Here are some photos of the build of the 526 Twin Ringmaster.

Battery mounting plates were needed and then it was coming together.

This is my story and I'm sticking to it!!!!
 
For the last two months I have been trying to get together with Jim Swearingen and Jerry Worden to fly trim flights for my electric twin. I got tired of these guys never being able to get together to fly with me and when they canceled out the flying session scheduled for yesterday evening I gave up!!
I spent yesterday evening building a stooge for the twin. The problem with the twin was how to hold it since it has tricycle landing gear!! I remembered seeing someone had made a stooge with two upright poles that the held back the front of the elevator on either side of the fuselage so that seemed to be the way to go for the twin. I found some PVC water pipe that seemed about right plus a couple of elbows (as you may know I NEVER throw anything away, CAUSE I might NEED it some day).

Well to make a long story short a stooge was born and this morning around 11:00 AM I took the twin out to a local cricket field figuring I could use the Astroturf down the center of the field (where the wickets go) for a runway. Taking off down the length of the Astroturf would make me have to climb over a darn berm on the north side of the field and I was too lazy to go back to get the hard board sheets (4x8 sheet cut into 4 2x4 pieces) that I use for a runway, so I set up to take off across the cricket field Astroturf. I reset the rpm for the motors up to around 10,000 and moved the battery back to make it less nose heavy, set the timer for 2 minutes and pushed the start button.

My plan was to get a lap speed by timing ten laps and I also set my talking timer to 2 minutes so it could tell me when time was running out. The motors spun up and I pulled the stooge line. It didn't quite make it off on the ten feet or so of the Astroturf but it was almost airborne and I did not mow any grass to speak of. In the throws of WHEE we are flying the twin I forgot to start the talking timer so I did not know how the time was going! Anyway, I eagerly started my stopwatch to get the lap count. About then I remembered the talking timer and decided better late than never so activated it (knowing that I would have time left on it when the motors stopped). Great, now I remembered I was supposed to be counting laps and I had no idea of where we were in that regard! One thing I did know, she was pulling like a draft horse and seemed to be still nose heavy because I need to keep some up on the handle to stay level. I fooled around and got the stop watch reset and started again and after about six or seven laps the motors did their rpm blip to signal 5 to 6 seconds before shutdown! That warning blip worked really well and I made a nice (for me great) rolling landing - love those tricycle gear. Naturally I forgot to stop the stopwatch so I have no idea of the lap speed. I was on 60 foot lines and I know she needs longer lines.

With the new stooge, I can sneak over to a softball diamond at Fairview Park (two blocks from my house) and put in some early morning flights. Right now I'm going to pour a big glass of wine and celebrate the start of trimming the 526 Ringmaster Twin!!!     

Very innovative John.  See you next month at Burlington.

Well a bit of an update on the motor cut out described above. The nacelle is now back in place and I have removed the battery mounting plates to check the wiring. Turns out the BEC wires (also throttle circuit) were mashed between the rear battery mounting plate and a spruce cross member with blind nuts used the screws that secure the mounting plate. I smoothed out the wires and now both ECSs accepted programming. I am speculating that possibly the BEC circuit was compromised and power to the timer became interrupted which would cause the motors to stop. That points to the BEC cable of the ESC that is supplying the voltage to the timer.

At this point I am going to remove the ESCs and test for continuity between the BEC plugs and the ESCs. What is still a mystery to me is that on the first flight attempt the motors gradually lost RPM and then stopped where as on the second attempt the RPM was fine until a sudden stop. I am worried that there may be two things going on here.

I will do more troubleshooting over the weekend.