Sunday's flight report

Sunday was perfect for flying. Wayne and I spent six solid hours out there sharing the field with the RC guys. One of them had never heard of control line before, so we put on a pretty good show for him. I flew the Yak-9 once and stayed with the Magnum the rest of the day. It was dead calm part of the time and I got a real good lesson in backstepping during consecutive maneuvers. That big plane leaves such a wake there is no air to grab if you follow the same track as the last loop. I'm pretty sure that's how I lost my Skyray back in October, so when I felt it starting to happen I knew what to do. The bigger the plane, the worse the danger.

But that big boy is too sensitive to changes in the breeze. I was surprised to get slack lines when I ignored a quick shift as a brief thermal passed over the field. I was flying for the camera so I wanted to keep my stunts in the same place. The breeze turned 180 deg for several laps and I figured, 70 oz plane, almost as big as me, no problem, it'll cut through like nothing changed. Ha! The joke was on me, I was running all over the place trying to keep that thing in the air. So much for my brilliant show off movie. Wayne has been telling me it didn't pull hard enough, but not being accustomed to a big heavy ship, I ignored his concerns.

I'm preparing to go out again on Thursday and have a couple of things in mind. One is, I could shorten the lines but I don't think I'll have time to make up a new set before then. I think the first thing i'll try is another inch of pitch on the prop to speed it up. On 65' I'm flying 5.5 second laps. And there is also the leadout position. It seems plenty tight at low altitudes, and I've been told moving them forward will increase tension at high altitudes while lessening tension down low. That's an adjustment I have yet to really learn about. Meanwhile, since I'm low on backup planes, Wayne has given me a 35 size U-Key. I plan to bolt the OS 25fp onto it. That's the engine from my Osprey. So I'll be test flying it too.

So stay tuned for Thursday's flight report for an update. And maybe I can get a movie of that elusive perfect pattern
Rusty