The purpose of today’s flights was to adjust the elevator trim for improved pitch control since additional instrumentation (i.e. weight) was added to the plane.
Altimeter3 was added to the Sky King to monitor parameters such as altitude, flight duration, maximum climb and sink rates etc.
The centre of gravity was first adjusted to ensure it was set for 30-33mm aft of the wing’s leading edge.
Initial trim setup was done by hand throwing the plane and adjusting the trim then 3 flights were conducted and trim adjusted after the first 2 flights.
After the first flight it was clear that the elevator was trimmed with too much nose up attitude. You can see the pitch oscillation in the graph “Sky King Flight 1”.
Improvements were made in the second flight as can be seen in graph “Sky King Flight 2”.
The trim was much better by the third flight but the wind was getting too strong to continue any further flights today. See graph “Sky King Flight 3”.
The goal is to become proficient at quickly climbing to altitude, then engine idle, and gliding back to the field for a controlled landing. Once this is repeatable then we are ready to fly some radio controlled rocket gliders.