Beautiful Maiden!

Beautiful day to maiden a beautiful aircraft! Its my practice, as it is of many who trained me, to allow someone else to maiden my newly built aircraft when I can, since I am still a bit of a novice pilot. This way if something goes wrong its the wand and not the magician. Today I nervously took the Eflite Pulse XT out to BMF to maiden. I asked Dickie Ober, our club prez, to take her up for me. We checked her out, and then he took her out to the flightline, shortened a bit while the scars of the recent repairs heal. There was no wind, beautiful cloudless sky. He powered her up and with a smidge of back stick she lifted off clean and sweet. She flew so incredibly well it was mind-boggling! This is what you get when you purchase a well made kit by skilled designers, follow their lead and install quality electronics. She was sharp in her maneuvers, speedy, great vertical, and calm on takeoff and landing. He took her through mid and high rates, and we trialed the flaperons. They worked smoothly and had a sound effect, but I think a bit more is in order. I had -25% and -40% dialed in, but reprogrammed it at the end of the day with -40% and -50% which I will try tomorrow. I flew her myself for the remaining 2 flights. I am so excited and pleased with this, my favorite plane!

Oh, and I managed to get my Tail-Hook Ticket punched! There was a yellow ribbon about 6-8 inches off the ground cordoning off the repaired runway which is closed. The approach to the remaining runway to the south requires an approach right over the patch. I brought her in low, thinking I would clear the tape, but at the last minute realized I wouldn't... I could power up and hope to clear it, or land and roll into it. I chose the latter and she touched down, rolled out snagging the 2-wire! Not bad!

It was a lot of fun, the couple hours I was out! I flew the Stearman, amazingly well behaved though she tried to tip stall on landing twice, and the Trojan. All in all a great day!

We hung out in the south pit since the northern end of the runway is still closed. Jerry, Joe, Bobby and Ron in this pic. My Stearman, Pulse and Trojan on my bench with my IS in the background.