Hi all,

Well after all the fun and games I had trying to get the servos on my Funtana to stop fluttering, I finally spent some time flying my Funtana myself this morning.

Now I guess I should give you some background. I started flying RCs at the beginning of November 2003 and I solo'd with my local club on Nov 30th. My trainers were all Tower Hobbies 40s and I have built two other planes from ARF kits since:
1) Hangar 9 Ultra Stick 40
2) Hangar 9 FuntanaS

I bought the Funtana before buying the Utra Stick. I was looking for a plane that was a little more of a challenge than the Tower trainer and the guys at the hobby store suggested the Funtana. Only after I bought it did I read on this forum that this plane is a bit more advanced than what I thought it was. Anyhow, I built it and decided to go back and by the Ultra Stick as the intermediate plane. I figured I'd fly that first then come back to the Funtana once I get the hang of the Ultra Stick.

I finally got both planes to the point where they could fly last weekend and so both of these planes had their maiden flights on Sunday. I left it to our chief instructor to fly them both on their maiden flights. I landed the stick (piece of cake) even though the wind was blowing quite hard. I decided, though, that discretion was the better part of valor as far as the Funtana was concerned, so I left it to our chief instructor to handle taking off and landing. He was quite happy with the plane's setup, though, so I did fly it briefly.

Today the wind was dead still, although we had a nice coating of ice on the field yesterday. I decided that seeing I have DuBro skis on both planes I was going to take them up. I flew the Stick for about half an hour with no problems. Boy, does that plane fly well!!! Phenomenal handling. Eventually I decided that the time had come to try the Funtana.

I fueled her up, fired her up, and got her ready to fly. I put her on the field and started taxiing out but found that the tail wheel was digging into the snow a little. Not much to do about it.

I turned her into the wind and opened up the throttle. She climbed out like a dream. Couple of circuits, some trimming, now time for landing...

Now the chief instructor warned me last week that this plane will probably snap close to stall speed. So I was VERY wary of letting it slow up to much. I have an OS 46AX with a 13x4w prop on and all the time I was worried that I would lose her coming in.

So on approach I came in pretty high. Throttled right back. Float... float... float... and she doesn't want to drop. Still way to high to land so I opened up the throttle and went around.

Tried again. Came in a little lower on approach. Same thing... float... float... float... no landing this time... full throttle and go around...

Third time I came in a lot lower on approach. Throttle back. Glide... glide... float... flare... touchdown main gear... tail gear... turn around... off we go again.

This planes handles like a dream. The fear of not being ready to fly it was totally unfounded. It's a bit more direct than the Stick, but it flies beautifully.

I even succeeded in doing a Harrier (inadvertantly) on one of the missed approaches... I got the angle of attack too high and she just dragged herself up...

I am so psyched with my Funtana and I am so glad I got it. Now I need to start learning some of that 3D stuff...

regards,

Bruce