My first baby steps

[TeeJay]

Well earlier I finally finished the build of my Icon A5 1800, no FPV gear installed yet as I've never flown before and never built a plane before so it was a double maiden today



Took her out with my friend Richard from the local RC club, apart from a couple of minor niggles at first (motor canopy went it's own direction and prop wasn't clamped on properly) she flew beautifully, like a soaring eagle, I was chuffed to see her in the air, of course Richard had taken off whilst I hand launched for him so he could get a feel for any misbehavior, she pitches down a tiny bit but other than that I got it all spot on, got all my TX program mixes right, flaps to elevator mix, dual rates, expo all that stuff

The model itself has some known weak points (landing gear, tail etc) thought I'd ironed all those out before the maiden but not quite, funny these things, as you strengthen one part so another can become the "weakest link"



Anyway, I took over the flight and found it fairly easy, even in a mild wind, I did make the mistake of flying over my own head and then made it worse by try to turn it around over my head resulting in me doing circles over my head LOL, as well as getting neck ache I couldn't see what the hell the plane was doing :)

Figured after  a couple of circuits round my head that it might be better to fly away in a straight line :)
Once away from me I was doing figure 8's a tight turns which had my mate dead worried, I could hear him saying "pull up" in a rather agitated tone, I was cool about it as that how I'd been practicing on the sim, didn't panic at all but after 5 minutes it was enough for a newbie so handed it back to Richard who flew around some more then came in to land, funny, I've never seen that cartwheel style landing before :), yes he managed to tip stall it breaking the tail :) did I mentioned that Richard is also the local club instructor :)
Anyway, I'm well pleased with myself for now, plane is all fixed up, video is rendering as I type and I'll upload it when it's done, and I know it's not FPV but it is my first baby steps towards it

Next flight it will have my GoPro on it and I'm going to focus as much as possible on slow, smooth flight, gentle control etc

Boring video but thought I'd post it anyway, just to bore you

Icon A5 1800 EPO Maiden Flight

[Coyote]

Looks spot on, it seems to handle well loads of space

[FPVSteve]

Ah, Icon A5 - sweet!  ;D

Question - why didn't you do the take off roll on the nice smooth tarmac road instead of all the bumps and with the van in the way?  :o

[TeeJay]

Power lines and a stone wall, but I did suggest it to my mate though

Think I'm going to remove the landing gear completely, it's a weak point and a real pain to get it sorted

[Dizzy]

Hi Teejay

She looks nice in flight, and looks like she has plenty of room for fpv gear, i will be looking closely at this model myself for a possible future fpv plateform.

Like your write up too :D
well done

Dizzy

[mark1975]

Nice one looks spot on from what i can gather it shares the same motot as the pz radian...so power should.not be a problem

[g.collins]

brilliant mate, well don, I wouldn't put the gopro on just yet, until you have landed it safely a few times.
regards G :)