| The Dyna-flite Bird of Time is my newest sail-plane for 2010. I've wanted one of these magnificent sailplanes for nearly 40 years, and on Thursday, 14 January 2010 I took delivery of my very own Bird of Time!!!!!!!! . |
16 January 2010: Box is opened, plans are on the table for initial review.
30 April 2010: Geez, what a project!!!! I've been working on this plane for 4 months and it's finally nearly finished. You'd think
that a glider would be a fairly simple project - NOT THIS ONE. However, at this point all I have to do is finish sanding the
fuselage, install the 2 main servos, paint her and go fly. I can hardly wait!!
Got a couple "building" pics below.
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30 April 2010: Geez, what a project!!!! I've been working on this plane for 4 months and it's finally nearly finished. You'd think
that a glider would be a fairly simple project - NOT THIS ONE. However, at this point all I have to do is finish sanding the
fuselage, install the 2 main servos, paint her and go fly. I can hardly wait!!
Got a couple "building" pics below.
.
| Left wing, elevators and rudder . |
| Both wings, elevators and rudder finally finished . |
| Close-up of left wing & elevators showing spoiler . |
| Rather fuzzy, showing fuse partially sanded . |
| Close-up, showing spoilers extended . |
| Good shot of fuse, partially sanded. Area between the two red dots is where I sanded so much that I went right through the glue joint and had to re-glue before proceeding. . |
16 May 2010: First flights!!!! After finally getting the balance right, which took hollowing out the nose block from the bottom
and inserting a lot of small bullet weights, then filling the hole with epoxy. Total lead count: nose block FILLED with all the lead
she can hold, plus 6 "1/2" bullets in front of the battery, plus 6 in the floor. Balance is now right at the normal recommended CG.
After a fair bit of sanding to re-establish my surface lines and smooth out the bottom I took her out on Sunday (un-repainted) for
another test.
Results: SHE FLIES!!!!!!!!
OMG! SHE FLIES like no sailplane I've ever put up before!!!!!!!!!!!! What a bird!!!!!!!!!!!
She's got a couple issues, both minor and probably related. When I sanded the wing-tips I blew the right side and it's tilted up a
bit which makes her want to go left on launch but that'll get fixed this week. She also doesn't want to turn right very well but I
think that's also due to that wing-tip as the rudder has full movement in both directions. Corrected it at the field by taping 2
pennys to the right wingtip and it helped a lot.
Total flying so far: 6 hand-launches, all successful. 7 high-start launches, all fair/good. Re-positioned the launch hook from #3 to
#2 after high-start launch #3 and she climbs a whole lot smoother and straighter in #2. First couple flights were in the
90-second range (after release from tow), she didn't do well on those first couple launches at all. #3 was somewhat better -
flight-time almost 5 minutes. Launches #4 and 5 were good, nearly full to the top, 6 & 7 were full to the top. Each of the last 4
launches gave me GREAT flights.
To say I'm a happy camper would be the understatement of the year! Dale took a whole bunch of pics, I'm including a few (just a
few) here.
BTW, that transparent yellow positively "glows" in the sunlight.
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