Monday 15 June 2015

Magic on Dodd Hill?

A day off work and the forecast was for light and variable winds. Perfect for some F3F practice. NOT!

Time to try out the Magic electric launched thermal glider I have had since Christmas. Christmas 2014! 

A quick charge of the 1300 mAh LiPo and I headed up to Dodd Hill. Very little wind and what there was came from the south east. No real slope lift then. 


The first launch (unpowered) saw the Magic dive straight into the ground about 3 metres away! Impressive glide performance then! A second more spirited launch wasn’t much better. A lot of up trim dialed in helped a bit on the third go and I put on the motor once it was away. STEEP Climb!! Not underpowered then. Motor off the nose went down and I had to hold in back stick even with full up trim on. 

Back on the ground I checked the cg and it was still where recommended. The bolt on wing doesn’t easily allow packing the leading edge up so packing was added to the trailing edge of the top mounted tailplane to increase the incidence. Fourth flight much better but still a lot of up trim required. More packing and it was better again but it will need the incidence checking. I may have been so keen to ensure the nose pod and tailboom were straight when joining I neglected to pay enough attention to the wing incidence. 



The Kevlar closed loop elevator linkage I designed is rubbish too (very springy) and will need changing to something more rigid. I will go for the steel wire pushrod and plastic tube "snake" like the rudder linkage. The design uses sprung control surfaces which the servo fights against and I did not like that at all. (Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!! poor wee servos!!) I went for snake on rudder and closed loop on elevator.

Although I got the model flying quite well and I am sure a few wee modifications will sort it out I am not convinced by the electric motor up front. I got an hour or so of flying from the battery but I think I prefer my Longshot DLG.

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