A few days after the first flights, we went out again. It was drizzling rain, but dead calm. (Due to the rain, we didn't pull out the camera, so I have no photos of this day's flights....Next time!)
Thanks to the calm, I was able to get a better picture of this model's handling. With the Venus still balanced at the factory CG, all the positive attributes noted on the first flight were confirmed. Rudder response is very close to being "pure yaw", and this not only results in good knife edge flight, but enables some pretty spectacular steep approaches. In a series of touch and goes, I brought the model over the field for a short final, but at an altitude of about 150 feet. Reducing the power to idle, applying full rudder and opposite aileron resulted in a slow knife edge decent that I felt was safe to continue until about 25 feet. I've had some aerobatic planes that didn't like to sideslip, but the Venus is stable.
The Venus snaps and spins when you want it to, but is otherwise very stable. I flew the plane around at a safe altitude, on high-rate, full up elevator. The plane rocked it's wings like crazy, but was so stable that I could fly it in a straight line with no aileron or rudder correction. It's great to discover this at a safe altitude, so you know that if it occurs close to the ground, you won't feed in a lot of correction that could cause the model to stall. I really like this simple design.
I noticed some "hunting" in pitch, when transitioning between slow flight and high-speed flight, but this was easy to correct. For the next flights, I will reduce my low-rate control throws somewhat, (Mine were higher than those suggested in the manual.) and move the CG slightly aft, in an attempt to flatten spins. I'll then post the results here.
A review of this kit is on my site, at
http://homepage.mac.com/mikejames/rc...us40arf01.html