Hunter flight report

John
Interested to know the flight report on the hunter?

I wasn't there but will look forward to seeing both of your models flying soon, I hope, and maybe together?

The following might be a useful additional line to add to John's flight behaviour checklist

Hi Pete, it was not as uneventful as we would have liked.

One flight only, it flew well but 1 main leg didn't fully retract so I had to put the gear down as it is air up and down and we were concerned about it locking down for landing, but with the gear down it flew like it was in treacle! I went from 1/3rd power for cruise to about 3/4 to keep it in the air.

Flew round for a bit to burn some fuel off, but it carries a lot, 6 litres! Landed early in the end as it wasnt fun to fly with everthing hanging out so it was probably pretty heavy still, came in lovely no trim change with either flap setting, all looked good, then suddenly it started to sink the last few feet and I ran out of elevator to flair. it didn't appear to be too slow and was probably due to a combo of landing with a lot of fuel and probably not enough elevator throw, it's also possible it might have been some curl over from the hedge as it was a reasonable NW wind. It didn't land too hard but unfortunately the nose bounced up and it went back in the air very nose high with no airspeed, I got on the power but as it was idling it didn't respond quickly enough to save it, so it landed harder but flat. Damage wasn't too bad, bent one main leg and broke an ally machined bit of one leg but not major.

JRI emailed me later that night to say he had the replacement under cart parts so no major harm done I don't think. I'm sure he will update here.

I've done a bit of reading up on the Ripmax Hunter after the event and everyone seems to report it has no major vices, so I'm pretty sure with a bit more elevator throw, less fuel on board and a fully retracting undercarriage and all will be good next time. One of the threads I found said with a 140 turbine the guy was getting 10 minute flights because of the fuel capacity it has, so we must have had at least 3L of fuel still on board, quite a bit of extra weight!

Really lovely model though and it looked great in the air.

MikeSeale wrote:
The following might be a useful additional line to add to John's flight behaviour checklist

:lol: That would definitely have been appropriate for both me and John!

It did look lovely, just a real shame it only had the one flight. Hopefully not long before it's up and flying again.

A good report and photo's. The nose strut lower oleo popped off after the landing and I discovered a couple of grub screw holes hadn't been threaded through causing the spring to press out the lower part. Now fixed but took a couple of hours as spring was really strong and needed some cunning to re-assemble the strut.
Still waiting for main leg lower strut to be delivered, but is an easy fix when it arrives. The other leg was not damaged and has a designed-in angle close to the retract hinge which Jon thought was a bent main leg.
Very strong landing gear overall and quite strong mountings too. Note: there is a brand new set on the BMFA classifieds at near 1/2 price (Pete?). I think the model is very draggy with the u/c down mainly due to the two nose wheel doors which act as substantial air-brakes. I will add more elevator and maybe reduce the full flap by a few degrees.
I am looking forwards to the next mission and hope Jon is prepared do the business again :blink: