Last of the Summer Flying

This is probably the last of the mid week flying sessions. I took the Pico Jet and the two Sunbeam Trainers to Westonzoyland. The weather was a little windy, about 5 mph gusting to around 10 mph, and 95% cloud. Had two good flights with the PJ, and a flight with the 40 powered Sunbeam, and two flights with the 25 powered Sunbeam with the new wing. (Flaperons and slots). This behaves a bit strangely when flaps are deployed, it seems to become a bit unstable. Some more testing and investigating required I think. It got too dark to fly by 19:15hrs., but there was a beautiful sunset, shining scarlet through a break in the cloud. Dam! I forgot the camera.

Sunday 21st September. A bad omen?

Arrived at the airfield at around 10:45, opened the tailgate of my car and my bottle of fizzy pop fell out onto the tarmac and squirted some of its contents everywhere. Was this a sign of things to come? Anyway, got unloaded and took the car to the car park, and walked back to the pits and began assembling the aircraft. First up was the yellow Sunbeam after tuning the engine carburettor after its ultrasonic clean. Once tuned it seemed to be a bit more settled, but was still a bit below par on power. I would have expected 12,500 rpm on a 12 x 7 prop out of this Super Tigre 40, but it was struggling to get 11,000. The flight turned out OK though. The Sunbeam in the picture above has a new wing equipped with slots and flaperons, untested at this time.

Next up, the Pico Jet. I am amazed at the power of this little toy, and the flight length is incredibly long with the 2200mah li-po battery. This is where I discovered I had a problem with the new charger not charging correctly. I seemed to charge cells 2 and 3 OK but didn't charge cell 1 at all. This was confirmed when I tested the battery with a digital multi meter, in fact I found also that cells 2 and 3 were not fully charged. I've emailed the vendor.

Then I thought I'd chance the Yak54. First flight was fine, no problems, but on the second flight the canopy and cockpit decided to part company from the fuselage and ended up like a busted bag of flour on the tarmac. Highly annoying as it was a new one I'd just purchased recently, to replace the one which the same thing happened to in Cornwall back in August. Managed to land the aircraft safely, though. That bottle of pop was trying to tell me something after all!

Wednesday 17th September

The day looked dull all day, in fact it rained during the afternoon, but it soon dried up by 16:00hrs. Arrived at the airfield where fellow members Jim, Paul and Bob had already been flying. My first flight was with the yellow Sunbeam with Super Tigre 40. Having some problems with engine surging at full throttle and richening the mixture cured it although after closing the throttle and opening it again, it went so rich it wouldn't be able to take off. More tweaking improved the problem and I managed a flight.

Next up was the Pico Jet, and Jim said he'd join in with his PJ. So we launched together. I was well chuffed when I beat Jim on top speed and duration. These Li-Po batteries are the bees knees, I can fly my PJ for around 20 minutes and the top speed is phenomenal thanks to a 1700kv out runner motor. Towards the end of the flight I encountered seemingly a minor problem, when I accelerate the motor to full revs the plane drops its nose a lot and after I'd landed I found out why. The motor mount had come unglued and was hanging loose. I couldn't believe the PJ was still in one piece. Lucky!

Back to the Sunbeam Trainer and a bit more tweaking, and some more flying. Its still not right so I'm going to dismantle the carburettor and place it in an ultrasonic bath with some ethanol. Watch this space...

CAP 21 Crash!

Sunday 31st August.
Flying at Westonzoyland as usual, and had a bit of an accident with the CAP 21. The intention was to half roll to inverted, then half loop, but it got as far as the half roll, and kept on rolling, throttle wide open, vertically into the bean field. Oh! sh!t. Walked over to the spot and with the aid of a pair of walkie talkies and a fellow club member who spotted the point of impact. I walked straight to it, and sure enough it was in bits. I had to dig the engine out of the ground, and after further examination, I discovered it was fine, not a mark on it. Its rare you find anything wrong which could indicate a fault in these cases and this was no exception. The radio was working perfectly. I sent off all the radio gear to Horizon and they very quickly found a fault in the transmitter. The RF output was low, so they changed the RF board. Now I find I have 60+ paces of range compared with 32 previously. But I'm not going to take any chances, so I'll only fly aircraft I can afford to lose for the time being.

Sat 13th September, Westonzoyland.

Fine weather today, sunshine and light winds from the WNW. Flew the Pico Jet now fitted with uprated out runner motor, ESC and li-po. Superb performance, even vertical. In the IC section, I flew the Sunbeam trainer with a Super Tigre 40 engine swinging a 9x6 APC prop. Yes, I know its a bit small, and I've ordered a 10x6 and a 10x7 Master Airscrew. Should be here in time for my four day weekend. The engine is about 20 years old and never been used, so its "running in" rich settings for the time being. One thing I noticed is how noisy it is. I guess it was made before the surge to reduce engine noise.