Jim beat us with his post on the construction progress thread, but we, Gordy and I, have made the trim adjustments, and would like to add our feelings about these two planes.

First, I will post pictures soon as I down load them from the camera. We took several with both sitting on their gear. They both came in very close as far as weight. Gordy's is 52 oz's even, Mine is ~51.5 Oz's. Gordy's would be lighter, if he could have used the same style tank and spinner I did. (RC plastic tank, CF needle nose spinner.)

Gordan's finish job is much nicer than mine, looking up close. I had problems develop with some fillets, and I've repaired them as far as I'm gonna.

I was to go up first, but nerves and such as they were, I forgot to check that the needle valve was open. It wasn't, as I discovered after removing the cowl. Gordan prepped his and soon it was running. A quick setting of the NV, and off to the center of the circle. The plane took to the air like a homesick angel. On the flight, the outboard tip was up slightly, upright, and level, or slightly up, just barely, inverted. The engine was really turning the rpms up as it leaned out a bit after getting airborne.

He did a few climbs, a wingover, a few loops, inverted flight, a couple of squares, (It was easy to tell that he was happy with the plane, by the way he was flying it). The engine flamed out early, I thought he might have short tanked it, but apparently it was starved for fuel, and decided to quit.

Now, it was my turn. The engine was coaxed to life, rpm's were set with the tach, 8200-8500 showing, I went to the handle, and checked the control movement. Satisfied, I signalled for release. The plane rolled out fine, but wanted to stay on the ground. A lot of control input. (Handle spacing to narrow, and biased with too much down.) and it lifted to the air. Something was wrong, it was hard to control. it porpiosed up and down in the classic PIO situation. The controls were sticking, and I had to hold way to much up just to keep it level. It wasn't fun. Eventually the tank ran dry, and it was time to try and land the beast. Up, down, up, down, I barely got it on the ground in one piece.

We started checking things out. The best we could figure was that something was dragging on the leadouts. We worked with it, and thought we had some improvement, so another flight was tried, with the same results, except this time I nearly lost the plane trying to make a landing. "This isn't fun", I said, and decided to roll up the lines. I figured that I would cut into the bottom of the wingtip, below the leadouts, and try and see what was the problem, At Home.

Gordy tweaked the flaps slightly, and was ready to try another flight. He'd commented that this plane flew very good, and wouldn't require a lot of trimming to get it right.

The engine was started, rpm checked, and another very nice take off, Gordy flew out a pattern doings some nice manuevers, along with a few that were a bit rusty. Of course than might be because he hasn't flown a pattern since the 05 Nationals.... The grin on his face said it all, he was pleased.

He reports that the plane tracks very well, both upright, and inverted. Rounds seem to be automatic, just give it control and it'll do rounds with little effort. Squares and hourglass pullouts looked good. He rolled up his lines, and we both went to his house to work on the fixes. It didn't take long for him. He raised the tank 1/8", went to a spigot in the venturii, and a few other minor adjustments.

I, on the other hand, had a bit more work, but it wasn't bad as we thought it might be. I had used a commercial nylon adjustable leadout setup. Since it was installed at an angle, to match the wingtip, I thought the leadouts might be binding when tension was appied. I cut an access hole on the bottom of the wingtip, where I could inspect the guide. That wasn't the problem. I had relieved the holes enough, so that there was free movement at the guide.

Gordy got out a small flexible light that allowed us to better see into the wing from the tip. I noticed the front leadout was at an odd angle compared to the rear one. I finally figured that the front leadout had snagged one of the half ribs, where the slot was was too narrow. The leadout had started sawing a new channel for it to move in.

At first, it was thought that we would have to really open up the bottom of the wing. I wanted to avoid this at almost all costs, as it would have really messed up the whole thing. More inspection, moving the guide back and forth to it's extreme limits, I was struck with the idea that if I could get some sort of long blade in through the leadout slot, something long enough to get to where the problem was, I might be able to clear it. Gordan suggested a hacksaw blade. Perfect, I thought. Sure enough, a bit of sawing and probing, and it was as good as new. Gordy says that it's now smoother than his. Too bad it's dark, and the site will not be usable until next Sunday. Maybe we can find a spot during the week.

CYA, John on Gordy's computer.

John,

Glad to hear the fix was easy. It's always such a pain when the problem isn't readily evident as this. On the PA Merlin that Gordy is running. I found with mine (flying it in the Cobra) that there was a substantial difference between was I thought it was running like on the ground and what it did in the air. I had to set in some 500 rpm slower on the ground that what I thought was right for it to fall into the right rpm in the air. I ran mine around 9000 on the ground with a Thunder Tiger 11.5 x 4.5 Cyclon prop. It sounded like it was deep into the 4 cycle on the ground, but as soon as it was in the air, it would hit that bubble between 2 and 4 and be just about perfect. Great engine even though I don't thing Randy Smith likes the Thunder Tiger prop much. 

HI Randy

I have nothing against the Cyclon props, I have had them here and have sold them for a long time,
 I sell all of the Cyclon props including the  11 1\2 x 4 1\2 which is maybe the best cheap prop for under 4 bucks that you can buy for the motor,
however that being said, it will not perform with the stiff handmade cf props , and there are many that out perform the Cyclon. such as the 11x 4 cf 3 blade  Bolly or  Bill Lee  or  Majik prop  , the 12 x 4  2 blade bolly, The  11 1\4 x 4  and  the wide blade  10.5 x 4 majik prop
Also the pitch is too high for the PA 40 ultralite and the AERO Tiger to be an optimum setup, what you wind up doing is setting the engine richer than it should be on the ground' and the props winds up in the wind a good amount because of that. Also it is a little harder to hit the needle perfect because your having to set it  richer . And it is much more susceptible to charging with higher nitro because of the added pitch , normally the 4 to 4 1\4 range is perfect for these 2 motors
The prop is much more suited to a  Magnum 36 or a 40 FP LA. It is a  great  prop  for  those  engines , I would suspect it would be  pretty good on a  40 VF too.
Also I have tried many times to repitch these and  APC props  and  they  NEVER stay, they always come back up no matter how hot or what method you use.
So for me I would only use this prop if I was not looking for the best that the power train could be.  I would stick to engines that it performed better on, or  High altitudes   or  hot  summer heat, those conditions make the Cyclon prop  perform more to the way it should on the motors I spoke about

By teh way  I really like the new  plane 

Regards

Randy

www.aeroproduct.net

Randy,

I tried several Bolly props on the Novi. The best was a 12x4 2 blade cut down to about 11.25. Still have to set the engine a bit fast on the ground to get a good lap time, but in the wind, I think this would be the setup. The Cyclon 11.5x4.5 seems great in the dead calm with the engine a bit richer. So far anyway. I plan to try some others once I get the thing into a little closer trim.