Videos - Good day flying

I took the new Baby Streak out for its maiden today, as well as the Li'l Satan which just got a new Tee Dee after the first one failed to perform.

Alas the red white and blue baby just sat in the grass while nobody played with it. Too much fun with the other two. The Li'l Satan previously had a TD on it that refused to cooperate, as has been documented in 5 pages at RCG. http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1786352
But the new one hopped up and did the job. I videoed a couple of flights while testing it and I finally settled on a 5-1/4x3 prop and it flies really fast and tight. The loops are too large, so I need to remove a tad of nose weight, but I was anxious to try out the new BFS, so I'll tinker with that the next time out.

My camera ran out of memory before the fun light extinguished but I still got some good footage of flights, and some bad footage of landings. It's lighter than my old one and the Norvel rips it through the air like a speed demon. I haven't clocked the time stamps on the video yet, I can't wait to see how fast it was really moving. I had it balanced in exactly the same spot I balance the other Streak. This was not where it was happy... no sir, not happy at all. I hope you find the video of that maiden flight funny, because ol' Rustoleum had his hands full for a minute or so.

For the next flight I zipped one square hunk of lead to the nose right behind the engine and added only a sip of fuel. I didn't want to be on the business end of a wild pig again. So it flew nicely this time. I was tooling along at fairly extreme speeds doing a few test loops and decided it was time to check the down elevator. I flipped it onto its back getting ready to do an outside loop... I forgot about the sip of gas... and it shut off. Aw crap, I'm going to land upside down and bust off the tail. But the wind blew, the lines went slack. You can see me reaching out to grab an arm full of line about the time the plane went Bonk! Right on its nose. It didn't hit hard, not even what I would call a crash, and I'm glad now because it didn't shear off the tail.

For the next flight I got serious and pumped it up with a full flight of fuel. This was a good flight. I did some decent wingovers, all kinds of loops and it flew like I hoped it would. There are a few issues, but nothing I can't work out. I occasionally feel some sort of flutter through the lines when the breeze hits it. Maybe it's just the covering needing tightening. It's a little loose, but I didn't think much of it. The control rod is braced so I don't think the elevator is fluttering. I'd be interested in what y'all think of that. And it's not as sure footed as the other one while flying inverted. It's harder to control for some reason. I don't know what that might be a symptom of. I'll take opinions on that too. The inside loops are much tighter than my other one. The outside loops are bigger because the bellcrank is restricted. Only surgery can fix that and I wanted to test it before I took such a rash step. I think I'll leave it alone for a while.

So back to the flight. I was having fun now, getting used to the plane, and I started to get a little too cocky. I knew I was wandering around so I started looking for my spot marker and wheel hopped the damn thing... whap! it did a full speed touch and bounce and stop. Damn, and on video too. Again, nothing was hurt, just dirt on the underbelly. So I sprayed it off and reset for another flight.

I got a couple more flights, one of which the engine leaned out after takeoff and I was stuck with a lean slow run that lasted almost 5 minutes. I posted my worries about that in my Norvel thread. I got that flight on video but it's long and boring so I'm not going to bother uploading it. If the grass was taller I would have tried to skid it in to stop it, but i was afraid of busting the plane so I just flew it out. Then I reset and re-needled and it ran fine for the next flight.

So, a pretty good day flying. I was all alone, nary a soul but me at the field today. Hard to believe since the weather was perfect. They like to fly on Sundays though.

Here is the Satan video. I'll post the BFS videos tomorrow. Full screen is enabled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFlZ7TvKKAA&feature=youtu.be