...with a classy nosejob
Yesterday the Radjet took a bit of a tumble when I mistook it's orientation whilst diving down for a low flyover. The damage wasn't anything I hadn't repaired before, however a package awaiting my arrival at home afforded the opportunity of turning routine maintenance (crash repairs) into a radical transformation.
The mystic makeover took the form of a custom nose-job, compliments of a replacement nosecone for that lost during it's second coming-together with Mother Earth's formidable presence. This little piece of magic is the replacement nose cone for a Stinger 64 and, despite this being a foam plane, the nosecone is actually moulded plastic. And it fits onto the Radjet with little effort, especially if you take the route of least resistance and sticky-tape in on like I did.
The result is actually pretty good; it doesn't look quite as pretty as the original, in fact the plastic proboscis does make it look a little creepy, however it's a big improvement on the rather bluffly trimmed nose-job I had effected with a Stanley knife...
...a little heavy on the nose
The poor Radjet has had a very hard life, with numerous crashes in its short life. In fact I'd say the number of crashes to successful flights is about 50:50.
A not-unexpected result of this is that the front fuselage has slowly gained weight with layers of fibre tape and super glue to the point, when I flew it this morning, it was flying nose-down again and only barely neutral at full chat. Not a condition I enjoy, so unsurprisingly the landing wasn't the best. So the Radjet it will be subjected to some reconstructive surgery to restore it's flying balance.
On a more positive note, I've finally got a proper prop for the Walrus, the 10x6 carbon unit to replace the rather over-sized 11x6 blades I've been running with on reduced throttle setting. These new blades have a very nice contour to them and seem to run efficiently, so the Walrus was very happy...
