Skysurfer Returns

Over the past few day as I did my revision during recess week, I could not help but think about the plane’s inability to fly on monday. Sure, it was beaten up and the aircraft’s nose has already been compressed inwards, but this could not have contributed to it not being able to fly afterwards. After all, past experience with the plane taught me that all it takes is balancing of the CG before the plane is airworthy again.

To verify that what caused the plane to crash was actually the CG, I went out to old holland road again this morning(1st October 2020). The wind at the time of my arrival was calm, perfect for flying. However, rain was imminent in the distance (buildings started disappearing) and that caused the wind to pick up speed again. I had to act fast and got to work as soon as I could.

The first few flights involved throwing the plane without throttle to see if will glide. Once I was satisfied, real tests began.

The first powered flight was rather shaky. Using a lighter 1500mAh battery meant that the aircraft was tail heavy and I had quite a challenge controlling the plane. Note how in the onboard camera footage, the plane had a tendency to pitch up, and a hard landing caused the camera to be ejected from the canopy (no damage though):

However, it wasn’t long before the 1500mAh battery was expended (somehow, running the motor also caused quite a bit of voltage sag), leaving me with only the heavier 2200mah battery to fly with. That being said, it balanced out the CG perfectly!

I intended to stay for a while longer since the first storm in front of me had blown away (and MSS’s lightning website did not report any lightning activity) but a bigger storm behind me was brewing and I started hearing thunder in the distance (upon checking the MSS website,  massive lightning activity was reported around the Tuas area), so I had to pack up and call it a day.

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