After waiting for all parts to arrive, and repairing the plane to the best of my limited ability, it was now time to maiden the repaired Tundra.
I must admit that I was a little nervous about flying her in the same location she ended up in a tree, the last time I flew her. Therefor, I decided to start off with only a take-off, and directly land straight out. Just to see if she needed major trim adjustments before flying properly. And that seemed to be the case. Major roll and yaw to the right, directly upon take off. Left main gear came loose first, and the righthand wing tip almost touched the ground before I could intervene. I dialed in roll trim to the left, as well as rudder trim to the left (yaw will induce roll too), and tried again a couple of times. Take-off, land, taxi back, adjust trims, repeat until flyable.
Once I thought I could compensate for deviations by steering the plane, I dared to fly a corner before landing. With the number of landings, my confidence grew ... Until I stall-spinned right on the nose again!. Argh!... Things still seemed to work, but I heard a small ticking sound in sync with the propeller rpm. It appeard thet the prop was touching the cowling, so there was at least some extra deformaton that wasn't there before.
Closer inspection revealed that the cowling had two cracks. One above, and one below the hole that the prop shaft pokes through. Also, the motor / prop combination was pointing to the right somewhat more than it already did. When I tried to see if eveything worked, I hooked up a battery, and did not get the familiar beeps, and all servos too a step in a certain direction. Uncoupling the battery, and re-coupling it again did exactly the same thing. So there mus also be an electrical issue, somewhere. Strange, since the plane flew, only 10 minutes earlier, and now sat "dead" on the table.
I suspect the wing connections for the servos are the culprit, since there seems to be a bad connection wing-side. It looks like it has come partially loose, for some reason.
Unfortunately, I did not have the time to investigate further, because the weekend was at it's end, and the Tundra will stay at the camping. That is because it is such a large thing to transport every time, and at home, I have no possibility to test fly. So I created a nice holder to store the plane up against the ceiling, and will see her next time we visit the camping.
I must admit that I was a little nervous about flying her in the same location she ended up in a tree, the last time I flew her. Therefor, I decided to start off with only a take-off, and directly land straight out. Just to see if she needed major trim adjustments before flying properly. And that seemed to be the case. Major roll and yaw to the right, directly upon take off. Left main gear came loose first, and the righthand wing tip almost touched the ground before I could intervene. I dialed in roll trim to the left, as well as rudder trim to the left (yaw will induce roll too), and tried again a couple of times. Take-off, land, taxi back, adjust trims, repeat until flyable.
Once I thought I could compensate for deviations by steering the plane, I dared to fly a corner before landing. With the number of landings, my confidence grew ... Until I stall-spinned right on the nose again!. Argh!... Things still seemed to work, but I heard a small ticking sound in sync with the propeller rpm. It appeard thet the prop was touching the cowling, so there was at least some extra deformaton that wasn't there before.
Closer inspection revealed that the cowling had two cracks. One above, and one below the hole that the prop shaft pokes through. Also, the motor / prop combination was pointing to the right somewhat more than it already did. When I tried to see if eveything worked, I hooked up a battery, and did not get the familiar beeps, and all servos too a step in a certain direction. Uncoupling the battery, and re-coupling it again did exactly the same thing. So there mus also be an electrical issue, somewhere. Strange, since the plane flew, only 10 minutes earlier, and now sat "dead" on the table.
I suspect the wing connections for the servos are the culprit, since there seems to be a bad connection wing-side. It looks like it has come partially loose, for some reason.
Unfortunately, I did not have the time to investigate further, because the weekend was at it's end, and the Tundra will stay at the camping. That is because it is such a large thing to transport every time, and at home, I have no possibility to test fly. So I created a nice holder to store the plane up against the ceiling, and will see her next time we visit the camping.
To be continued...
Comments
Post a Comment