Put up 3 more flights today… about 7 minutes each. Total battery usage was around 480mah so the average looks like ~25mah per minute of flight. Even less than last time but probably less “on-time” between flights etc… so more typical of actual flight times.
Finally got my flap mix to elevator about right I think and all three landings were good. 1 bounce or less and no really anxious moments. Just greased’em in! One flight I got a reported 96mph so I think maybe 100 is going to be the top speed if I get in a nice long full throttle dive unless I make some changes. I can’t complain about that. It seems reasonable enough. I’m not seeing any excessive temps… around 230 I think is about normal peak which seems on the cool side so I’m not going to complain. Flight pack voltage is very steady with the two A123 packs supplying a nice and fairly steady 6.5 or so volts if I recall correctly and the IBEC is locked in at 5.2V.
Did some nice, slightly high, photo pass/knife edge passes and some sub 30 foot high speed passes along with a few Immelmans, Split-S, loops and plenty of rolls and combinations. Stall turns are fairly easy and I am having few problems with orientation. All in all, its shaping up nicely.
After the 3rd flight I sat and made a few adjustments in the radio. As is my usual method, I started with dual or triple rates configured for each of the main flight surfaces and once I narrow down throws and expo settings I like the rates go away and all are set to the same settings so there is no chance of problems due to improper switch settings. Ailerons are pretty much dialed in and rudder is comfortable though I may need to fine tune a bit. Elevator is nice for landing but the plane can snap if I pull too hard.
I’ll have to decide if a bit less elevator is still good enough for landing but other than that I’m getting pretty comfortable with the Red Tail.