Fred writes...

"WHAT an AIRPLANE!!!  It does everything you claim... and more!  Snap rolls are great, just need to up it into near stall, and have LOTS of rudder.  Knife edge is at 1/2 throttle...(keep working the ailerons though... it wants to continually correct itself).  I like to point it straight up, go hands-off, and watch it grab level flight at the stall point.  The only place one has to work with the I-wanna-fly-upright tendency is keeping steady inverted flight, and the knife edge.  I kept going with power for knife edge, as is the usual plan, and found it trying for knife edge loops!  Needless to say, it's a ball to fly!  Not just an airplane to point and slam around, but to actually FLY.

"I put in a YS .91 four-stroke, extra size for our "weak" mile-high air.  The power is perfect, but I ended up still nose heavy, even after recessing the Du-Bro iso-mounts a full inch back into the firewall (though this is only 1/4 inch back of where your plans show the Saito .80).  Hurt my pride to have to add weights to the tail, I've always been able to plan ahead to let the battery do the trim... oh well.  Even so, and with trike gear and all, it came out at 10 lbs. 5 oz, not too bad.

"I only varied from your basic design in three areas, the recessed firewall, setting it up as BOTH a taildragger and Trike (about a 10-minute changeover), and I tried Mionokote hinges for the first time (actually it's Monokote and Ultracote).  As you can see looking down on the wing, the top of the ailerons are completely flat where they join the wing, nothing but covering for hinge... top and bottom, and very easy to do.  One of the club members hare has done it for years, and says he's never had a failure, even on some LARGE gas jobs.  So far mine are as tight as when new, and it's been flwon a lot.  I used a piece of triangle stock to flatten the top of the ailerons.

"Thanks again for another fine design... I'm still flying my Venture 60, on its second engine though..."

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