[NSRCA-discussion] Once again... (Envision)

[JShup]

Here I sit sweating my butt off in the sweet FL heat... But no longer  
am I chasing the unknown. I got the Envision and promptly threw it  
together in 2 days (a record for me lol) without truly seeing where  
any of the settings were. After a few flights I got the plane 'mixed  
and trimmed'. Wondering about some settings I had, I sent a text to  
Mark Hunt to find out where my cg range should be (actual spot at the  
wing root).  I give him the numbers he needs, he draws it out real  
quick and gives me a range. I was at the front of the range so now I  
knew where to play with the cg. To my delight, all of the mixes were  
5% and less. Looked like we hit it really close off the bat. Then I  
start fine tuning the mixes and in comes some strange S  
mixes....hmmmmmm. No biggie, it's still less than 7% all around; I can  
live with that.

But that curiousity cat got to me and I leveled the fuse out and  
checked over everything. LOL wow.... Turns out that I really missed my  
alignment of the firewall install (I'm NOT a builder so I'm ok with it  
lol) and I had some positive upthrust... oops. Out comes the 1/32"  
plywood and shims are made. Then I check the wings... Hey I got  
something right lol. They're set positive to about where they felt  
good so no adjusting needed on them, yet. Then the stabs. Just  
eyeballing them with my 'calibrated eye' they looked to be LE  
(positive?) up. After checking the meter, yep, LE up. So I get ready  
to send Chip an email about where the stabs should be according to the  
fuse marks and he happens to call. We talk about my trimming and it  
hits him... The marks haven't been moved on the first 2 planes...  
Bingo (that's why I'm glad to get the first planes, I don't mind  
working out the bugs if it means future planes are correct). So I put  
a 2nd adjuster pin tube in the fuse right under the original tube for  
the adjuster pin and after some adjusting I get them set.

So once I know where everything is, I shoot Bryan a text and tell him  
where I'm at and he laughs and writes me back a novel text. So I  
answer what I can in book format and then get another novel in return.  
Poor Bryan, I can only imagine him texting these responses back to me  
lol. So to spare us both the texting, I gave him a ring and we talked  
about everything it's doing. So he tells me where to set motor/wing/ 
stab/cg according to what I tell him it's doing and that brings me to  
today. The mixes are still less than 6% and I don't have anymore S  
point mixes. I'm still dabbling with fine tuning as it's a little  
windy out but it feels soo much better.

Thanks to:
Chip, Marcelo and the CA Models crew for helping bring the Envision to  
life
Mark Hunt for the quick cg range before his trip to the contest
Bryan Hebert for the endless answers to my setting up/trimming  
questions... yet again

Jason