Flew Great Planes Stuka.

Recommended CG was 3.625 to 4.375in. From leading edge. I set my CG at 4.2in. Because even with the strut bent forward the wheel axles where not even close to the wing LE. So I hoped the aft CG would help with ground handling and not make this a one flight wonder. Ailerons were set for max. throw, by max. throw I mean the aileron would hit the wing above it if I had any more. Flaps were set for 45 degrees when deployed. Elevator I usually set between 10 and 12 degrees this one was a 12 degrees. Rudder was as much as I could get. Power was provided by a Super Tigre S-90 (which I might add we could not get to run consistently on 10% nitro 20%oil mix, but it was totally tamed by 20% nitro 20%oil) turning a 14x8 prop..

After an hour in the sun it was more wrinkled than the seran wrap on last nights chicken but time should fix that? Once the 20% nitro was in and the engine had convince Bill and I it was done with it's foolishness I taxied out to the runway and turned into the wind. On the taxi out I noticed it was taxiing favoring one side, I knew what had happened the screw on axle on one side had come loose. So as I was taxiing I had to decide stop and wait to fix it (which probably ment not flying it today) or give her the gas and adjust for min. Smoke.

That was a tough decision! So I increased the throttle and the tail came right up. So I rotated. It rolled hard left, I slammed the stick to the right and it slowly came back to level. I'm thinking oh great another first flight from h3ll because it took for ever to get those wings back to level but they came back level and I continued my climb out now that I'm committed (wheels have left the ground). I always like to turn away from the role tendency of the plane as I'm trimming so it was a long climb out with a turn that brought it right back in front of me. The final trim settings were just a couple of clicks from were we started. Once trimmed I checked the rudder trim then thrust angle and it checked out good in both up & down, then left and right. Then the heavy panel check, and slow clean and dirty to stall. It never dropped a wing! I though with the thin wing tips this model has it would surly be a candidate for tip stalling but no. Clean it would drop the nose and immediately go back to flying without my releasing the elevator (I was trying to make it spin). Dirty I could swear it was standing still in the air before I ran out of elevator when the nose would drop and it would go right back to flying. Also when the flaps were deployed there was no induced role.

Now that all the compulsary's are done lets have some fun. I found that a good scale speed was around half throttle although full throttle was not a lot faster. I wanted to see how active the elevator was so from a ½ throttle pass I pulled full elevator to see how tight a loop I'ld get. I have to much elevator! The loop was 10-12 ft in diameter. Then I moved on to roles, I have read a bunch on how poor the role rate is on this bird (why my throw was so drastic). A 360 degree role takes for ever to complete but of center (like you would use it to bank prior to a turn it is as quick as any sport plane. Then some low passes for the camera, A out of plane barrel roll or two, and it is time to land.

So one low pass to see how that one loose tire is doing. Ooooops, its not there. A second pass just to verify, and its really not there. Now comes the adjust for minimum smoke part. I hit the flaps at ¼ throttle and it slowed like I hit the breaks, at the completion of the down wind turn I had to push the nose down to fly to the runway and reduced the throttle to 1/8 (I was still carrying some) and let the plane dive to the runway. At about 4ft I started to pulled parallel to the runway and reduced the throttle to idle, finally leveling off at about a foot to 6in. Above the runway. Now the trick was to run out of elevator at the same time I touch down. I ran out of elevator an inch or two above the ground (just as I was getting into the grass). I could have used more elevator here and it showed no signs of tip stalling (tip stall at this point means nothing accept I was going as slow as humanly possible with this plane). She touched down on the back of the wheel pants and as the plane slowed and the elevator lost effectiveness she began to rock forward until she hit the small bit of the strut that stuck below the wheel pants. Then up onto the nose balancing there for a second while deciding which way to go, finally falling over onto its back. Which was better than coming back down on those wheel pants. No damage, other than missing a wheel and axle adapter but the local hobby shop took care of that. She is ready to go again this weekend with the dubro axle kit which is much better than what comes with the kit (I had to drill thedubro's out to fit the strut).

If you want to know
Joe