Well that's a can of worms to open, I got the plane used. The overall build of it is very good, but soon after flying it, I started having vibration related problems. Especially the chin cowl losing screws, getting chewed up, several cracks in the fuse and so on. The owner had said that he had fixed some cracks prior to me buying it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not angry or upset at him. The plane looks great and flies very well and the price was really decent. Just that it was breaking every two flights or so. I had bought it to fly for the rest of the season and then redo over the winter. That's still the plan, want to change to a European scheme.
I then balanced the spinner and prop but the results were the same. I had moved some things around from the original setup, the igniton had been right behind the DA50, I hated that, all the heat would be directed onto it. So I moved that, I also moved the main batteries back to the servo tray area. This required me to add weight, which I did to the chin cowl. The small weight increase would not be a big factor and I like a plane that has a good weight to it and I'm used to that. So at first I suspected my adding weight to the chin was the cause. I removed all of the owner added weight, got a new cowl and reworked the balance. I put all the weight in the top of the nose just behind the spinner, all nicely glassed in so I would have no future problems. But it did it again, so then I started looking at the DA50. I sent it back to DA for a check up and decided to put the DLE55 in its place. Again, the same areas were affected, hoooo hum. So what to do? I started looking at the firewall, the motor and the nose. I started thinking the up and down motion of the piston firing combined with the weight was probably creating a harmonic, the fuse then flexing causing the cracks and cowl issues due to the ballast weight, plus the lower firewall being unsupported. I decided to ad two carbon rods to tie the nose weight and firewall together. A trip to the field, a good flight and no issues. I'm up to about 10 flights since and no signs of trouble. As for moving the firewall, I have no clue since I bought it used. I had to get slightly shorter standoffs for the DLE but that was it. I'm glad I did, the 55 flies it better than the 50, really liking it. I run Spektrum telemetry, I get 7800 rpm with a 21x10 on the ground, temps run between 100 and 140, and I fly just above half for the majority of the flight, only using full to climb. It started and ran like a top, right out of the box. Haven't touched a needle, it also has a really cool burble when you throttle back from a loop or dive, kinda like the full size spit!
The DA is now on its way back with a clean bill of health, they didn't find anything wrong with it that would have caused the issues. As Pilot Officer Richard Hillary wrote about flying and landing his first spitfire, "Money for old rope" and I concur. Really like flying this one! Can't wait to fly the TF.
