Weel, here we are at the flying field in Ramah, Louisiana, just west of Baton Rouge. Several of my Louisiana buddies were there to watch Bryan maiden this beautiful airplane. Before Bryan showed up we took several pictures. The other airplane is an 11 year old design by Bryan Hebert called a Shinden. I included it here because this plane is the basis of the Caressa design. The person holding the Shinden is Monte Richard, the NSRCA District 6 VP and long time flyer of the Shinden.

Bryan gave the Caressa a check out and decided it was OK to fly. I walked the plane out to the runway and Bryan had the transmitter waiting for me to arm the craft. When Bryan advanced the throttle the plane smoothly broke ground and climbed straight out. After a couple of passes Bryan gave it several clicks of down elevator and that was it. He flew several maneuvers including stall turns, loops, vertical down lines, and a little bit of knife edge. After the transmitter timer went off Bryan landed and requested several changes. First we moved the batteries forward about 1/4-inch forward, changed the expo on the controls to suit Bryan, increased rudder throw, increased the top end throttle curve. The primary change was Bryan realized the elevators were not totally synchronized even though I thought they were properly set.

Put in fresh batteries and off we were again. Bryan flew a bunch more maneuvers taking out the down trim he put in on the first flight. He showed me the vertical up line with hands off, vertical down line with hands off, which resulted in a very slight attitude change due to the incidence, and several other maneuvers. Unfortunately the chin cowl came off in flight during a turn at the far south end of the field. Bryan landed the plane OK while I kept an eye on the cowl. A search party went out, but the cowl could not be found. One of my friend said he had a cowl for the Shinden that was still in the box and Bryan said it would fit, but the paint scheme will be off. Mike Pascal said I could use the cowl until the replacement with the Caressa paint arrived. A look at the attachment point on the fuselage showed that the screw that holds the cowl onto the fuselage loosened and backed out. That will not happen again as I plan on using a locknut as well as the t-nut to keep the screw in place.

Anyway, all that is left is for me to readjust the expo settings and trim to suit my flying style. As soon as I get the cowl, I will update this flight report.

A presentation video will appear on Bryan's website: CK Aero in the near future.

Sheldon

PS. Sorry about the orientation of the pictures, but I cannot figure out how to rotate them here.