Fly-A-Thon report from Fort Valley Ga.

getback wrote:Good Fun !! Bandit was Sunday the last day to get flight time in ? That's a Nice looking S1 Ringmaster , I was wondering do you have to be a member of the Brothers of the Ring to enter your flights ? Glad it flew without a flaw . Eric

Yup it flew good only biggie that I've got to rectify is I've got to calm the controls down a little bit since it's quite sensitive right now. Sunday was the last day to get in flights for the Rain/Wind delay extension. The main part of the fly-A-Thon ended last weekend (3-4 Oct) but it was extended due to the crazy weather going around. As far as membership in BOTR, no membership is required, all you need it a ringmaster of any type and you can join in. (Bandit)

Good going, Bandit. I didn't get to fly, but here's some of the Carolina Gang at Watt's field flying while it was raining fish in Columbia.

Looks like Watt built most of those, according to the numbers, AMA 10040
That's Jeanna, Will, Watt and Wayne

Great Photos and Notes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My computer/dial-up finally loaded them!!

Hope more post their flights here...I have a heck of a time getting around the Brotherhood of the Ring site, though am still plugging away at it!

Good to see so many folks having a great time with this event !!!!!!!!!!!

Slightly off topic

Kim...I am out in the sticks and my ISP is usually just so so and sometime pretty good, but occasionally it sucks for loading any intensive page...

I do have a good smart Phone; Samsung G5 and our Verizon signal out here is usually 4G LTE and three or four bars

I don't use the phone for much data intensive stuff so the 4 Gig they give me ( ha it ain't free) is mostly unused

On days when the ISP sucks I just turn the WiFi hot spot on in the phone, and connect my laptop to it and threat my self to really fast page and photo loading

Bandit , You think if you adjusted your forward weight (cg) it would calm it down a bit . Is it acting squirrelly? ,,, Rusty could help you there or Ken. Eric

getback wrote:Bandit , You think if you adjusted your forward weight (cg) it would calm it down a bit . Is it acting squirrelly?  ,,, Rusty could help you there or Ken. Eric

I don't think it's CG related it flies straight ahead on engine cutout and has no hint of a hunt under power I thinks it's just a bit too much travel on the elevator I pulled a loop and it went quick and real tight in fact the fox tried to burp near the top which i think was cause by the sudden movement. I've installed a perfect needle in it which has a single hole instead of the two holes found in the stock fox one so it could be that too (need to verify the hole location in the spray bar) i've already did an adjustment just got to fly er again to test er out however I'm always open to opinions and advice. thanks man
(Bandit)

What kind and size bellcrank is in the plane? What hole is the pushrod in on the bellcrank. Is it the furthest hole away from centerline or the closest? What kind of control horn is on the plane. This would be the easiest to remedy and installing a large control horn would help. What is the line spacing of your flying handle? When the elevator is flipped to far on a Ring it acts like a brake and the plane just falls out of the sky. It acts more like a brake. If you can get deflection under 30 deg of travel it will fair much better. I also see you mentioned the 3 blade 9x7. A 3 blade prop equates to a 2 blade that's 1" larger. Therefore, your using a 10x7 prop. That's far too much prop for a Fox .35 and if the engine was sounding like it was burping at the top it could've been overloading. You mentioned it ran smoother. The Fox likes a load, not an overload. If it was vibrating prior to the prop you had on it which I don't recall you mentioning, it was more than likely vibrating. The 3 blade is loading it and giving you the impression that it is running smoother with no doubt probably is. Unfortunately, the bottom end of the rod on a Fox is not designed for that kind of load. It's a unbushed rod with very little meat under it to support it. If the engine is new, this will quickly taxi the rod in addition. Your not running a muffler so that would certainly be beneficial to running a larger prop which could certainly be the reason it did work. You didn't mention how you flew it. Flying level and a occasional wingover doesn't taxi the engine like continuous maneuvers.

At this stage without opening the wing to make changes if needed, the solution is to use a larger control horn. If your pushrod is not already there, I would place it in the furthest hole away from hinge centerline which is the bottom hole. Flying with a 4" handle spacing or less would also tame down the controls. It doesn't take much when shrinking down your handle spacing due to it being a mechanical disadvantage to your bellcrank therefore limiting the control throw. Just some advice, if you can get a APC 10x5 it might be worth a try. I personally don't use 10" props on these size planes but many do and generally those that are just getting their feet wet once again. A APC 10x5 has a fair amount of blade area and weight over the other props available. This can really smooth things out and still keep the Fox in it's happy workable rpm zone.

Well finally I've got the maiden video of my ringmaster force fed to Youtube so this is in addition to my first post hope you enjoy!
The fox was being a little biter that time around btw. Didn't do much just some climb and dives to get used to it, did a mild wing over too. sorry about the camera being a bit too close didn't get all the action *Shrugs* (Bandit)

And that's why it's called the Ringmaster!!  Looking good, sounding good two! Nice video of a nice flight. Glad you were able to add some to the fly a thon total.