I actually think the plane looks better with the VG's!
Pics shown are on grass appearance judging and Tarmac Friday finals day. Jerry I'm not sure what the difference is except the big hand print on the top of my wing! Okay, I would like to share my trials and tribulations leading up to, and this years Nats experience! (my 2nd) Looking back a bit comical!
As most know I tore the outboard panel off the Crossfire two weeks before the Nationals. With help from Bob Hunt and Frank Imbriaco I got the plane back together in one session at Bob's shop. The cost?? Lunch and some great UMAC stories from years gone by! Actually, it was a great day with friends!
First flight of the repaired ship was Sunday morning in Muncie. Result of the first flight was, a slightly high outboard tip. Flap tweak and went up again, wings level! So now I start hitting corners and noticed a quite annoying inward yaw resulting in the plane bouncing on the lines. Trying tip weight changes more flap tweaks, etc. I still couldn't get that yaw out. Monday comes and I'm out bright and early and Joe D. suggested moving the leadouts back a bit. We try that and, YES, the yaw went away but, NO, I cant fly the plane level. It's extremely pitch sensitive like a seesaw in level flight. WTF!!!! Leadouts back forward!! Bob suggest trying a reverse pitch prop. Result was great tension throughout the flight with no yaw at all. Great! Nope! Second flight, I said to myself lets really hit the inside corner of the wingover. result I'm looking at the USAF insignia on the top of my outboard panel and almost losing the airplane. Frustration!! It's 11am now, and I need to get back to the room! I still have to sand and buff that outboard panel before 2:30's processing and appearance judging. 2:00 rolls up quite fast and I'm saying to myself no problem, last year I waited in line for an hour to get my plane processed. 2:30, I'm feeling the plane is acceptable and pack up and head to the field. 2:35 the phone starts ringing, texts flying. Where are you? The line is down to the last couple of planes!! WWhat? WWhy? WWhen?? (yes, I'm dating myself). I had never looked at the Stunthangar thread stating everything was pushed up. Anyway, with a bunch of ball breaking I got processed and earned 17 points which I felt quite happy about. I was so late that my airplane didn't make Jerry's pictures or Sparky's video. This is why Peter posted the airplane later in this thread.
Moving on, I had a wonderful lunch on Tuesday with Bob Hunt, Paul Walker, and Joel Constantino at the 12th.st. I had mentioned to Paul my trim issues and he suggested I move the leadouts back. I told him the aforementioned results and he just looked at me with a very puzzled face as to that's odd! I guess it was later Tuesday while I'm practicing trying to get something going because I'm really flying like @#$%. Paul approaches me with Joe and suggests again move the leadouts back! Nervously, I do and I have this beautifully take off and the plane is absolutely locked in out on the lines. This is great!! I'm going to hit that wingover, my problems are solved! Wait Tom relax, lets do a little control check with a climb and dive. Thank God I did! That beautiful 38 point takeoff wasn't me, the controls were completely bound up and I was lucky to survive the climb and dive. Paul and Joe are yelling just fly it out, just fly it out!!! I land we check the controls and they feel okay but we hear a slight rubbing inside. Session over, frustration in overload!
7am the following morning Paul walks over to me and said," I woke up in the middle of the night with the revelation that your forward leadout is hitting the foam spar." A quick phone call to Bob on Spar to aft leadout location and sure enough, Paul was right! Suggestion was to get in through the tip with a hacksaw blade and cut the spar to gain clearance. I was a bit nervous doing this and was dragging my feet. Finally, with just barely qualifying on Thursday I felt I needed to do something. I know I have no shot at winning Advanced with the way I'm flying at this point. On the way back to my room I stopped at Harbor freight and bought a pack of hacksaw blades. In ten minutes I had the leadouts free and moved them back. Still feeling quite desperate I also put on the Vortex generators to see if that would help as well. I went back out Thursday evening and flew it again with the leadouts back and of course VG's on. It flew great and locked much much better. However, I was still flying like crap. Orestes, Joe, and Will D came by to give me some support and help as they knew my frustration. We tried a little tweaking here and there and I just couldn't fly worth a crap. Joe suggested dinner as I was just spent and frustrated. I did have another issue I was dealing with that I could work around flying a bit softer. The plane would stall in the bottom corner of the triangle and hourglass. At dinner Orestes suggested I needed more flap as well as my friend Jim V via phone call. Thursday night I went to bed completely deflated as this last couple of weeks was not playing out well. Friday morning before my practice flight I took out some elevator, more improvement on those bottom corners! I'm happy to say I flew my best 2 flights of the week in finals. Not good enough in a tough group of flyers but good enough to feel pleased with my performance.
To answer PJ's question I cant say the VG's helped or not because I had so many things going on. I will be doing more testing and trimming in the weeks to come.
In the end, I will say this turned out to be one of the most rewarding and best experiences of my life. A truly great time with great people in the stunt community! The Nats is truly a great experience.
Thanks to all for a great week!!
Tom
Topic: Nats Appearance Judging (Read 12386 times)