Our club had its annual "Freeze fly" yesterday, and I got to take up the new plane for a few rounds. Actually, the weather was quite nice. 50-60* and hardly any wind.

After some tuning (and some exciting aborted takeoffs) we finally got the engine running well. Seems at some point I adjusted the idle mixture way too lean. Its an Evolution 46NT running an 11x7 APC Pusher. The engine seemed to produce plenty of power in the air, and flew the plane much faster, and with a better climb rate, than the OS 46FX on my H9 Raptor. The takeoff runout was almost as long as the Raptor's however... I think an 11x6 would give me better thrust. I also want to try the 10x7 3 Blade MAS I have on the raptor, if I can find a pusher version.

I wish I could say it took 2 clicks of left and 1 click of up and it was perfectly trimmed, but I seem to have not reached that point in my flying career yet This is, I believe, my 10th plane, and my experience has been more along the lines of 8 clicks right, 7 clicks up, and some rudder for good measure Not sure yet if it's my balancing, or just that after a while you can anticipate which way the trims will need to lean... but someday I'll get there

Once I had the plane trimmed out, it was Awesome! The ailerons are very sensitive, and I had to dial them down a bit after the first flight, which was a little scary [8D] Im really glad I went with the elevons + the elevator in the middle, instead if just the elevator. Using almost all the throw I had made the elevator feel just about perfect. I will try moving the balance back just a bit and see how that does, but the balance in the manual seems to work out very well. Actually, the balance point is all I used the manual for, after reading it through the first time, and seeing how bad it was. (the plane is great though)

The rudders were a great add on. The plane tracked really straight, and the rudders hardly cause any rolling action. (finally got the rudder/aileron mix dialed on the raptor, takes 24% opposite aileron to make up for the rudders on that plane, can almost do a barrel roll with them....) On landings, they helped make up for the slight crosswind that seems to always be present.

This thing is FAST! I mean, looking at it, no one would mistake it for a slow flyer... but I was amazed at how fast it ate up airspace. I know its not even as fast as a jet, but its definitly the fastest thing Ive ever flown, and it gets the adrenaline going It also flys slow fairly well too, though I cant give an accurate account of the stall behavior yet. By the time I finally got around to trying a stall test, I had flown the airplane a few times, and little did I know, parts were starting to come loose. I went up high, dropped to idle, and started feeding in up elevator as the plane slowed down. I got to where I was holding full up, the plane was kind of wallowing along, wandering a bit left and right, then all of a sudden the plane dropped off to one side and fell like a rock. Fortunatly I was high enough, picked up some speed and pulled up, no problem. Flew around for a few more minutes and came in for a landing. As I was taxiing in, I noticed that the left aileron pushrod was trailing along behind the plane, having come disconnected at the servo end. (the screw holding the ball link came loose) The funny thing is, I never noticed a loss of aileron control, even as I was slowing down for my landing approach!

Landings are much easier than I was expecting. the first time, I gave myself lots of room, figuring it would come in hot. I ended up setting down almost 200' earlier than I was expecting, and rolled right up to the pits, rather than driving back from way down the runway, like I do with the Raptor.

All in all I am really happy with this thing At some point I would like to put a different canopy on it, but for now I have so many other plane projects waiting I will just fly it as is. Time to decorate it up all the way and put a name on it though.