Flight report.
Today I was able to maiden my Citabria also tested the modified landing gear.
In one word, AWESOME!
Putting it together at the field was easy and without trouble thanks to the practice done at home, the struts steps how to attach them to the fuse went flawless ( my steps ) no damage to the fuse sides at all, thanks to the protective plastic covers on the struts and the clear box type that was taped to the section around the struts points to reinforce the skin.
The engine ( DLE 35re ) was adjusted previously and was in good condition to fly.
First flight: after taxing for a few minutes I turned her into the wind ( hardly any ) and let her loose, the TO run was short firm and steady, under control, I didn't notice any strong tendency to go left as expected from a tail drager ( using a 20/8 Xoar prop ) the climb out was predictable, on my maidens I use about three clicks of trim of right Alileron and three click of up on the Elevators to assist with the left and down tendencies on first flights.
Once at altitude I recentered the Ailerons for a level wing flight, the Elevators had to go the opposite direction as she wanted to descend, I figured it was 1) because the CG on a new airplane is always a modest one, 2) the added weight of the second landing gear set.
One thing I noticed right away was how responsive the Ailerons are, after crusin around for a few minutes I pushed the throttle to max rpms then a vertical climb with a 1/2 turn, the DLE 35 is more than enough engine for this airplane, very crispy on that maneuver, from there on it was hot climbs with full dives at idle fallow by tight turns, the end of the flight was mostly slow flight with full flaps to get used to the slow down on the approach.
The landing was done with full flaps, as recomended per the manual the final approach should be done with altitude, the flaps are very effective even if you only use the one inch they recomend, don't use any more than that, you also need to carry some power on the descend to final about 1/4 throttle and on final about 1/8 , if you cut the power completely she will sink rapidly but is possible to recover from that, if you have flown a full size Cessna 182 you know what I'm talking about.
The Citabria landed adjacent to the paved runway, on the grass runway, it was a smooth good landing, short, no bouncing, short roll.
Last edited by CARS II; 10-28-2014 at 07:56 PM.