Busy day at the clubhouse today (a bank holiday), with most of the time
spent repairing the lawnmower. When done, the lazy buggers designated
*me* as the one to drive off and get the can filled with gas. So by the
time I returned, it was late and the light was failing. Still, I firmly intended to have a flight with the Synapse! Setup is pretty simple: turn
on the radio, plug in the battery and put the canopy in place. Here she
is ready to go!
http://tinyurl.com/2u3psr
Since the last flight, I had reset the controls, adding some reflex to compensate for the tendancy to dive into the grouns (never a good thing
for an aeroplane) and to counter the urge to turn left. I launched her at full power with the elevator at high rates and the ailerons at low rates,
and she went away like lightning! In no time, I'm looking at this:
http://tinyurl.com/2mtqco
In actual fact, she went *much* further out than that, and she was a devil
to see in the failing light. Also, she was hotter'n'hell on the controls.
I need to reduce the throws a bit, or possibly try exponential. In fact,
I'll tru expo first. There was also still a little tendancy to put the
nose downward and I did the entire flight keeping the nose out of the dirt
by maintaining a steady back-pressure on the stick with my thumb. So the controls were much better set than the first flight, but still not 100% as yet.
She went like a rocket, and was a real handful, no kidding. Small, fast,
very twitchy and easily over-controlled, and failing light -- time to
think of calling it quits.
I'd set the timer to operate in count-UP mode and to trigger at 15%
throttle. I know I won't be flying at 15% so if I open the throttle, the clock counts. If I cut the throttle and glide the clock stops, but that's
OK because I'm not depleting the battery with sero throttle, so I don't
need to take that gliding time into consideration. With the light fading
http://tinyurl.com/373kuk
I reduced throttle and approached a patch of tall grass, but this model doesn't like to fly slowly. Control became *extremely* iffy at low speed,
and I had to throttle up and fly it right down to the grass under power.
No gliding in for this baby! Put her down and chopped the throttle to
stop the clock, and the timer read 4:59. Now there was still quite a bit
of life left in the battery pack, because I throttled up again as I walked back with the model in my hand, and the fan was still able to howl like a banshee. And that's the 910mAh battery pack in there. She'll also carry
the 1250mAh pack, but that additional weight moves the CoG aft, which increases instability. I'm not inclined to do that until she is trimmed
out to my liking.
We have another bank holiday on Monday, so I'll probably get at least one
more chance to fly her this weekend. However, it was very windy today
(which didn't help with the flying) and it is possible that we'll be all
Zagis and things at the cliff. I want one of these:
http://www.wowings.com/wowings_display_image.asp?id=56
to replace my ancient Zagi and the base price isn't too bad, but the $45 shipping (from Australia) is a bit of a killer!
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Playing: "Harmonium" by "Rogue Wave" from the "Asleep At Heaven's Gate" album.
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þ Synchronet þ The ANJO BBS: Made of wood and glue, but mostly glue!