Maidened the Vision today!!!! All it took was two clicks of up trim---THAT'S IT!!! Flies hands off inverted. Pulls to the canopy very hard in knife edge even though I had already mixed in some down elevator. I don't know why some have complained about the roll rate as it was pretty good---Not quite as fast as my DV but no slouch either.

Let me tell you guys about Chip's new quiet pipe---GET ONE!!! With one of Chip's 22x8 props, the tach bounced from a max of 7700 to 7800 RPM with brand spankin' new fresh out of the box DA-50. I backed the high needle down to 7600 RPM for the maiden. WOW!!!!! The pipe is so quiet that you can hear the prop making a whishing sound at idle kinda like you hear on a full scale.

It is my buddys plane so I let him fly it on the second flight. He thought I gassed it up--I thought that he did....Well, my bud was doin' some of that pilot stuff getting used to his new bird when the engine abruptly quit. My bud did the best that he could given the situation, (low, slow, and upwind) setting her down on the bank of a creek in a briar patch that I swear opened up and swllowed the plane whole!!! I mean, it really disappeared!!! With me being the sole guy with long pants on I was drafted to retrieve the Vision from the snake, tick, chigger, poison ivy infested (Did I mention the BRIARS!?!?!?!?) tomb. The plane was hardly scathed!!!

Something you guys my want to include as an airframe directive---The open area in the fuselage which the canopy encloses, in my opinion, is a little weak. You can squeeze the plane in this area and distort the fuselage. I saw a pic a while back concerning a Vision that developed excessive dihedral after executing a wall. If you sqeeze the fuselage you can see the bridged area buckle as the wood there is very thin. I took a scrap piece of triangular hardwood that weighed next to nothing and glued it to the bottom of the "bridged" area. This GREATLY strengthened the fuselage to keep it from flexing.


Kevin