Flight Log: 10/07/2012

Arg, it was a short session of flying on a perfectly beautiful and calm day.  I had my CG Ultimate out for the day, and messed up the landing on the 2nd flight.  Came in too slow, added power, had to adjust quickly as wings tipped, and started to envision a cartwheel down the runway.  Luck was with me and the plane righted in time, but bounced around enough to flatten the main gear a little, and break the tail wheel bracket.  I expected to see broken FG wheelpants, but they were fine.  Expected to see dents in the bottom of the wing due to the wheel pants, but there were none.  The tail wheel bracket is plastic/nylon and the plane is 20 years old, so I think it just got old and brittle enough to break under a bad landing, lol.  I then wanted to fly the Apache, but the elevator servo was real touchy around neutral and would not return to the same position often, and I mean it was 1/8" off...pretty bad.

I came home and got to work fixing both planes.  Finished the Ultimate first.  I could not find another identical CG tail wheel bracket anywhere in my parts, so I went with a used Sullivan tail wheel bracket that I fortunately kept.  I had to straighten it out, but I got it on and it should work well.  I did not use the coiled spring connection between the bracket and the rudder because I have seen enough of those hopelessly bent, so I substituted in some thicker piano wire.  For the main LG, I removed both, along with the leggings, and bent them back and more with my adjustable wrench and body weight.  I got them pretty even and had to go back and forth between them, and trying them on the plane to test for level stab/wings.  Came out good, and I mounted them back on with the leggings too.  She is ready to go and show who's boss again.  (I do think this Ultimate flies truer than the larger AW Ultimate which has fair amounts of roll and pitch coupling when rudder is applied in KE.)

For the Apache, I thought the servo was worn out at neutral, so I removed it, and found another HS-55 which had stripped gears.  I switched all the gears out of the stripped servo, and put the good gears inside.  Mounted it back in the Apache and expected success.  The servo still acted the same way yet it had been fine on my servo centering device!  Humbug!!  Aha, the transmitter became the suspected culprit.  I switched the crystal from the transmitter to another one, and sure enough the elevator servo acted smoothly at neutral and all other deflections.  Joe gave me this brand new transmitter years ago to try with the Apache because it has basic programming capabilities.  Well, it came in very handy today!  While in the Apache, I noticed the servo tray was loose from one side of the fuse, so I CA'd that back in.  Also, the sliding canopy was getting loose, so I used CA to build up the bump inside the canopy that holds it from slipping off the fuse.  These planes do need TLC routinely to ensure they treat the pilot nicely!  The Apache is ready for the warpath to thermal heaven again!