5th flying day 3-13-04
This wasn't a good flying day. I had many bad approaches. My plane didn't look like it was flying straight. I broke a prop. I had one wingtip strike the ground while performing a touch-and-go. I almost returned my plane to a pile of balsa when I couldn't tell which direction it was going while low to the ground. It was banked one direction, and I thought it was heading a different direction than what it actually was going, so when I tried to roll the wings level, I increased the bank. It took a few seconds before I stopped being confused and getting my thumbs going in the right directions. I finally recoved from a short, banked dive about 5 feet above the ground.
I had a lot more details written, but I accidently pushed some key on my keyboard, and it selected all the text and deleted it before I could even blink.

4th. flying day SOLO!
Yesterday, 3-6-04, I got a little brave with my R/C flying abilities. I went out the the airport only with Jennifer, instead of having an R/C pilot with me like every other time. It was also a bit different in that I wasn't using the normal area for my runway. The wind was out of the south, and so I didn't want to land next to the hangar and have turbulance while landing, like the day before. There was only one plane flying at the airport, but it was flying a closed pattern, so it was pretty easy to keep track of it, especially with Jennifer keeping an eye out for it. Since that plane wasn't using the main taxiway, I used it for my runway so that I could take off and land with pretty much a direct headwind. I was a bit suprised though, I didn't feel nervous about not having someone out there that really knows about R/C planes like I thought I would. After between 5 and 10 minutes of flying, I decided I better top off the tank. I was a bit concerned about how well the landing would go due to the day before, but then I thought that it probably had a lot to do with the wind. So I lined up on the taxiway, but I was a lot farther away than normal. The plane was drifting slowly to the left, and I didn't correct enough for it. So when it touched down, it went off the taxiway and nosed into the grass. I'm glad that happened where it did, because there was a taxiway edge light a lot closer than I would have liked to where it went into the grass.
As I was bringing the plane back so I could fill it up and fly again, Jen and I got to talking about what it does when it stalls. So I told her I would show her a stall during my next flight. Besides, I'd only stalled it one other time (my first flying day) and I knew I needed to get a better idea of how slow it can go before stalling so that I can make a little slower approaches to landing. So after I took off and climed up to what I felt was three mistakes high I went for a power-off stall. I eased the power back, and as the plane slowed down, I pulled back to maintain altitude. I noticed that I wasn't completely at idle, so I pulled the throttle the rest of the way back. Right there stuff hit the fan. Although I couldn't see that the prop stoped, I could tell that things were quiet, too quiet. All I could think was "UHOH, this good be very bad!" Although I don't recall consciously thinking about having to make a dead-stick landing when I tried to stall, I must have sub-consciously thought about it because I was high, pretty close to and heading towards my runway when this happened. So I glided over my runway, turned downwind, held that so I could get a good idea of the glidepath, then turned base to final. (Just like every time I've practiced this in full-size planes.) I think I made my best landing up to that point. I had a pretty stable descent and I made a smooth touch-down. I was then able to turn it towards my car so that I wouldn't have to carry it as far to get the engine going again. Yes, it felt pretty good
I adjusted the mixture after that and got it so it would idle a little better. I don't want to have to deal with another dead-stick landing. This flight went pretty good. I tried a barrel-roll, but it went pretty much like the very first time I tried it, because it didn't work out very well. I also did a couple of loops that worked out fairly well. I came in for another good landing, but I touched down a lot farther south than I wanted to (I don't want my plane getting too close to the FBO) so I made it a touch and go. I can't get over how quickly my plane speeds up. After about two seconds of rolling with full-throttle, I rotated and was able to make a pretty steep climbing turn so that I could get back to where I'm supposed to be flying. My next landing was the best one I've ever had. I had a stable descent and a smooth touch-down. Man that felt good to be able to do it right. I taxied back to my car, then went around in circles a few times just for the fun of it. I then ran up the engine to clear it out, then pitched the line so that there wouldn't be much fuel sitting in the engine. Now that was a good flying day.

3rd. flying day
On Friday afternoon, 3-5-04, I was able to round up both of my fellow R/C pilots and I had a couple hours before going to work. So we all went to the airport. This time, Tank brought his Great Planes Super Sportster because the tail broke off of his Four-Star a few days ago. We both have the same channel, so both planes being up was out of the question. Well it never was there anyhow because I really like watching him fly, and I'm just not comfortable enough with flying to have my plane anywhere near another. One thing that was kinna annoying is the fact that my plane used to rattle only at this one RPM that was slightly above idle, but today, it rattled no matter what. (I later noticed that some of the foam has moved around, so I think my fuel tank is touching something, but I won't be able to remedy that until I go home next weekend, because I left my foam sheet at home.) I also felt like I couldn't get the mixture right, and it always sounded like it was slightly rich, although now that I think about it, I may have just been hearing the rattle, and not a rich engine. The flying went pretty good, until I tried to land. There is a small ditch that runs right next to the ramp area, and the other side of the ditch comes up a foot or two higher than the concrete. I turned final too early, so I was making my approach right along the edge of the conrete. Just before touchdown, I gave a bad control input I guess, but my plane was in a pretty good left bank, right above the ground. So I applied full throttle and climbed. As it went over that slightly raised area of ground, it seemed like the left wing cleared the ground by about a foot. I made a few more approaches that still came out to far out, so Alan told me to stand where I wanted my plane to land at, turn final late, then walk back out of the way. This allowed me to get lined up a lot better. I was making an okay approach, but the wind was a little gusty, and from a bad direction considering there were hangars right by where I was going to land. So basically when I was right above the ground, the bad wind combination caused my plane to make a porpoise action right above the ground. It resulted in the prop striking the ground and killing the engine. Luckily, it barely scratched my prop.
It was then Tank's turn at flying, and he put on a pretty good show again. Unfortunately, when he was making a low inverted pass (about 8-10ft. high) the engine quit. He rolled it upright, and turned back around, but this put him over the grass. The grass was long and thick, and stoped the plane really fast. This fast stop ripped one of the gear legs out of the wing. This hasn't been a good week for Tank.
It was then my turn to fly again. I had another bad landing. I don't think this time had anything to do with the wind, because I never flared before touch-down. So I made the bad kind of a two-point landing, the nose wheel and the prop. (The good kind of two-point is the main wheels.) I think I just froze or something, because I didn't even try to pull the nose up. Since my plane hit the ground pretty fast, it bounced back up in the air a couple of feet, and I was able to make pretty much normal landing from there. After retreiving my plane, I saw a nearly half-inch area on the tip of one blade that had been sanded off. So I decided it was time to change the prop. Let me tell you, using a spinner nut makes this process a whole lot easier, as you only have to unscrew one thing, instead of three, and you don't have to line anything up.
I went for a third flight, and I had another porpoise before landing, and so I had yet another prop-strike. This was pretty discouraging, because my first attempts at landing the other day went pretty good, but now they sucked.
Tank decided to fly again so he took the other gear leg off, and he had Alan hand-launch it. After a bit, he let Alan fly it for a couple minutes because we had two planes out there, and up to this point, Alan hadn't flown today. I didn't notice any difference in how it flew, but I'm sure it had a slightly higher top speed and roll rate. So having no gear worked good until it was time to land. Of course, Tank set up for a landing in the grass. A belly landing on grass makes for about a 10 ft landing roll. But, I guess there were some stick out there, because there were a couple of holes punched in the bottom of the wing, and it broke off one blade on his prop.
It was kinna good getting the flight time in, although it was pretty annoying that each landing was bad. Those bad landings made me wonder if it would be the same the next time I flew, or if it was just a bad day for me. But hey, I am just that much more used to fly and comfortable with it.

Annoying day at the flying field
Well today's attempt to fly had some good points, but mostly bad points. The good parts was getting to watch Tank fly his Sig Four-Star. He can put on a pretty decent aerobatic performance. The bad points were with my plane, specifically the engine. After I started up, it wouldn't run correctly. Every other time, it would idle pretty reliably and slow. But not today, it went from a really fast idle to dead with only a few clicks of the throttle. After Tank fiddled with it for a while, he noticed that the carb moved around a little bit, so he looked closely at it. Turns out, one of the two screws that holds the carb on was missing. That explained why it wouldn't run right. All that air getting in without going through the carb makes it a little difficult to get the mixture set right. Tank has quite a few spare screws, so I looked through everything trying to find a replacement screw, but I had no luck. So I didn't get to fly today. To make it even worse, while I was putting my plane back in my car, Tank noticed that the screw that holds on the control horn for the rudder and nosewheel was missing. I appearently have a bad engine vibration problem, because other stuff has loosened up before. So I'm going to have to find ways to secure all the screws, but have it so that I can still remove them if needed.

Second flight, first landing
On 2-21-04, I rounded up Alan and David and we went back to the airport for some more flying. It was a really good day for it. The wind was calm most of the time, but it did pick up a little bit on occassion. The only thing that could be considered a problem is the fact that several planes were taking off and landing, so we had to keep an eye out for them all the time.
Alan took off and flew for a few minutes to check everything out again, and to see which direction would be the best to use for landing. He didn't have a good landing this time though. He misjudged the planes location over the ground just before touchdown, and he ended up landing in the grass about two feet from the concrete. Since this isn't a golf course, the grass was a bit on the tall side, so Susie went up on her nose and stayed there. Luckily, all it did was kill the engine. I topped off the tank, started it up, and took off. I flew around a bit, just trying to get a little more comfortable with the controls. I was set on making a landing, so I made a few low approaches to try to get a handle on how to set up the approach. I think my main problem was coming in high and fast.
I decided that I had a decent enough feel for the approach to make a landing. I ended up landing quite a bit long, and I went around to go for another landing. I landed long again, but made this one a full stop so I could get some more fuel. After that, I taxied all the way down to the far end of my runway. I can't remember if it was this takeoff, or while climbing out from one of my low approaches, but I got a lot closer to hitting the hangar than I liked. Anyway, I heading for the hangar, but I pulled up and made it climb over the hangar, and turned back towards the open area. That got my adrenaline pumping for sure. After a few more trips around the patch, I let Alan take it so that I could check the time since I had to go to work pretty soon. Alan tried out some aerobatics. On the first flying day, he tried a barrel roll, but it didn't come out very good (I have a trainer, not an aerobat). But today, he was able to make a pretty nice one. He also performed a pretty nice loop. After I had the controls again, I tried a barrel roll, and it worked out OK. As was my standard for the day, I made another landing that was a lot closer to me that I wanted, but I was able to get it slowed down before I ran out of runway.
I now feel pretty confident in my ability to fly my plane, but I really think I will have Alan with me at least the next time or two before I will fly without an experienced R/C pilot with me.

First R/C flight
On 2-2-04, I finally got to do what I felt like I would never get to do, fly my R/C plane! After checking with the airport manager about flying it at the airport, I went to the spot he told me about, along with Alan, Mark, and Paul. The area in question was the taxiway north of the hangars. It was a bit windy that day, and a guy from the FBO kept saying I would crash because he crashed his plane in less wind a few days before. Luckily for me, the wind was perfectly lined up with the 'runway' I had. After I got the plane set up, we discussed whether or not we should try flying the plane on that particular day or not. After we decided to go ahead and give it a try, I fueled it up. Then Alan thought we should check the C.G. I didn't remember exactly where it was supposed to be at (I finished building back in like June) but I knew that with the full fuel tank, the current C.G. was going to be ahead of the C.G. listed in the manual anyway. So Alan said that it is typically right around the wing spar, so we tried that out. It came out really tail-heavy. This lead to more debate because I remembered testing it when I was building, and it balanced perfectly on the correct location without needing any weights, but Alan thought that it was way too far aft. (I found out later that it is supposed to be a ways back, about in the middle of the wing, instead of 1/4 chord or so.) Alan finally agreed to give it a try, but said he will try to keep the speed up to keep it from entering a un-recoverable stall. Alan took off and tested out the controls. Man that was cool getting to see a plane that I built fly! It did require full nose-down trim and a little forward stick pressure, but it was flying pretty good. Alan took it around the patch a few times, then attempted to land, which turned out to be a pretty good one. We decided to adjust the elevator push-rod so that it would have a little 'manual' trim, then Alan tried it out again. Somewhere at this point, I think, Alan mentioned that it had been a few years since he had flown R/C. I didn't know what to think about that. I probably wouldn't have been so anxious to let him test out MY airplane if I had known this before the first flight. But, as far as I could tell, he flew like a seasoned pro.
After Alan had my plane at a safe altitude, he turned the controls over to me. I was pretty nervous and immediately saw why I should get a neckstrap for my transmitter. My hands were getting sweaty and I felt like I was going to drop my transmitter. But I flew around for a bit, and Alan was impressed with my handling. I did have a problem with turns though, mainly because there is a certain part of the turn when you can't tell which way the plane is pointing. To make that even worse, you can't tell which wing was going up, and which was going down. So I learned that you just have to establish a turn, hold the control inputs, and wait for it to come around, and hope you are doing it right. I also learned that you can make a wide turn get really tight really fast by applying too much elevator back-pressure. I didn't feel I was ready yet for landing, and it was getting dark, so I let Alan have the controls again to bring it in for another nice landing.