Finished and Flew the Airtech Fitness
Posted by Greg Smith on Apr 19, 2005, 20:28
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After a nearly disastrous start to my Airtech Fitness's life I got the maiden flight out of the way and found the plane an excellent flyer.
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| Fitness ready to go |
The disaster nearly happened on my first maiden voyage attempt at Big Bay. The wind was coming in at about 20 and I felt it would be a good first flight day. Plenty of lift! So, I range checked it and tossed it off the hill. Got about 70 feet. Looks good! In the next few seconds I had visions of the Wizard going in the lake as the Fitness was not responding to control inputs and threatening to follow suit. Wait, there, it turned back towards the hill. Oh, no input, not responding and it is heading over my head! More mashing of the controls and the plane dives into the ground going 40 or 50 mph. I got that sick feeling you get when a plane crashes and it seems like it will be toast.
A pleasant suprise! The plane was buried halfway up the nose but aside from pulled out wing bolts no real damage. Very lucky!
Now, what the heck was going on? After the Wizard and lake incident I checked the battery. Nope full. Just to make sure I put it on the Sirius SuperTest. 689mah out of a 700mah battery. At least that was not the problem.
I enlisted Mirko's help to range check again and got about 60 feet away and still had control but then Mirko noticed something wierd. The controls were moving very slowly. As I walked back expecting to regain control he kept shaking his head. I got to the plane and even with the antenna of the JR-8103 fully extended it was still responding slowly. Like taking about a second to react! Unacceptable!
FYI, the 8103 was checked not too long ago and was dead on frequency.
So, I pulled the Berg 5 receiver, brand new by the way, and replaced it with a Hitec SuperSlim and it worked fine. Problem solved. Don't yet know what the Berg's problem is but it seems like when I did the range check and got the the jitter distance, it never reaquired the radio. I'll look into this more and let you know what I find.
Mirko and I headed to Concordia a couple of days ago. The wind was light. Probably about 8mph. I figured I could chuck the Fitness hard enough to make a few passes.
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| Airtech Fitness on its first successful flight |
I like the way the plane flies. In the light air it was going well. I spent time putzing with the differential and the landing spoileron setups. No problem. Nice roll rate and I am looking forward to more lift!
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| Greg and the Airtech Fitness at Concordia |
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| How is that for contrast with the top? |
As you can see from this picture I went with purple wing and stab bottoms again. Still have a few rolls of that Purple Ultracote I bought at a good price! I like the checkers too. Great for visibility. Also, I can tell it is not my Weasel or Combat Wings XL because of the shape!
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