Jagzilla

It was a beautiful sunny day here in the valley, and I decided to give the Spit it's maiden toss today and see what damage I could do. Gave it about 1/2 throttle, and gave it a semi-hard toss. Thing went down towards the ground and we were gonna smack it up good, till I cranked up the power, and pulled back on the elevator. I'll tell you, it was close!! About a foot or so from hitting the ground. Anyway she powered up and took to the air. Took of like a rocket, I might add. Hairy start to the flight, but after that she flew beatifully!! Needed a bit of up elevator trim, and that was about it. Unfortunately I had the throws set too low on both the elevator and the airlerons, so it was fairly docile flying while she was up. I'll bump the throws up a bit for the next outing. The Himaxx motor/GB combo just had a fantastic sound to it as I full throttled it a couple of times. It literally roared past. That is a sound I'm gonna learn to love on these electrics! So I flew it around for about 6 minutes or so, then came in for the landing. Now landing Warbirds is something I'm not the best at (just ask my ME109 about that), but I managed to get it down in one piece. I came in too hot, but other than the middle airscoop coming of when it touched down, it was a half decent landing. Didn't really manage to flair it, more of a plomp onto the ground sort of landing. Anyone here have any advice on landing these things? I know about into the wind, but my skill really needs a lot of improving in this area. Anyway, it came home in one piece, and in my books, thats a successfull maiden!! It looked and sounded great up in the air, and I'm looking forward to the next outing with it!Specs are:
GWS Spitfire with Himaxx 2025-4200 with Himaxx gearbox runing 4.4-1 ratio. Prop is GWS 9070 ,battery is an Apogee 2450 3 cell. AUW is around 18 oz.s.

Jag[8D]

BuzzBomber

My Feedback: (4)

Hey, Jag--glad you got her home in one piece! My axi-spitfire maiden started out like yours--a quick dive--only I didn't get my thumb on the elevator in time. Turns out I was a bit overzealous in making sure it wasn't tailheavy and didn't have any up-trim to compensate[:@]. Once I got the CG sorted, I setup a 10% 'up' command on the landing switch function on my Tx, so that I could switch it on to ease the hand-launch then switch off when I got on the Tx. Works great. As for landing, it took me a while to get used to how well it glides--I kept coming in too hot, and when I flared for touchdown, it would balloon and porpoise. What helped me was practicing stalls up high to get an idea of the power-off stall speed, and planning my approach around that. Instead of chopping the power and gliding in steep, use a long approach and use the throttle to control descent rather than the elevator. Again you can practice up high after it's trimmed out by seeing how different throttle settings affect flight without touching the right stick.