Avistarpilot

Woke up today to nothing but blue sky's and sunshine with just a faint breeze. I've been in the middle of building my second plane so I've been itching to get my tride and true up in the air as soon as the weather permitted. I took it up a few times last year but it was late in the season and I didn't fly near as much as i wanted. Before that it was about 3-4 years since my last flight. As soon as I stepped outside this morning with my coffee in hand I immediately thought "I need to fly today."

Luckily after moving and buying a house I am only minutes from a flying field at an uncontrolled grass strip. Both the airport manager and the aircraft owners that keep their full scale planes in the hangars fly rc so they keep a section on the south end of runway mowed short to allow the planes to land and take off with relative ease.

All this said, I pulled in and got the plane ready, checked the tuning a bit, range checked it, and proceeded to make my first flight for the year. Grass was a bit longer than it usually is so it took most all the runway to get enough ground speed to liftoff but once airborne it was smooth sailing. Flew it around the patch and made a few touch and goes(some were full stops from how tall the grass was) Some weren't exactly pretty either but I was able to keep the wheels on the ground. I may look into a different prop to swap on the front as the little 40LA could barely get the craft airborne. It's a 10x6 right now but would appreciate input on a different prop to try. Eventually I'd like to throw a 55 AX up front as well but I'm in no hurry.

Sorry for the somewhat pointless post, I feel like I make a post about this every year but it feels good to fly again and come home with everything still in one piece!

MajorTomski

Good for you! Congratulations!

mustangman177

Was refreshing to read this post. Not a worthless post at all, glad all went well for you, from the sounds of it, you're definitely back into the hobby. You will like the upgrade of a 55 AX from a 40 LA. The increase in power will be quite notable. Be careful at first when making the upgrade, may be more than you can handle.

skylark-flier

First, welcome back to the greatest hobby/sport there is. Lifting a plane off the ground and seeing her do her thing is always such a blast - love it. About your 40LA, I've got several on different planes and I found a while back that they really do like 11x6 props - that little extra length seems to really bring the pulling ability up a significant amount. My planes that are flying with 40LA's & 11x6 are SIG Kadet Mk-II, GP Cub-40, GP CAP-21, Goldberg Sr. Falcon & I've got a SIG MidStar-40 that has a 40LA with 10x6 3-blade. All fly just great. You'll notice a slight drop in RPM but pulling power is just fine.

I agree, a 55AX and 11x6 or 11x7 would pull your Avistar like it had rocket boost. I like the Avistar, one day I'd like to have one of my own to terrorize buzzards with.

Avistarpilot

I'll try an 11x6 and see if it helps. I also noticed from time to time in the air it would rock it's wings ever so slightly, fairly randomly. I'm wondering if my control surfaces are getting a bit worn out. I can move the ailerons up and down probably close to 1/16 - 1/8 inch before they load the servo. I think over time and from moving the plane around all these years the control rod has loosened a bit inside the aileron and it's causing a "tail walking the dog" phenomenon. The horizontal stabilizer as well as the vertical seems a bit sloppy to me too. The horizontal slides into the fuse and the rudder bolts through both the elevator and fuse. I'm half tempted to remove the covering and epoxy everything in place to stiffen everything up. I recovered it once already but it was a pretty mediocre job and could afford to be re-done and would be good practice once I get to the point to recover my decathlon kit that is just about at the covering stage right now .

skylark-flier

Yeah, that would definitely be the way to go. Any time you even "think" things are getting lose, they probably are, and it's time to do something about it. Your aileron "no-load wiggle" though, with an Avistar that really doesn't sound like enough to really worry about. Most of my older planes (built from 1969 - 1985) have at least that much movement. Assuming you've got the single servo set-up and innerwing belcrank - that would be the area to look at. Being inside the wing, it doesn't get looked at as much as eveything else on a regular basis. They CAN loosen.

The tail though, both your Avistar & my son-in-law's Nexstar have the same tail design/construction, as do most ARFs, and they become lose after awhile. Epoxy & bracing won't hurt that area even a little bit.

Enjoy getting reacquainted with your lady, and good luck with the other builds. Looking forward to seeing how it all comes out.

mustangman177

Having 4 O.S. 55 AX, I've found the best prop is a 12 X 4. These engines like to rev up. It also depends on the type of plane you are using the engine on.

Avistarpilot

As of now I'm thinking of throwing it in an Avistar(tricycle gear) Is a 12" prop going to clear the ground? I'm going to check the tuning on my LA as well and see if I can get a few more RPM's out if it. It seems awfully rich, which is good but could be hurting performance just a bit.