Back with the Hurricane

I posted this in the Hurricane thread on the Electric Warbirds forum, but I thought it might make some sense to post it here, as well.

I finally had a chance to take out my Hurricane this past Saturday after repairing the nose. What a fun time!



First flight: takeoff was textbook beautiful with the tail coming up, riding on the mains as speed rose, and then a gentle liftoff. I retracted gear only to find one of them hung halfway. I cycled them three times in an attempt to get them all the way up but failed each time. Decided to keep flying and enjoy the plane and deal with the gear once it was back on the ground. I was able to do lots of beautiful, big maneuvers and enjoy the power of the 25 sized motor. It pulled through the gentle breeze like a champ. Landing was okay, but I was a little rusty and the plane bounced on landing a few times. No worries; we have more batteries. Checked landing gear; the door on the port gear slid up and was binding against the wing. I slid it down a bit in the hopes that this would fix the problem.

Flight two was a little more eventful. Although starting in the same manner as the first flight, this time the gear retracted fully. Yay! More big maneuvers and low passes before the time for landing came up. I flipped the switch and.... one hung gear. Port. This time, it was only about 1/3 out. I had a choice to make: gear up on the grass or gear down and try to finness it down to slow speed while keeping the starboard wing up as long as possible. I went for option two and made what could possibly be the best landing with this plane I've ever made. I was able to set it on its starboard landing gear and the tail even came down for a two-wheel deceleration until the port wing lost lift and gently set down. I even got some applause from the peanut gallery. Post-flight it appeared the gear door vibrated down and bound with the wing again, this time blocking it from extending.



Third and final flight as the winds were really coming up was just as fun and amazing as the first two. The landing on my third flight was as perfect as any I've ever made. The plane touched down nicely, rode on its mains for a little bit, and the tail naturally came down and the plane rolled out to a nice slow speed for me to turn it around and taxi it off the active.

This plane requires more pilot input than the Parkzone or E-Flite 42-44" planes, and I'm happy for that. It's a great flying plane, but takeoffs and landings really show the skill level of the pilot in a way my other planes don't.



As you can see in the photo, I also have the 1.2m Mustang, and it's amazing that while these two planes are similar in size, the newer plane is so much lighter and with AS3X, stable almost to a fault. Both are a lot of fun, though, and these two will be among my favorites at the field for the near future and for many trips to come.