What a fabulous weekend!! I called Joe Gilbert Wednesday to ask him what time they were getting to the field Friday. Long story short, I was (rather easily) convinced to come up on Thursday for an extra day of flying. I’m glad I did!
My classic airplane is a United that I had been fighting for the last two years since to get into a half decent state of trim. With the help of Joe and John Blanchard, along with about 15 flights on Thursday, we twisted almost every portion of that airplane and finally got it into a reasonably fun airplane to fly. The United is 6 or 7 years old at this point, and it had never flown this well. Through many episodes of checking every control surface, we found warps in the wing, fuselage, stab, elevators, and flaps!! It’s no wonder I had been fighting it for so long...oh and I somehow had engine inset as well to add insult to injury. A couple tank adjustments, prop changes, leadouts, tip weight, removing the hinge line tape to the inboard wing, and pouring 20% nitro into the tank helped! To quote Joe, that PA 40UL was fat, dumb and happy!
Friday came along and so did the wind. We trimmed the United further, adding two more pairs of vortex generators to what I already had on helped it further. We found another warp in an elevator that we took out, and adjusted the elevators/flaps for equal tracking inverted and upright.
Saturday was just as windy if not more so. Armed with a freshly trimmed, warp free United, it flew through the wind without much trouble and I was able to take first in N30! Huge thanks to Joe and John for helping me get this plane flying right, I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you guys! Saturday night I flew Dracula one time and remembered what a modern airplane is capable of!
Sunday was exciting! The wind that had been here since Friday shifted about 30 degrees to the East and came over the line of trees separating the advanced and expert circles. Don Cranfill called an audible after a practice flight with his PA airplane and seeing it roll 90 degrees in his wingover, and flew his classic plane instead. I thought about doing the same but elected to stick with Dracula. Under calm conditions, I would’ve opted for 7.5% nitro instead of 10 for the PA 75... I chose to put a full 10% in, add a little more fuel, richen the needle 1/8 turn and create huge amounts of power to cut through the turbulence and wind. The motor was fat, dumb and happy flying in a strong 4 cycle, and going on and off the pipe in that 4 cycle 90% of the flight. Even though I saw parts of the airplane I would rather not see again, Dracula never lost line tension, and always had tons of drive through the far less than ideal air. Landed safely and watched the rest of the flying. Everyone did a great job cutting through the wind and getting their airplanes down in one piece! It was fun to watch. When all was said and done, Dracula finally got its first win in expert after two years of flying
The best part of the whole weekend was being able to see everyone. The jokes, stories and tips we all share make the contest always worth going to. Thanks to all the judges, tabulators, Russell for running the contest, Colleen and Shiela Cranfill for the fantastic lunch! Can’t wait for next year!!
Topic: Tulsa OK (Read 2458 times)