Mike, thats a nice looking Skyray. I like you colors, trim, and decals. Unlike you I have had a lot of trouble with moving the CG back far enough to get a good controlable LS. When I got the CG back to the front of the spar I found my HS stability to be marginal and could go no further. I think it something to do with just my plane. I remember a while back that Brett Buck stated that for stunt the CG should be behind the spar for best results.
As you say if the air is still I can do about anything with my plane but if there is a little breeze (contest) I cannot keep the nose up more than around 40 degrees in the down wind portion of the flight. Up wind it is OK, so it requires changing control inputs constantly. I think by adding 3/4" to the width of the elevator I will have more control during the LS portion of the event and may even gain more control in the HS portion of the event.
In the pictures of your plane I see the battery is out of the wing a little bit. Is that its flying position? If that is the flying position it would seem that you would have a tail heavy problem? Could you comment on this. Again its a nice looking plane and I wish now that I had stuck to a carrier theme with the finish on mine. eric
Thanks for the compliments - this is the 2nd one (after my mid-air explosion at Sig last year) in pretty much the same color scheme - to tell the truth, I just didn't feel like another blue airplane.
As for the CG - this one has a tail-weight "box" in it but right now it's empty. The actual CG is kind of fluid anyway on this one, as I intend to try the AXI on it but that is two ounces lighter than the Scorpion that is on it in the pix, and I'm just afraid it will be too tail heavy with the AXI. The first one (last year) was very similar to this one, but I had to add weight to the tail (quite a bit of weight, actually) until it just started to hunt at high speed. Then it too flew very well in the calm. I didn't really get to fly it much before the fatal flight, and this current plane was flown once last fall and then put away until yesterday. I also have a tip weight box, and much of the ability to fly slow is getting the right amount of tip weight, as I'm sure you are aware. And mine is the opposite of yours, as to where I have to work at keeping the nose up - mine balloons a bit going upwind and then as I go around cross-wind (on the upwind side) the nose drops or tends to drop - goosing the throttle a bit seems to help pull it back up again. Yesterday, I was playing with "pusher" props, and that may have had an effect that made it possible to keep from having the upwind portion blow in on me. If so, I hope I can find one that doesn't cost too much high speed. I've only been able to get a couple of APC sport 11-7 and 10-8 and Zinger 11-8 and 10-7 woods. I'm guessing that best high speed and acceptable low speed will come from something like the APC 11-10e or 10-10e, neither of which is available as a pusher. My biggest issue is just rusty pilot syndrome, anyway. Flying it more - even if flying it badly - is more important that anything else right now.
Ahh - the batteries. The picture shows it with a 5-cell A123 pack. I've also got a 4-cell A123 to try and some 4-cell Lipo's (but only 2200 mah). The final battery choice is, like everything else on this plane, not yet made. I'm leaning toward the 5-cell A123, IF I can get a complete flight from a 5s1p.
If I have to go to Lipos to get the flight time, it will probably be a 4-cell ~3000mah, but I'm betting that would cost some high speed. At any rate, the 5-cell is a "hump-pack", at present and with that in the wing and no added tip weight, the plane seems to fly very well (A123's are about 70 grams per cell, so a 5 cell pack comes in at about 13 1/2 oz.). The 5th cell sticks out of the hole at present. If I decide to stick with this, I'll flatten the pack out and open up the hatch cover another rib bay. Unless I decide I don't care about the hump pack sticking out of the wing - in that case I won't change anything, and let it stick out.
I did get lucky - for one of the few times in my life - and won a kit in this boards monthly drawing last month. As luck would have it, the kit for that month was the Brodak (Calkins) Guardian. I've looked at the plans and note that the ribs are VERY thick - just the place to hide a lot of LiPos. So, maybe I'll have a different plane for the Axi before the end of the year.
Mike