Very short maiden flight/crash for my pusher plane

It did not go so well today but why only make videos when everything is fine? It is at least the 3rd time this fall that I have to recover a model from the trees. The wood stick I used today is actually the one I made a few weeks ago to get my quadcopter back :-)
Anyway, the angle of attack of the man wing was too much, it caused a lot of drag and stalled the plane twice. The first flight was so short that I was not sure what went wrong... I thought that taking off from the ground would give me more info, really did not expect these trees in the flight path:-)
In this end only the battery hatch and one of the push rods were damaged. It took only a few minutes to fix the plane and it flew ok in the afternoon with the angle of attack of the wing reduced.
Here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0DpAYMnqkg

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• RC
• Plane
• crash
• tree
• maiden
• flight
• Flying

[FrostbiteUK]

Ensure CG is correct, try less throw on your control surfaces (aileron & elevator) and the pitch of the motor seems quite extreme. Is this a own design model? If not what is the models manufacturer and model name?

[ffleurey]

@FrostbiteUK Thanks for your comment! It is a "own design model". The CG was close to ok but the angle of attack of the wing was way to high so it stalled almost instantly. I have corrected the wing angle and it flew much better (see my next video). It is still a bit hard to fly but I think it is because the wing loading is a bit high (over 45 g/dm2 ~ 15oz/sq ft).

[ffleurey]

@FrostbiteUK About the motor pitch. I made it this way for the "line of thrust" to go through the "center of lift / CG". It seems to work pretty ok in the sense that increasing or reducing thrust does not have a noticeable effect on the pitch of the plane. It might however be pretty inefficient. I need to understand these things a bit better, any opinion is welcome!

[ffleurey]

@FrostbiteUK you were actually right about the motor pitch, with a larger wing and the now reduced motor pitch this bird now flies like a charm :-)

[FrostbiteUK]

@ffleurey : Well that's really great news, enjoy your flying, happy landings!