Had my maiden flight with a new DA 50 and my new WH Edge today. The guys at the field loved the colors and the look of the plane and they also liked the wing bags my wife made. Not too many guys fly gas out here so a gasser always draws everybodies eyes. Everything went great. The take off was great and the flight was solid. I had a few clicks of right aileron and a couple on the elevator. Even with a good breeze the plane tracked good. I didn't do anything wild today as I want to get a few flights on the engine and get more familar with the plane first. I had two flights and both times the landings were very predicable. On take off it looks sweet when the tail wheel comes up and rolls on the landing gear before taking off. The plane looks good in the air. I tuned the engine using all the threads I had read on the gas engine forum. What ever they taught me must have worked because going vertical or flying upside down the engine ran strong and never had any signs of quiting. It does burble a little around half throttle but that is all. The engine also fires up with about 8 or 10 flips when cold with choke and 2 when warm. I have JR 8611a's all the way around with batteries from No Nonsense and a 6 volt regulater on the failsafe switch. I got chased off the field by rain clouds buy can't wait to get it up again. Thanks to Tom at Wild Hare. Didn't take any pics today. Bill

Good to hear the maiden went well Bill. I got a special with a DA50. A few months ago.I'm still in heaven.I hope you grow to love yours as I have mine. I'm currently shooping for my NEXT hair.
Shaun

Thanks for your reply. Yes I can hardly wait for the weather to clear so I can get the Edge up again. I thought the way the plane tracked that it won't take much for it to become my favorite. I sort of plan on taking 2 planes to the field every day. Number 1 the "Edge" and number 2 "Whatever". I made a mistake on my last post also. The batteries are "No Bs Batteries" not "No Nonsense Batteries". Bill

I just started flying my WH Edge with a Taurus 3.2 lately too. I have about 3 gallons through mine and I like the set-up more every time I fly it. I got mine down to 16 pounds 1 ounce. I used TBM Li-Ions carbon fiber wing tube, Kavaan wheels, no spinner and no pants. Sweet plane for sure!!

Marzo - How do you like your Kavaan Wheels? Are they the better wheels and what size are they. I had mentioned the cheap Kavaans when building my plane and someone said not to go that route. I have a carbon fiber wing tube and landing gear although I am using the aluminum landing gear for now. I know some of the guys had problems with the CF. Mine is from TBM. Your plane is much lighter than mine. I have a 3200 mah 5 cell on a 6 volt regulator for the reciever and a 4 cell 1900 on the ignition. Both are Nickel Metal. The JR 8611a's also add a little weight and I am flying a 20oz tank. After 10 minute flights I had just slightly less than half a tank left. I'm sure I could lose some weight but for right now I am mainly interested in flying and enjoying. Bill

I like them. They're the 4" spendier ones with the air valves. I fly off a very rough grass field so I leave the air pressure pretty low. I had the cheaper set, but I broke one on a bad landing. The chrome set seems to be pretty nice. I also like the chrome finish because I don't use the wheel pants.

I'm using one li-ion for the plane, and one for the ignition.
I also use the stock L. gear.

Also, my plane will be about 11 ounces lighter right off the bat. (no wheel pants or spinner)

RCBILL: I would change to a 16 oz tank and save yourself about 0.2 lbs of weight - not much but you can still probably fly 20-25 minutes on 16 ozs!! Remember that the gas/oil mix weighs about 6.3 lbs per gallon. A 32 oz full tank weighs about 1.57 lbs.

Bobby

Bobby, I will probably change to a 16 oz tank like you suggest. I just wanted to see first how much fuel I was going to burn in a 12 to 15 minute flight and wanted to go the safe route. I usually fly about 10 minutes and then want to land. Even with a 10 minute flight I noticed I had almost 1/2 left even with the engine running a little rich. My plane will probably go under a weight reduction plan in several areas after a few more flights. I will say after reading all the complementary articles about how well the Edge flies I was more worried about the DA 50 performing equally well. I had to send the engine back to DA before I even had one flight on it due to an intermittent ignition which was driving me nuts. It can sort of drive you up the wall when you are itching to fly the plane and you can't seem to get the engine running right and kills time after time. About the time the engine was running good all of a sudden it would just die. Sometimes it would start right back up and sometimes it wouldn't. I had finally taken the engine out of the plane and made an engine stand for it just so I could test everything. I thought at first I had a fuel problem. Thank goodness once I got the engine back from DA it was like a different engine. It would start very easy and never once has it died on me. I adjusted the carb following the advice that I had read on the gas engine thread. On the maiden flight the engine ran very strong and dependable and so was the plane.... Bill

Hi RCBill,

Please let us know how long you can fy with a 16 oz tank. My setup is close to yours and the tank is a 20 oz one. I usually fill the tank full and then back-crank about 12 turns to withdraw about 1-2 oz from the tank. It is not precise and still has about 1/3 of fuel left. Each flight lasts about 9 minutes.

Thanks --qc

OK. Might not be for a few days yet.....Bill