Today the planets finally aligned, with it being calm, the rain remaining in abeyance and access to the lake being open. Things hadn't gone smoothly on the way, however, having to dodge a police roadblock and then having to hunt for the secret access point.
Finally, however, with all missions successfully completed, I arrived at the launching point ready for the Trainstar floaplane's second flight. There was just the slightest suggestion of a breeze, the lake calm and reflecting the tranquil palette of the surroundings.
The Trainstar was equipped with the new larger battery, which I hoped would provide the extra flying time to avoid awkward situations (plane marooned in the middle of the lake with a flat battery) and also provide a little extra grunt when necessary.
The takeoff runs I'm still finding problematic, with the Trainstar being quite skittish at speed and having a tendency to veer. Nevertheless I did manage a few launches and some pleasant flying across the lake.
The one issue I have encountered, twice in this session, is turning; sometimes the Trainstar will get into a tightening turn, whilst other times it won't turn tight enough. It was the latter cases which proved problematic, with the Trainstar ending up stalling and flopping nose-first into the lake.
In a testament to the unsinkability of the floats, both times the Trainstar settled back down onto the floats however, by the second occasion, the ESC had a little too much to drink and went for a lie-down. As a consequence I had to break out HMS Rescue for the first retrieval attempt.
Due to the inflatable being nicely packaged up I hadn't bothered doing a test run beforehand, however I found that, in conjunction with the electric pump, the boat was ready to go in a few minutes and, once I'd figured how to install the oars into the oarlocks, I was on my way out onto the lake.
The inflatable did surprisingly well, although my rowing skills left something to be desired. For the future I think I'll get some sort of tow rope for returning the plane, as trying to shepherd the untethered plane back to shore was rather taxing.
So all ended well, except to see whether the ESC can be resuscitated or needs replacing...
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