Well, I flew my brand new U-Can-Do 3D .46 for the first time today! This is my first tail-dragger and I was expecting it to want to ground loop, but I was very pleasantly surprised to see that it handled extremely well on the ground.

Things didn't start off real smooth this morning because I couldn't get the engine to idle well. It was obvious that the idle mixture was way too rich and no matter how I leaned the carb, it wouldn't settle down. The engine is a Super Tigre G.61 from my now-defunct Super Kaos and I had equipped it with a Perry pump and large-bore Perry carburetor. When my Kaos crashed last year, it broke the Perry pumper carb, so I dragged out an old back up. Apparently, something is wrong (or missing) in the idle circuit - it just wouldn't lean properly during idle. So, I pulled off the cowl, bypassed the pump and installed the stock Super Tigre carb (glad I had it with me). Viola! The engine fired right up and settled into a study idle. All I had to do is richen up the main needle two clicks and then I was ready to go.

I took the UCD to the hold line, ran it up one more time and then taxied out to the runway. Immediately, I could see that the ground handling is excellent. I didn't even feel nervous. Next, I eased in the throttle and it became airborne at about half-throttle. After gaining some altitude, I put in two clicks of aileron trim and about 5 clicks of right rudder trim to tame the left yaw (I'll talk about that later). After cruising around a bit to get a feel for the controls, I did my complete aerobatic routine. Wow, this if fun!

After about 5 or 6 minutes I decided to land (not knowing how much fuel might be left. Turns out, it still had half a tank left). I set the throttle for a fast idle and made a descent landing. Again, ground handling was amazingly easy. The landing was so slow that I easily made the turn out to the pits at mid-field.

So now my question: is it normal for this airplane to fly with a bit of right trim in the rudder? My one and only flight so far was made without the cowling (wouldn't fit over the field installed replacement carb), so I'm wondering if the added drag/turbulence might've amplified the torque problem (?) I'm not really complaining, just curious. I'm thinking of mixing some right rudder trim with the throttle on mix switch (RD8000).

Kaos