Because of weather, I finally maidened my rafale today. During the first take-off the left tire left its rim. The gear did not retract properly although it was working on the ground. I suspect the airflow is not helping gears retracting toward the front of the plane. Finally, the small pin that holds the right leg got loose and I lost the right leg on landing....<div>
</div><div>The first landing was slow and high alpha. Despite one missing tire and one missing leg, the plane only suffered some scratches on the right missile rail. The leg was reattached immediately with a 4/40 bolt and I have ca'd the tire back on. I flew another 3 times. Here are my observation:</div><div>
</div><div>- I set my CG at 138mm and it feels pretty good to me.</div><div>- With that CG I used the low rate on aileron (as recommended in the manual) but high rate on elevator.</div><div>- I got the jump in the sky take-off, but that wasn't that bad. I'm experimenting with giving the canard about 15 degree of incidence for the takeoff mode. The plane flies high-alpha pretty well like this.</div><div>- I'm using an UP-2 valve and I could not get the gear to retract properly once. The timing is different in the air and further, the valve just loses air during actuation. I had a similar problem with an UP-3 valve in another plane and plan to replace it with a Dreamworks <font face="Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">5 function electronic multi valve. It appears that up valves (UP-2 / UP-3) don't handle setups with more than 3 doors. This is my experience so far.</font></div><div><font face="Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">- During the 4th flight, I flew with the big wing tanks. They add quite a bit of drag but the plane looks awesome with them</font></div><div><font face="Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">- With the stock tanks and a JetCat 120, plan on a 5pm flight. I do 6mn but I have a 4th safety tank.</font></div><div><font face="Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">
</font></div><div><font face="Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">Overall, this is a great jet. I can't wait to fly it again with a working gear valve / door sequencing.</font></div><div><font face="Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">
</font></div><div><font face="Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">Arnaud</font></div><div><font face="Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">
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