Congratulations Curt, wonderful feeling isn't it. To me a big part of what this hobby is all about is the personal challenges we have to overcome in order to make it to the next level. This past year sure has been an exciting and challenging one for me. The TwistMaster project in itself has really been a learning experience.
First it was Ted egging me on to write an article for Stunt News. Learning enough about AutoCAD to draw the plans and writing something hopefully interesting enough for others to enjoy was a major hurdle. But with much help and advise it happened.
Then it was finding the right combination of tank and engine in order to get a decent engine run. Started with a plastic clunk tank and an OS 35-S. Even with long motor mounts and a stiff nose the 35-S vibrated bad enough to caused all kinds of weird engine run problems. An OS 40FP with a GRW Chicken Hopper tank and some well received advice from Brett Buck solved the problem.
Texarkana Arkansas, First contest in over 25 years, first official flight, wife was holding and I was starting. The engine kicked back, the airplane moved. I looked up and the wife had the tail in her hand with the most shocking look you could imagine:o She was holding the plane by the outboard wing with her right hand and the rudder with her left hand. The rudder broke off in her hand when the plane moved and she was almost crying. Went ahead and flew the flight without the rudder. Ended up with a 3rd place in Intermediate after two days of flying, getting over my anxiety attacks and fixing the rudder.
During the contest I noticed the plane was hinging bad on outside corners so as soon as I got back to Tulsa I went to work getting it trimmed well enough to fly a decent pattern. With some much appreciated advise from Al Rabe, Bob Hunt and others I managed to get the TwistMaster flying pretty darn good. Shortened the line length to 55 foot and cut 4 inches off the inboard flap. This allowed me to carry more tip weight to help the overall line tension and hid the hinging well enough to not be a problem.
2nd contest, Wichita Kansas. First time I had ever flown the TwistMaster off pavement. First practice flight the plane does a ground loop on landing.. I had bent the landing gear wire forward a little to keep it from nosing over on grass landings and had introduces a little toe-out. Thank goodness we ended up flying off grass and I ended up with a 1st place trophy.
The Dallas contest was quickly approaching and I found out that Intermediate would be flown off pavement. Had to do something about the ground handling and quick. Happened to have another Twister kit (Ready for TwistMaster II ) so I snatched the landing gear wires, put on a set of light foam wheels and made sure I set them up with a little toe-in. While I was at it I re-bent the original gear to fix the toe-out problem and now have two sets of gear. One for grass with the wheels about 1 inch forward of the leading edge and one for pavement with the wheels right at the leading edge.
Dallas, first official... About half way through the square eight I realized I had forgot to do the square loops.. Oh man what do I do now... Second official, after all the hurdles everything just seemed to come together, flight went really well with the best landing I have ever done. The TwistMaster took home another 1st place and I was one happy guy.
It's been a great year with allot of hurdles overcame with the help of some very fine people... The TwistMaster has proved itself with 2 wins and a 3rd place at the 3 contests I was able to attend, it has accomplished what I had in mind when I glued that first rib.. What a great hobby... Onward and upward....