I put my Lancair up for the maiden flight this week end. On a previous trip to the field, I performed a few high speed taxi runs to see how it handled the rough grass filed with the stock nose wheel and wheel pant. I subsequently removed the stock nose wheel and install the Fultz double strut nose wheel that has become popular with this model.

I brought my big Lancair and attempted to fly it first but I had on-board glow problems and could not fly it. That forced me to do the maiden with the CMPro 360. I made a few high speed taxi runs and found the plane bounced quite a bit through the rough grass but once at take off speed, she ran pretty smooth. With the news letter editor as my co-pilot, I lined up at the far end of the field and advanced to full throttle. As she passed me on the runway, she appeared to have sufficient ground speed as the nose wheel was starting to rise slightly (getting light). I eased in a little elevator and she smoothly took to the air with grace. I let her gain some altitude and speed and then made my turn to start making some simple tracks around the circuit. I had to add quite a bit of down trim on the elevator to get level flight at full throttle. Then I eased back to about half throttle and the tip stalls began.

I have to go to work now, but to make a long story short, I think the cg shifted too far to the rear as a result of removing the nose wheel wheel pant. She was very twitchy at low speeds and I had to fight off tip stalls all the way to the ground when I landed. I got her down with no problem/damage but at about four feet before touch down (at pretty good speed) she tried to drop a wing. I recover and put her down with a light bounce and long roll out.

I will check the cg and move it forward before my next flight.