Generosity of Control Line Pilots

[Chris_Rud]

This year was a strange one for me in regards to my preparation for the NATs. I new that at some point in late March or early April my wife and I would be having our second baby girl. Yay! But no time for Airplanes. So to get rid of the temptation I had a plan. Get my newly refinished plane to Bill Werwage so he could trim it out for me and then in May I would be able to get it and still have two months to prepare for the NATs. I got the plane to Bill but because of the water they got in the spring it never left the ground in the two months he had it.

I went and got the plane back and knew there was a problem after about 20 flights. The plane pulled really hard on the up line... Like really Hard! And on top of that the plane didn't turn insides nearly as well as outsides. I tried a bunch of things. Giving it more elevator changing the handle bias. Picture attached. The week before the NATs I flew out to Bill's and we worked on it but in the 4 hours of flying we couldn't find the issue. After 200 flights I had given up on my chances for a good run at the NATs and was just going to go have fun with people and do the best I could with my flawed airplane.

Well my handle raised a lot of comments. Mostly laughs... David Fitzgerald who was coaching/rooming together sent at least 10 emails to fellow flyers on the west coast causing plenty of laughs. A little embarrassing but all in good fun.

Monday night I was practicing and I nearly crashed when my wrist was so tired because of the excessive tension on the up-line. David decided that it needed to be fixed. That evening Bob McDonald, David and I went and bought a protractor and started trying to diagnose the problem. We spent an hour taking it apart and looking at everything. Nothing seemed to obviously wrong... Kept looking. Used the protractor and measured the controls... Still nothing obvious. Well now we are stuck... In walks Paul Walker. He looks at it for 30-40 minutes. Still nothing... My hopes are dashing... then he starts looking at the stab. And finally we see something obviously wrong. A lot of positive incidence. He asks for the plans which I have on my computer. Go to find my computer...Can't find it. I realize that I left it at the 180 building. Now I'm panicking about that... they are closed so I will need to call in the morning. Block that issue out of my mind. We then added a 1/16" shim to the stab. Go to sleep.

The next morning we try it. I can't tell you how much better it flew. It was like an entirely new airplane. AMAZING! The downside to fixing your airplane is that you now need to unlearn all your bad habits you have developed from compensating for a flawed trim issue. So I set out and did a bunch of short tank flights and got the handle perfect. Which turned out to be no bias and it now pulled evenly. And most importantly the plane was easy to fly. And after about 20 flights and some FANTASTIC coaching from Dave my first flight in qualify was only 3 points behind David! I was ecstatic. And it didn't stop there. A few times Paul walked over and gave other trim suggestions. All which turned out to make the plane even better. In the end I was able to qualify for the top 5 and that was a blast.

I wanted to take the time to THANK Paul Walker, Bob McDonald and David Fitzgerald for all their help this year. I learned a ton and had a blast. The biggest take away was never settle for a trim issue. Keep working at it and ask for help. Flying a plane that is in trim makes it fun and easy to fly.

[Shug Emery]

That there warms my old heart a bit.
Those guys are top fliers for a reason. Secure enough to help you out and raise the whole hobby up.
Nicely done Chris!
Shug

[Tim Wescott]

Paul & Dave are quick, too -- at the NW Regionals we had a newbie who was flying a plane that was so badly warped it was scary to watch -- it was probably rolled in ten degrees on the insides.

I spotted the problem and was sauntering over to help when Dave nipped in ahead of me and started showing the guy the warp, why the warp, how to get rid of the warp, etc., while Paul went and scared up a heat gun from somewhere so that they could deal with the warp.  They got him all set for the next day (this was Saturday), and ready with a much better plane, and the knowledge of how to deal with it in the future.

It's one of the reasons I like this sport.

[Tom Luciano]

What a great and memorable story! Congrats Chris, and a great example of outstanding sportsmanship.  It's what makes stunt great!
Thanks for sharing
Best,
Tom

[john e. holliday]

Yes the top guys are great.  I was flying intermediate with Fanchers Doctor design.   Had finished second round when Dave F. and Ted F. came over to look at the plane.   First words out of Dave's mouth was to fix a broken spar.   Sure glad I didn't have another flight to do.

[FLOYD CARTER]

One seldom finds that level of help at the R/C field.

[Brent Williams]

Cool story Chris!  That story is a strong testament confirming that the control line community is pretty close knit, encouraging and friendly.

I too have been very fortunate to be on the receiving end of great generosity from the local stunt and the broader stunthanger control line community.  Gordan Delaney in particular has been very generous with his friendship, time and resources as I have returned to the hobby.  I have been given several planes, lines, handles, building advice, trimming advice, coaching, friendship, encouragement, and plenty of good constructive criticism.  John Miller, Roger Kramar, Bart Klapinski, Jim Rhoades, Burton Brokaw, and Pete Peterson have also been very instrumental in influencing my airplane world.  My Dad and my brother, Curtis Williams have been ever present as well.

For those who do not have such quality mentors in your locale, Stunthanger is a wonderful resource for help as well.  There aren't that many hobbies where you have such access to advice from National and World champions.

[Fred Cronenwett]

CL scale has the same problem with positive incidence on the elevator, I always set my wing to +2 degrees, the motor and elevator at zero degrees and they trim out very nicely. We converted a RC scale model that had positive incidence in the tail, I took the tail to zero and it flew much better. But we not trying to do aerobatics.

Fred