New place to fly and a couple of flight reports

My new flying site is the home of an RC club that is friendly with Control Liners. Just like JFA, but the Jackson flyers are a shrinking group and we fly on Fort Jackson property, so we're afraid our luxurious field could be repurposed at the whim of some General. My newest flying buddy and his Dad, Mike and Carl Lindler, also long time acquaintances of Wayne, have been inviting us out to fly at their Congaree Flyers club.

It's really nice with a leveled grass field and an excellent black fabric covered RC runway. Google Maps shows it with a torn up looking runway, but I think it was a test or maybe under construction a year or two ago. The trees are a long way from our circles, so even stiff winds blow steady,except for gusts from thermals. So far, when I've been there it resembles the fort in that the wind is about twice what NOAA and weather.com say. They said 6mph today and it was 12-15. The sock stayed full and you'll see the flags in the video.

We can park right where we pit our planes, so all the gear can stay in the car. And on Big Red, my aircraft carrier, if I point it towards the sun's arc, the open tailgate provides great shade for our quad chairs, coolers and fuel cans.

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.7829377,-81.1155017,84m/data=!3m1!1e3

I never got around to last week's flight report, but I took the Twister out set up the same way as I'd flown it in Huntersville, at a fat 44.1 ounces and an fp.35, a ~2.5 oz muffler and the 3/4 oz. Higley Acorn prop nut. This all put the CG where I wanted it, a 1/4 inch in front of the spar giving snappy turns at the top of the Hourglass and nice square bottoms, and damn good Advanced level takeoffs. Add the sq.8 and the outside loops and squares to that. But at that weight, the 35 was on the edge of underpowered. Slightly richer than perfect and it was unflyable.

So today I was trying  a new engine, an FP.40 with modded ports and I don't know what else. John Tate of the Norfolk Aeromodelers had given it to me when the Oriental was running away. But when it arrived, Bob had already fixed the old FP so the Oriental was running good, and I shelved John's engine for the future Nobler. It cranked on the first flip I've never had an engine that ran quite like this one. It sounds like the high dollar engines on the Expert circle. The FP.40 was a half ounce lighter than the .35 which allows me more trim options without having to worry as much about added weight. So I can use whatever muffler, spinner I want to use.

Today I had a tongue muffler and my heavier Dave Brown aluminum spinner with the lighter engine. It as down to 41.7 ounces and the CG was all the way back to the spar. It was a little floaty taking off and landing, plus I had to work harder to keep the flat laps level in the wind, but I smoothed it out pretty quick. It was really back to snapping corners and locking in, just like I raved about when I was still getting the maiden flights back in July. This engine has a lot more power, and I was still getting it slowed down. I'm using an APC 10.5x4.5. I think it needed a little bit heavier muffler because it was winding up like crazy and I had to struggle to keep the maneuvers open.

Wayne judged one of my flights today that I didn't know about till he handed me the sheet after I landed. I had 9 scores between 29 and 33. I aborted the H8 and one of the inside squares because of the wind-up and general over sensitive turning. On my last flight, the handle somehow got away and it hung on the lanyard doing surprisingly tight loops. I reached out with my left hand and grabbed it and put it back in my right hand. Upside down.
https://youtu.be/1zu_LFlE_98


I still can't believe I couldn't adapt, but it was all happening too fast. It's not as bad as it looks, nothing on the fuselage or empennage is damaged, and most of the inboard wing is okay. So I'll cut it out and rebuild the broken part and figure out how to graft the two pieces together.
Rusty