It turned out to be a great day for setting up the Sagitta.
Got to the field about 10:15 and started setting out the sport winch. Started doing some hand tosses to dial in the basic elevator trim when Bill pulled in. Looked like we were going to have a good time flying together… except he had left his Tx at home on the charger and had to head home again.
While he went off to retrieve it, I sat down and started in on some surgery to increase my rudder throw. Couldn’t go out further at the servo horn so had to drill a new hole at the rudder horn to move it in a bit. Finally got to max throw on the rudder without hitting the stab. I’m still not happy with rudder response so I may need to increase the rudder size some more down the road. Already a half inch wider than the plans as is.
Spent a good deal of time tuning the elevator trim until I had it flying well. Then took out some nose weight and it flew even better after tuning some more. I even think there is still room to take out more weight in the future. Haven’t done a dive test yet but it still seems a bit nose heavy. Whoever decided where the ‘sweet spot’ was didn’t really know what he was talking about. The plans designer was even further off than that.
Bill flew his Radian and I continued working on elev/comp, etc. until about 1:00pm when the clouds opened up and drove us off. All in all a pretty good work day. Found a tear in the covering that needed patching and the elevator pivot is loose again so still some things to do for the next few evenings.
Am planning to head back out again Thursday morning or Friday afternoon to put the final touches on it before Saturday.
See you then,
Wayne