Awesome Awesome! Oriental Maiden

Oriental day finally came. I got it for my birthday last year and finished on about my birthday this  year. Yep, a "Build in one night," ARF. I sure hope I don't have to build another stunter out of necessity for a long time Lol.

As is my usual MO, I maidened it without any cosmetic parts. Except the cowl, on which I did a marvelous job... except for an accidental 5/64" hole right under the needle hole.  But it's neat. No canopy or decals, flap fairings(I have steel U retainers to do the fairing's job), or spinner, but I'll add all that before the next excursion. When I maidened the Osprey, I had "Pretty decorations go here" scribbled on each wing with a Sharpie.

Just to prove I went flying, here's the pic.


The forecast was for clear and 78 with winds increasing gradually from 0 at 9:00 to 14 after 1:00. Wayne got caught in a traffic jam and I had to turn around and go back home to get my Philly Fliers lucky flying hat. I needed to warm up before the maiden so I put up a pattern on the Ukey. If you recall from my last report, I had to change props on the Ukster to compensate for repair induced  differences, thrust angle, I'm thinking, from an APC 9x4 to a 9x6. It flew perfectly and ran out of gas in the OH8. So I ordered some 9x5s and more 9x6s since in the Summer the Yak seems to like that one too. To make sure it wasn't a fluke or fueling mistake last time, I put it back up with the 9x6. I flew everything through the hourglass and stopped and just counted level laps. It flies about 5.1 seconds, btw. After 12, i got bored and quit counting and flew another minute.... so, 9x6 it is. Must've accidentally short tanked it last time.

Oriental time... oh yeah, no leadout terminations yet. But that was planned. My sore fingers weren't up to a wrapping job, so I asked Wayne to bring his swaging tool. He had some "special" tubes and it was done in no time. My god I was cringing during the pull test. We didn't have a fish scale and I know Wayne pulled over 10 Gs. It weighs 46.1 ounces. I didn't box in the top of the bellcrank bolt, but made the assembly pretty strong, so I trusted it. But still, I always sweat that that pull test. It made no noises, not even a creak.

So first flight. I learned that my overflow tube coming out of the bottom was a major pita to get too, especially when slippery. And the pressure/uniflow/fill tube to the muffler was siphoning and pouring gas out the muffler. We looked like a couple of monkeys out there trying to prime and crank, holding hemostats on the pressure tube, taking the glow plug out to dry it... the electric starter is great for clearing a hydrolocking flood. Sprays gas everywhere haha. What maroons. I finally realized if I hold it up and let it drain back before re-attaching it, it works just fine. Major dumb moment. At least I figured it out before Wayne did. Even dumber, I do it on my profiles all the time. Got it running on the first flip after we dried it out. It's a really easy engine to crank once we got the hang of it. I set it for a fairly lean launch, just a little bit of crackling. All I had was the Zinger 11x5, my magic props haven't arrived yet.

Off she went. With no canopy it looks like a yellow pilotless drone lol. Fairly good takeoff and 5 level laps for Wayne to check for level wings. It pulls hard. Not as much as the Magnum, but the hardest I've ever felt other than that. I also took the opportunity to work on my posture, leaning back into the tension. I have a bad habit of leaning toward the plane, which can be really bad news, like when the Magnum pulls me off the center circle and I lose input coming to the bottom of a maneuver. I've been lucky so far, but now I'm getting into the habit of showing it who's the boss. I chipped away at a wingover till I was sure it would go straight over the top. It was a little loose up there and I just did a simple wingover, then a couple of inside loops, and loose again at the tops. Enough for me to have to quickly back step. I could see the outboard wing, so there's a major clue. I exited the insides inverted and damn near couldn't hold enough down elevator to keep it from skidding in. BUt I managed to hold it level for 6 laps and started an outside loop. So loose I only did one. I flew a square and it wasn't too bad. I made long legs, so it had more energy up top and stayed tight enough. Same with a couple of triangles, and then I leveled off and flew it out. It was a 5 minute run. Not bad considering how much fuel we wasted with the siphoning and flooding. a fair landing, couple of bounces and rolled it out. It's flying 5.2 second laps.

Wayne reported a bad case of outboard wing high upright and low inverted. So I tweaked the flaps and flew it again. Not much better and a bouncy landing. More flap tweaking and the elevator needed straightening. I had noticed during the build that the elevator had one side at a different angle than the other. I straightened that out and tweaked the flaps some more too. As for the inverted flight still being hard to hold, I found that I wasn't able to pull full down, so made a handle correction. I don't remember the engine run time on this flight.

Ready for flight number three. The wind, maybe 10 mph by now, had shifted and was coming through nearby pine trees and swirling like mad. A great takeoff. I didn't notice till I was cleaning it later that it that when the fuselage is level as in a roll out on takeoff, that the prop tip is ½” off the ground. I need bigger wheels. But… I rolled out a long one on this flight. I’m surprised I made it without a prop strike. After liftoff, I actually flew almost a full lap before I hit cruising altitude. That was about my best ever takeoff. I would've gotten good points for that one. Over the top, tight lines, so I went ahead and flew a reverse wingover. Nice! I pulled out flat too. I'm always terrible about bobbling on my bottoms. I did three good inside loops, nice easy inverted control, outside loops, inside squares, triangles and a figure 8. Effortlessly. It was grooving now and I was standing straight and leaning back against it. With the squirrely wind bouncing it around, I only did 45 degree top stunts, but pulled out flat on bottoms more consistently than I ever have before. I flew it out from there, adding a loop here and a wingover there. Engine run time, 8 minutes. The engine was not hot after the full 2-stroke runs, so it looks like my venturi is fine for this setup, and so is the 11x5 Zinger, and i have plenty of fuel capacity..

I will, however try the 10.5x4.5 APCs that I ordered for it. And the tongue muffler. That bit of reduced nose weight might help it turn quicker. Or it might bring my bobbling bottoms back. I should have them any day now. Who knows, maybe I'll fin d an even be better combination. I'm convinced now that this will be my contest plane. Two contests in May, coming up. And I'll fly in the profile event with the Ukey. I did do overheads with it. If I'd known the gas wouldn't run out, I would have done a full pattern, but that one warmup flight was the only flight of the Ukster today.

Sorry about the lack of video. I took the camera, but was too busy to bother with the distraction of it. I almost hollered to Wayne to turn it on, but I knew it wasn't set for the right mode.

So my maiden evaluation is, by the third flight, I love it!
Rusty