballed any physical damage yet. Otherwise, no visible damage.

So, now I'm going to pull the retracts and put fixed LG in place. I figure that'll drop the weight a bit and give me something a little more robust for learning. Once I get past the learning curve, and get the retracts fixed, then I'll switch back.

I also suspect at some point, assuming she survives my learning curve, I'll strip the skin off of her, do what I can to lighten her up and re-skin. She definitely wanted to fly. I just think my climb out was a touch too steep and she lost airspeed. Although I really didn't think I was climbing that aggressively!!

One of the guys at the field was filming. I'll have to see if I can get a copy of the film. If I can, I'll post it.


Tom