Well Done Brett.... Can't wait to see it in the air! I hope you'll be able to post a video?

She's all done now.
Just waiting on the green light on the field.
AUW is 1330grams with a wing loading of 15.5oz/ft2 and a cubic wing loading of 8.8, which is at the low end of aerobatic.
Prop is 9x4.7 and she produces over 400w at WOT. Should have plenty of poke.

She really is a beauty!
Good luck for the maiden flight !

Finally got around to maidening the DM today.
Conditions were ideal with slight overcast and zero wind.
Takeoff was quick and uneventful. She needed a fair amount of down trim and some slight right aileron trim to fly level. Once trimmed she would fly straight and level at any speed.
I was really dubious about the +1% wing incidence and zero thrust angle as per the plans, but it seems to work quite nicely.
Rolls are slow and axial. I only tried it on low rates, so I expect the roll rate to increase on higher rates.
Elevator and rudder authority are good without being overly sensitive. I'm glad I increased their size a little.
Inverted flight was easy with just a slight amount of forward pressure on the elevator.
Landing was also uneventful, except she really likes to float and thus covering a lot of real estate before touching the ground.
Ground handling is excellent and the wheel pants didn't catch on the long grass like many do at this particular field.
Only problem I had was vibration over 3/4 throttle, so I will have to rebalance the prop before attempting any high speed runs.

I only got the one quick flight before rain cancelled all the fun, but all in all I would say that the Dream Machine truly lives up to its name.
Sorry, no video yet.

Not a big surprise, but glad the maiden went well! looks like you have a really nice plane there!! hope to see a video soon! thank you for a very good build log!! I'll definitely use some of the techniques you've shared on future builds!!

Thanks Zee.
Pick the right plane and avoid all the pain.
Not the most exciting way to go about things, but when I invest a lot of time and effort in a build I like to get the aeronautical basics right.
The non conventional stuff I leave for quick builds.

Vibration turns out to be from a crook motor bearing. No doubt too many previous sudden stops followed by an influx of dirt.
Swapped the bearing out from another motor and she now runs smooth.
I have also disengaged the motor brake in the hope that the windmilling prop will slow the plane down a little for landing.

I now have another project on the go. Something to do during winter so it will be long drawn out affair.

Quick video made by a fellow club member.
This was my 3rd flight and I was really off the ball that day due to being dog tired, so apologies for the poor flying.
Though I reckon I aced that landing after a pretty hot approach.

The Dream machine (1 min 39 sec)

Very Nice Brett!! Looks like you have a real winner there. Thanks for sharing. It was good to watch your build from the very beginning to the successful flights. You did a great job!! While not in the same class of foam build as the dream machine here is a video of one of my early flights of a F22 profile foamie I recently completed (during my "lockdown")!! took about two hours to build, and flies great!

f22 high alpha (3 min 6 sec)