The flight was great guys. I was actually shaking a bit (a bit
) but the Cat was rock solid and really in the groove. It has no bad habits at all that I can pick and with a bit more fine tuning I hope to be able to have some great flying with it.
With the CoG moved back that little bit the Cat was obvously not so nose heavy with the gear down so trim changes were a lot less than the first flight. This was more noticable when I went gear down as after take off I was climbing and put the gear up pretty soon after leaving the ground. I was back to about 3/4 throttle for most of the flight and I helped the nose around the corners with a bit of rudder input making nice co-ordinated turns. If you look at the video at 4.30 minutes you wil see the Cat pitch down. This is when I tried the flaps with the down elevator mix. Even with such a small amount the model wanted to head down in a hurry. I was going to adjust in flight but when I took a quick look at my TX I had some how gone off the screen I needed. So yes, no flaps for landing.
The cowls do have semi open cooling doors on either side and at the bottom as well as about a 3mm (1/8th) gap all the way around the circumference but I will have to open them up a bit more as well as open up the inlets a bit more while still trying to maintain the 1 to 3 ratio in/out.
Yes this air leak. I will need to pull every thing out of the nacelles and investigate. While I am there I will rip out two very tempromental Du-Bro in line fuel fill valves as the 'O' rings seem to have expanded so the fill nipple is very hard to seat when I want to fill and when full and the nipple removed the button does not seal. Others have voices their concerns about using these things and now I am with them. I have used them in the past with no worries but these one were crud from day one. So a dedicated fill line with fuel dot will be used.
I am going to give the nose gear door one more chance. I will investigate the air leak and remove or drill out the air restrictor in the nose tubing to get a more positive action. If this doesnt work then off it will come. At least I know I can land the thing with no front wheel down.
So there is a bit more work to do but less than last time
Cheers,
Brad