Digging In

Well, the Zero is proving to be quite challenging to land, and I must admit I am not rapt in the way she flies with this new engine and prop combo. She pokes along at about 2 knots over stall speed, but she can do that speed at an attitude between 30 degrees up and down. A classic, big, slow flyer prop (1060). This causes two issues:

1. She just doesn't fly the way I want her to, in that classic warbird dive on the allied fleet and give em the full 9 yards, climb away sort of way. For example, at the field this morning she couldn't even handle an inside loop - she just didn't have enough starting speed despite the torque of the propellor.

2. When she is in the rotate position the big 1060 clears the ground by around 1 inch - less that the length of a lot of the grass on the fields. She often noses over on takeoff, and she is nosing over all the time on landing (and I don't think it is all my fault).

So, I'm going to try and find a better sized prop for her. I have a couple in the toolbox - an 8060 and a 90??. Might wonder down to Nitro and see what Paul thinks today.

The Electrafun is back in the air. Went to replace the receiver yesterday and realised that it had detached from the side and was lying next to the servo. Weird eh - the Receiver in the EF lives about 1/4" from the ESC, but that doesn't seem to bother it. Lie it next to the servo, and all sorts of bad things happen. Guess there is a lesson in that.

Have been doing most of my flying at Curtin oval. It is massive, and apart from having to share it with golfers on weekdays, it is basically unused during the week. Is two baseball diamonds and a cricket field. And across the stormwater drain is another area you could fly over (although be careful of the power lines which are not obvious at distance). Maybe I'll do a little post about the local fields I think are good/bad, when to use them/when not.