Although it was a bittersweet moment when the Radian glider took off (my own airframe had a disastrous crash), it felt really good seeing that glider gracefully fly through the skies. After the repairs I had to make on it, I realise that motor has a pitch up moment on the airframe causing the glider to quickly gain altitude but loosing forward speed. That will have to be remedied.
Besides that the glider flies beautifully. The control throws worked as expected and the glider has a very smooth bank turn. I think having a dihedral wing is typical of the flight characteristics of a sailplane. Even though there was a slight wind, the responsiveness to the control inputs quickly adjusted the flight path. The glider is able to get to a nice height quite quickly which helps in testing and trimming the aircraft.
There's enough room in the front of the Fuselage to integrate the electronics and GPS. These flight constitutes two flight done with this glider. The objectives is too start logging using the sensors from flight #10.
The ability to get another airframe to the compliment the current one, will only accelerate the testing process.
Tomorrow it's flight #3, #4 and hopefully #5. The definition of the successful flight test will be determined by flight time of least 5min.
Besides that the glider flies beautifully. The control throws worked as expected and the glider has a very smooth bank turn. I think having a dihedral wing is typical of the flight characteristics of a sailplane. Even though there was a slight wind, the responsiveness to the control inputs quickly adjusted the flight path. The glider is able to get to a nice height quite quickly which helps in testing and trimming the aircraft.
There's enough room in the front of the Fuselage to integrate the electronics and GPS. These flight constitutes two flight done with this glider. The objectives is too start logging using the sensors from flight #10.
The ability to get another airframe to the compliment the current one, will only accelerate the testing process.
Tomorrow it's flight #3, #4 and hopefully #5. The definition of the successful flight test will be determined by flight time of least 5min.
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