WOW GUYS,,,, FLIGHTS 3 & 4 WERE GREAT!!!!!!!!!
[8D]
Through the week I pulled the Cat right down (almost) and fixed what I thought needed doing to get a more reliable and better functioning model.
I ordered my required spares from Discount Hobbies here in Western Australia
http://www.discounthobbies.com.au/catalog/ and two days later had them in hand.
First off was to remove those pesky fuel valves and replace them with fuel dots made by the Ming Yang Model CO.,LTD.
I laminated a couple of pieces of styrene sheet and glued it to the fuselage over the existing hole for the valve. I had the tanks right out to replumb them and pressure test them so they were soon back in place. While the right tank was out I made a new throttle pushrod and made it so I have a clevis on the actual carby arm so I have got some adjustment external to the hidden in cowl servo. I had to do this as I am using a 'Y' lead for throttle forcing myself to set the two engines up mechanically as close as possible. I was then able to tweek the low end carby position on the right engine to match that of the left after the Cat was back together. Cool. That done it was time to remove the retracts and pressure test them. (Dunk them in a bucket of water
) This actually showed that none of the cylinders were leaking so I looked a bit more closely at the air hose near the valve and tank as decided to replace the kit supplied clear tubing with Robart tubing. I did this after quite easily pulling a kit supplied tube off one of the cylinders and thought "this is not right" Now I have no air leak!!!!!!![sm=thumbs_up.gif] In an attempt to get the gear a bit more positive in action I drilled out the air restrictors with a 1/32nd drill. Another thing I found was that the main pivot pin in the gear legs was loose and was working it way out of the units!!!!!!![X(][:@] This was easily fixed by using a center punch and dimpling the pin in three positions and then tapping it home into the brass bush where I hope it will stay.
While at it all I replaced the throttle servo leads with longer ones so I can get the nacelle further away from the wing during maintenance and I replaced the gear mounting screws with bolts and blind nuts.
The last thing to do was fit my new 14x6 Master Airscrew props after balancing. With these I got 10400RPM richened to 10050 or so for run-in.
The first flight was really another test flight (arn't they all) nice take off and gear tucked away nicely the Cat needed a couple of clicks down and two right and it was tracking well. One thing I have found through the flights is that need to retrim through different phases,, just like a real one ay? The engines were running sweet and I wasn't even shaking so I went for a barrel roll and no worries there!! There's one sign off.
After some fun it was time to try the flaps and at the first stage down (with gear down and reduced air speed) I found there was no ballooning or diving. Great, that is dialed. At full flap the Cat wanted to nose high a bit so I needed to adjust that when on the ground. Time for a landing and another greaser it was. Awesome.
Flight two was started with some flap set for takeoff and man what a difference that made. It reduced the run by about a quarter and it still climbed out with authority and as stable as. Gear up flaps up and fun time with some high speed passes but mostly 3/4 throttle to continue running the engines in and get that beautiful harmonics and scale speed at height. Flaps were selected for landing and a nice high idle saw a nice decent profile and lovely nose high touchdown. Cool,,, two great flight for the day and still in one piece.
More later guys, cheers,
Brad