You need some more flights to verify everything it's doing. Down trim for level flight along with needing to hold down for inverted flight doesn't quite compute. Down trim for level flight along with no down inverted and I'd say you're tail heavy. Make sure to start with your plane trimmed for hands off, straight and level flight. Then see what happens when you're inverted. See what it does on vertical up and on both knife edges. From there, I would refer you to Bryan Hebert's triangulation trimming articles (Google it). If you follow Bryan's advice, you'll get to where you want to be. Bryan will tell you that fixing one problem usually corrects two or three symptoms. However, yours don't seem to match up unless I'm missing something. Starting off trimmed for hands-off straight and level is critical to evaluating everything else. I'm at close to 100 flights on my new plane and I'm almost there. Be patient and good luck!!!!
Verne Koester
ORIGINAL: rcflyer4fun
Well I was able to get the plane down to 11#3.75 ounces. I decided not to use a carbon fiber rod on the rudder. I don't believe the 3 grams I would have saved would be worth it if it were to break! I thought there might be more weight there than that.
I set up my CDI to run off the reciever pack. The elimination of the second battery saved 88 grams. The loss of the second switch saved 21 grams. I was able to lose 17 grams in extra wiring in the plane. I cut off the deans connector and shortened the wires off the battery to what was needed. I got rid of the heavy duty wire extentions to the aileron servos. I was able to remove 28 grams of extra padding I had wrapped around the CDI unit. I shaved off about 15 grams in fuel tubing. I didn't realize just how heavy padding and fuel tubing really are. I had some thin fuel tubing I used on my vent line. I was also able to save 2 ounces by removing the wing spring in favor of nylon bolts. I hope the fuselage can take the strain of gut wrenching snap rolls.
I flew the plane last weekend but ended the flight short due to an engine problem. I was able to complete a few basic trim manuever checks like the power off downline and knife edge flight in both directions. Plane tracks very straight in all those manuevers but I had to put in quite of bit of down elevator trim to achieve level flight. In straight inverted flight I have to hold in some more down elevator to keep it level. I feel this is more than I should need with this trim condition. What do you guys think I should adjust to get rid of some of this down elevator trim? In my power off downline it tracked very straight but it might have a super slight pull to the canopy maybe. In knife edge very straight both directions.
Hopefully with weather permitting I will get a few more trim passes in and report back. If not I will have to fly the Angel Shadow at the contest this weekend.