Hells Bells man! That was fun!

Well the Phenom flew great! After my "hinge-debacle" and my finishing (I thought) the aircraft late the night before...

Vic and I set her down filled her up and I was doing a control throw check (come to think of it I never range checked this thing, at least not on the ground...) and one of my elevons was hanging up and binding on the wing-tip so I grabbed a trusty APC prop to shave some material away for a smooth moving surface. (Yes, Vic looked at me funny)

Then Vic realized (I already knew) that the Right Elev. would not come back to center when coming from the down position to neutral, from up to neutral was fine...It was about 1/4 inch. huge to most discerning modelers...Vic looked at me as if to say "Dude, you are not gonna fly with it like that anyway are you?" Well, yeah we did...

Launch was uneventful with Vic holding the bird at 45 deg. right wing slightly down to counteract the roll on release. I had a 10x8 on there, I bought a 10x7 JUST for the first flight and forgot to put it on (planning on running a 9x8 after that). The Phenom had plenty of thrust on launch, pulling out easily even with the big prop. It needed some "up" trim (Mine was slightly nose-heavy, per my preference on maiden) but was quickly trimmed. Inverted flight was predictable (again a bit nose heavy) but the aircraft tracked VERY well in all angles even though I had to correct one side elevon after every turn since it would not center. Vertical was excellent, and the controls were very effective even at 1/4 throttle. (It should be noted that I use as much throw as I can get and run 40-50% Expo. on my triple rate system.) The roll-rate was PHENOMinal, again due to my insane throws. I never did a "slow pass" as I typically do to see the slow speed characteristics but I figured I'd find out in a few minutes anyway.

The airplane glided pretty well I always kill the engine on final to make it more interesting rather than leveling her out and killing her on the straight away... Those big elevons had perfect control of the aircraft until touchdown. I would imagine most people would fly with low or medium rates then flick on high-rates for more throw during landing, this would be a good idea.

I actually got pretty lucky as I cut the throttle to glide her in I made my sweeping turn a bit big and had to flare to clear that barbed-wire fence, landing 10-20 feet away from our feet. I was thrilled at the whole spectacle. Vic captured some short video's on his camera that hopefully Tom will be able to edit and post. (Tom you were missed sir!)

During my post flight check-up I noticed that several of the cowling screws had vibrated out (YES I did use Loctite) and I did not have any extra's so this was to be the only flight but it was great fun. Vic is pretty sure that the Phenom is faster than my Whiplash with the K&B-48/ UT Muff. I am not good at guessing on that but I do not care anyway. I wanted an "Everyman's Phenom" and I believe I accomplished that (Sorry Rudeboy no OPS in here!)

All in all I really enjoyed building and maidening the Phenom. It is a brilliant well thought out design and had great performance even with my simple Ringed OS-50SX and Tower muffler.

Thanks for your help Vic!