Sorting Out a New Airplane
by: Eric Lyon
It seemed that the carb settings kept needing to be changed. I thought maybe an air leak and some else suggested trying a new glow plug. Funny thing is on the first outing I changed the glow plug with a, still in the package, 15 year old glow plug I had from years back. I got out of RC for several years and finally decided to get back in around 4 years ago. It turned out that it was going bad and on the first flight I had to dead stick the plane in. I made the runway and had a decent landing untill I hit a water puddle and it flipped over. Lucky for me, there was no damage. Outside of having the ailerons set up way to touchy it flew very well. I am glad I have a computer transmitter as it is so handy to adjust travel throws and set up duel rate values and exponential. Exponential on a touchy airplane makes it fly so much easier it is not even funny. It makes a good pilot look great and it is easier to make more fluid moves. I cut back the aileron throws and it is much better now.
To anyone interested the Decathlon lands like a cub, but is much more manuerable. When I was looking to buy a new plane, my good friend Doug Gwaltney, knowing my experience level recommended it highly. I was about to buy a much hotter pane like an Ultimate Bipe. I am glad I listened to him as it is a great plane. I may get an Ultimate later on if something happens to the Decathlon.
Another fairly new plane at the field is a beautifull .60 size Top Flite P40 Warhawk owned by Clay Simmons.
Clay has had a few issues with getting the CG just right and had a few issues with the retract system and ground handling. On a short coupled plane like this, CG is very sensitive. If you get the CG way to tail heavy, your airplane will only fly once. This airplane is just drop dead gorgeous on the ground and especially in the air on a high speed low pass. Clay's plane is kind of a hot rod like a lot of the Warbirds, but with flaps it slows down to a fairly decent speed to land.
After Clays latest adjustments it is flying very well and ground handling is better too. Our rough runway had something to do with that also. We have our runway in very good shape now.
