Observations and video from first flights

Monday, 31. October 2011 00:00

I absolved first flight with Dogfighter with big worries. It kind of looked like a brick (flying weight under 900g) and I just wasn´t sure if it will fly at all. I knew it will fly "somehow". Serial product had center of gravity quite right, it had strong engine, and it was Multiplex...  
 
All concerns was unnecessary. Dogfighter goes up with accelerator like on rails, it doesn´t ovetturn anywhere, and in tight turns and during the whole flight it behaves very predictable. It´s actually a good-natured plane. Only a bit faster one. Of course, when I´m saying good-natured, I mean the plane under power. With the low power you need to be very careful. Glide is surprisingly very good, if we have speed, or height which we can change to speed. Without height and/or speed you can just wait how hard the bump will be :) But I have to say, the Dogfighter is very resistant, as we can expect from the model made of Elapor (new and harder). I improved the resistance of the model with the price of a small increase of height.  

Model flies about 120-130 km/h in the horizon (weaker drive set - brushless motor Himax C3516-1130 with propeller APC 10x7E, reg. MULTIcont BL-40). That's good enough, because the model flies and climbes about 120-130km/h (climbes 90° 80-90 km/h) and nose-dive much faster. So you can easily make vertical turns across the whole sky (which I love :) ).

Model is without controled rudder so far. I have set up DR, where I fly all the time on about 55% aileron divergence and 60% elevator divergence. I have differenciation on the ailerons cca 1:2. The elevator during slow flying losts efficiency and there is necessary to pull more. The regulator has not set up brake and so rotating propeller is braking the motor. The landings are dramatic (at least my are :) ). The model would slide nicely during the landing on grass, but the propeller often digs to the ground and the model makes tumbles. It definitely needs folding propeller sold separated. Unfortunately the spiner is too big to be replaced with one of normal folding props and there is necessary to buy original prop to model for about 25$. It is needed because with normal propeller (10"x7") every landing is about luck.

My model is covered with Modelspan and the wing and bottom side of the body is fibre glassed - more in the single article.

I am really satisfied with Dogfighter. It is wild properly for my hands and it is suitable for my character, when I prefer normal "old" flying across the sky and modern 3D flying in front nose is nothing for me, for my mind and my hands :) . Maybe it is related to my age but I just like when the airplane flies from point A to point B. And Dogfighter eates the space with a pleasure.

Well, and here is the video taken during two recent flights. It was Halloween so we met intruder from near graveyard - Kope's witch. :)

 
((Note:
Any mentions or questions write to comments under this article, please. Thank you!)