Wednesday 30 November 2011

Wednesday 30 November

A week off work decorating was getting to me so I headed up to Kilspindie for a break. The wind was 25mph sw and pretty well straight on the slope. Less windy than forecast but pretty good.

I took my repaired ex Dave Watson Spark out for a test flight and it was going well. A dive test showed a tendency to tuck under but easily manageable and no doubt due to weight added to rear of tailboom where the main repair was. Double layer of 2 oz carbon cloth over an old war wound seems very strong.

New front fuselage keel and glass fibre nose and elevators came from Robert Carson and made the repairs much easier. Thanks Robert. Without those parts my Spark may have been left in the corner of the shed for a while longer!

I spent a bit of time tuning in the butterfly elevator compensation and landings are now less frantic.

I flew the Spark with my Futaba TM8 2.4 GHz transmitter module and FrSky FASST compatible receiver and had no problems with it at all. Oddly when the sun disappeared and the cloud cover rolled it the air got quite thermally and I deliberately flew my Spark way out from the slope and it got high (very!) at times. No probs with range even when I deliberately turned my back on the model and put my body between the tx and model.


One interesting thing I notice with the Spark is the weight of those glassed blue foam wings does mean that rolls are slowish to start and stop compared to a hollow moulded model. The roll rate is fine but it is a wee bit sluggish and feels ever so slightly ponderous at times. Still a good hack model though :o)
Grand day out

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