Flew the Extra for the first time this past Sunday 3/7/10.

I ended up swapping out the glow OS 160 for the gas ST 3250. Also went with a much smaller fuel tank (16oz) and moved the tank rearward to just above the wing tube.

The manual I found online listed the CG as 130mm. Even with the dual 5-cell 1600mah batteries strapped to the engine mount it was just a hair tail heavy (probably about 135-140mm), but I decided to go with it.

I also had to swap out the 9303 that was on the rudder, it oscilatted pretty badly when returning to center. Used a Hitec 645MG I had lying around.

I put two flights on the plane. First flight was just about a 5 minute flight to get it up and trimmed. I required a lot of down elevator trim, the plane wanted to climb a lot. Once trimmed, it held inverted flight well so I think the CG is pretty good where it is. More on the excessive trim in a minute.

Plane flies great with the ST3250 gasser. Plenty of power. I actually forgot to try to put it in a hover, was too busy just flying around, but massive loops and looooong uplines were no problem. Plane cruises around at about 33 to 40% throttle nicely. Full throttle is pretty fast with the 18X8.

Second flight was a bit longer at about 9 minutes. Again, no suprises, flies very well.

Plane does not want to land, just keeps floating. I almost had an incident when landing after the first flight, I killed the engine intentionally on final just before I flared, however it was gusty and the plane balooned back up at just above stall speed. I shoved the nose down and was able to save it, just came down a little rough but no damage whatsoever.

Second flight I practiced landings, did about 15 or 20 touch and go's and aborted landings.

When I got home I put my incidence meter on the wings and tail. The wings were both even with each other, as were the tail feathers, however the wings were set 2 full degrees off from the tail. This explained the excessive down trim I needed in flight.

I also found that the firewall actually broke loose from it's tri stock and was simply held in place by the tabs on the side of the engine box. Major disaster averted here somehow. I am rebuilding it, looks like whoever built it originally only used 2 pieces of tri stock and not much epoxy. The OS160 was also soft mounted, as opposed to the 3250 that's in there now hard mounted on aluminum beams.

Overall I was very pleased with the plane, and once I get the wings set correctly (simple mod, they just use locating dowels) and the firewall rebuilt I think this will be a very nice plane for a long time to come, unless of course I end up doing something stupid with it.