First day out this year and it was a good one. Things could have gotten a lot worse than they did and I can't complain. The pictures are of my Brodak Super Clown which suffered a structrual failure in the outboard wing exiting a wingover on the third lap of my flight. On investigation the cause of the failure was a leading edge fracture which probably happened after a hard non-powered nose-in crash in the Fall. The trailing edge and flap show signs of twisting from the failure. After the failure I managed to level the plane and burn laps until the fuel ran out. Interestingly enough any time I gave it up or down the nose would stay straight and the plane would rise or sink. The good thing is the plane can be fixed in one evening and I saved the prop.
The other interesting lesson learned today was with a stock Twister with a Tower .40. The .40 was exibiting a runaway condition where it would start on the ground rich then go lean in flight. This was with an 11-4 prop. I replaced the prop with a Rev-Up 10-6 W readjusted the needle and was able to get a very consistant run from the engine. I put several flights on the Twister with the 10-6 and was rewarded with a great flight each time.
In all I had a very good first day out.
Finch