The maiden take off shown here revealed a twist in the left wing that wasn't noticed before the flight. I was able
to get it back down in one piece for some strut tweaking.
Text, photos and video by Tom Hintz
Flight Video by Dennis Shaver
Trim Save - Ritchie!
Posted – 5-12-2019
Disclaimer - The Phoenix Model Giant Westland Lysander maiden turned into a two-day affair because of a mistake on my part. In keeping with my “warts and all” approach to Reviews to be fair to the model, its manufacturer and viewers of FlyingRC.net it is important to fess up to my mistakes along with the good news. I suspect more than a few “bad” Reviews were really the fault of the builder and/or pilot. To be sure, the Phoenix Model Giant Westland Lysander is a great flying plane, as is mine now that I corrected my mistake.
Over the years I have developed an “all I can get” approach to setting control throws. I set up three dual rates, one of which is the maximum throws, the second being the manufacturers recommended “high” rates and the third, the suggested “low” rates. I am convinced these big throws and the years spent getting used to them saved my Phoenix Model Giant Westland Lysander and I am very happy about that!
When I gave the Phoenix Model Giant Westland Lysander some up elevator on the maiden, the right wing dipped dramatically and scraped the grass. When I looked at the video more closely, I could see the left aileron standing up about the same time the right wing touched the runway. My now 70-year-old reactions are still pretty good! I was able to get the Phoenix Model Giant Westland Lysander up to a safe altitude while holding a bunch of left aileron. Ritchie, a friend of mine was there and helped by pushing in a bunch of left aileron trim while I kept the wings sort of level. I was able to get the Phoenix Model Giant Westland Lysander back on the runway going faster than I’d have liked but it was down and in one piece. I was still holding a good bit of left aileron to get it back on the ground so didn’t want to try the flaps at the same time.
It was obvious that something was dramatically wrong. My friend Dennis who was shooting the video for the first flights thought the wing had to be twisted to fly like that, so he adjusted the struts, trying to counter the trim I had dialed in. Once again, Dennis was right on the money. There wasn’t enough adjustment to completely rid the Phoenix Model Giant Westland Lysander of the issue, but it was a ton better. Between tweaking the struts and leaving some left aileron trim in it I was able to take off and let go of the sticks. The Phoenix Model Giant Westland Lysander was flying hands-off.
With he struts adjusted on the left wing the next take off
was much better and the Lysander flew well.
With the Phoenix Model Giant Westland Lysander now flying more normally I could drop the flaps and lower the engine idle speed. The result was a surprisingly stable, much slower landing the second time around.
On two of the landings the Phoenix Model Giant Westland Lysander tipped up on its nose unexpectedly. That turned out to be the wheels touching the edge of the wheel pants when I tried to turn it while still at a decent roll out speed. I later shimmed the wheels over a little and that issue went away. This is only the second plane on which I committed to using wheel pants, so I have some growing up to do in this regard.
I packed the Phoenix Model Giant Westland Lysander up to take it back to the shop and fix my mistake. I was not going to take any more chances with what appears to be a great flying plane.
When I installed the struts the first time, I put one wing on at a time because my shop area is too small for the full wingspan. I also installed them with the plane right side up which complicated the installation. This time I took the Phoenix Model Giant Westland Lysander outside and put it in my stand inverted with the wings locked in place. This made drilling the wing-side mounts for the struts much easier.
The final part of re-setting the struts was to install the wings and make fine adjustments to the wing-side mounts to get the incidence meter readings as consistent as possible along the entire wing panel. Now with the struts connected to the mounting tabs the wings are much straighter than with the old mounting point locations.
Next will be another “maiden day” when I can finish dialing the Phoenix Model Giant Westland Lysander in and begin getting some stick time.
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