Thursday the 2nd June was a golden day, I judge my flying days with colours, a grey or black day well that speaks for itself, a Blue day is a normal nothing went wrong sort of a day , a silver day is one where everything you did was good, you know the sort of thing when you grab someones tranny because they have cocked it up and you safely get their model back on the ground for them and a Gold day of which there are too few is a great day, that’s the day when that pig of a model which crashed every time you tried to fly it , rose majestically from the ground and then impressed the socks of you and everyone else, when the landing was so silky smooth, you would swear blind someone else was doing the flying !! Her in doors started the good day feelings off by providing me a picnic bag with some favourite goodies, The man upstairs provided a beautiful rich blue sky 32ºC, slight 5 KPH wind straight down the centre of the runway what could be better !!. I loaded up my Albatross and Ryan 120 and headed out to the field, even the traffic was flowing nicely. Normally I would fire up the Albatross and air my fingers out before progressing on to the more technical (read tricky bugger) model. This time I thought I would leap straight in with the Ryan. My last outing had not been so good and I had damaged the trouser leg style wheel pants. I normally find take off to be little skittish with the Ryan so I was somewhat surprised when the aircraft gracefully lifted its tail, balanced on the main landing gear and tracked straight down the centre of the runway the climb out was silky smooth so I started a gentle climbing right hand turn and settled into the pattern. I can only imagine that by removing the wheel pants had cleaned the model up (aerodynamically). I threw a couple of rolls and loops and it all came together nicely. Settling the model into the circuit and throttling back to just above ¼ throttle and bit of manoeuvring had her lined up on the centre of the runway. Usually I manage to get her down nicely then somehow end up dragging a wing tip down the asphalt until she has bled of enough speed to drop back onto her wheels. This time however I managed to float her in and get a spot on three point landing a slight bounce and she was home. I had a further 4 flights with the Ryan and 5 with the Albatross all in all a Golden day, I had the field and sky to myself, pity no one was there to see me flying so well ! Friday the 3rd of June on the other
hand was complete crap! Once again out at the flying site and bets were placed, will it get to the end of the runway? will it get off the ground?, if it does get off the ground, how long will it stay in the air. Pre- flight checks done we wound up the rubber band and pointed it into the wind. The Taylor craft tracked straight and I became optimistic of a result, however we were suddenly off too the left and heading directly for a quantity of rubble at the side of the runway. Shutting off the motor was not going to resolve this, so full throttle and a slight tap on the up stick; this is where it all went south. CLASSIC to little speed, to great angle of attack = Bloody big stall. The resulting impact with terra firma did not sound good, half the fuselage went one way and the engine bay and front of the cabin zoomed off elsewhere. As you can see below quite a mess.
But all is not lost!! I had a couple of bottles of 30 min epoxy and a bit of lite ply so 4 hours later she was back together, The 120 was out and the Zenoah 28cc back in. Boy was I pissed with this aircraft. Having tried everything I thought I would try the shit or bust approach. Next day balance was checked and all seemed in order. Once again back at the end of the runway engine happily burbling away. The usual crowd of well wishers (piss takers) showed up to watch me plough the runway again. A slow advance of the throttle and we were away, ( having spoken to Ted at Helga, he told me to leave the elevator alone) so I did, and bugger me the tail came up I corrected a slight drift to the left on the rudder and got up to about ¾ throttle, LIFT OFF!!!!.. Up to full throttle and a wonderfully flat smooth climb out, a click of up elevator and a click of right aileron and we had hands off flight!! I flew about 10 circuits and threw in a couple of landing runs to get the feel for her; Ailerons were a bit slow (I will review the expo settings) Climbing up to about 3 mistakes worth of height I threw in a loop BRILLIANT,,,,,, then a bloody wheel came off !! Must have missed it, I don’t know how because I am an over cautious bugger when it comes to signing off a model. But now I really had a dilemma, I brought the model in slow throttling back until I had the model sitting almost on the end of the runway , with very little forward speed I managed to land on one wheel and kept the “bare axle “ up for about 6 feet before it dumped into the ground . The expected damage was actually quite light; it ripped the wood panel with the undercarriage out and snapped the spark plug off. Not to worry I was so happy the damn thing flew, that within 15mins of being home all the repairs had been done and we were ready to fly once more. Back to the flying field balance checked, range checked, engine checked and we were off again. The climb out was again smooth; I was beginning, to get confident with this. Up to a nice safe altitude, one click of down elevator and one click of right aileron and we were flying straight and true. Loops rolls and bumpsy daisy (fingers slipped) and all was going SUPER!! Right until the moment the engine went to sleep OH CRAP, all that sky and no way of staying up there. Tried to run down wind to get some speed up turned right only using rudder (trying to keep wings level and maintain some lift). This sounds really professional now I’m reading it !!
I have now enrolled the services of Sherlock Holmes to take on the case of the amazing shrinking fuselage. Damage this time was a bit more comprehensive (please read no front end). I will have a go at a rebuild, but that is going to take a lot of work once I have a result I will let you know. It’s a bit hard to see on the photo but the wing has gone in 3 places as well - BUGGER !!!! Any way the summer hols arrived and I got down to a bit of flying. Our site is about 20 mins drive away but with the sun and the hols the tourist traffic raised that to upwards of 1 ½ hours,. I discovered that the Portuguese are a people of habit if I left home at 8.00 am I missed all the traffic ! they all seem to leave their homes at 8.30. It just means I have to stay at the flying site longer to miss the traffic WHAT A SHAME!!. I had three weeks of vacation and every day was a flying day. Conditions start to go bad about 1.30-2-pm when the wind gets up and it can be very strong, hence the early bird tactics. |
