Today was the day to maiden the Supreme Hobbies Airbus A320 that I purchased from www.x-flight.com.hk . Another site that sells it is pw-rc.com and I would have bought it from there, but they didn’t have that many spare parts. Since I started into this RC Airplane flying hobby back at the beginning of 2015, I’ve learned to buy the PNP kits and then buy a very basic kit for spare parts, just in case. Crashes to occur, but less than before.
This was a great kit. It looks so scale! It is big with an almost 1100mm wing span and 1200mm fuselage length! It barely fits into my 540i!!! I have to lay the front of the plane on the center armrest with the landing gear down. The front landing gear sits in the center console pen trench. The rear center arm rest has to be laid down so that the tail can fit.
I did some taxiing to see if the plane taxis straight. I then managed to take some pre-flight shots just in case.
I flew my other planes to warm up and started to get more nervous as the time came closer. Nick asked me if I was still going to fly the A320, “…no pressure!.” With the encouragement from the other friendly flyers at Sierra Point Parkway, I got the encouragement to fly her. The wind wasn’t too much.
Roy helped me hold the plane back until the engines spooled up to full thrust and let go on my command. I took off in the southern direction and several feet down the runway, it finally lifted off. It’s my biggest plane so far, even slightly bigger than the A-10. I made some turns and the plane wanted to turn right. It also felt nose heavy and wanted to go nose down! I managed to control the right tendency and I had to now add a bit of up elevator. I trimmed in a bout 50% to the left and up, each! Ramone kept yelling out to relax, and it was helpful, I felt comfortable. Dave told me to slow the plane down as I was still flying at full throttle. Slowing the plane down allowed me more time to trim and it seemed to iron herself out and she seemed to settle in. Mid flight I almost crashed bad. It got terribly close to the ground while turning. Luckily I pulled out of it and saved her. Now I had to land…
As I was making my final approach, and even though I still had a little extra time on the battery or flight left, I decided to bring her in. I said to myself, “I can do this!” I lined up fairly well. I put down the flaps to 100%. It seemed to help, but the plane was coming in too fast. I still had about 25% throttle on. I need to bleed off some speed, but had to come in. I flew over my head kinda close and immediately I turned around to see it. I managed to land it with a little hop, but it was heading slightly to the right where there is a curb. Unfortunately, I couldn’t steer enough to the left to avoid the curb. The right wing hit the curb, then the right nacelle hit and the shells fell off. Then it stopped! Phew! Now the shakes!
Dave helped me repair the right nacelle. Drake, a little boy out there amazingly helped me find some little plastic pieces that help keep the nacelle glued to the wing. Amazing eyes! Thanks, Drake! We discovered that the front landing gear retract was a little cracked. It seemed to function still. Phew not too expensive fix. We glued the cracks back together. The brunt of the landing gear damage was the poor little servo for steering. This servo is tiny (<5g). I’ve read on the forums that this is a weak link and the servo needs to be a metal gear one. On Monday, I will be going around looking for a metal gear one! J&M, I hope you have one! Everyone like the look of it and the scale of it! Flying at 50% throttle was super nice. It wasn’t too slow and it wasn’t too fast. I just have to make sure my landings are a lot better, however I believe this will be easier with practice, of course, but becoming more familiar with the plane’s tendencies. Upward and forward! GregC
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