UM T-28 Maiden.
 

Hi!

I just now maidened my UM T-28! Here is pretty well how it went:
After sitting there still too nervous to launch, I finally hand launched it (No good place to really take off in a grass field :p>.) and it went up waaay too much and stalled out. Took a look at it, and my CG was way off. Adjusted the CG, and tried again. Same thing happened this time. Not sure what happened there. Then, finally, I had a successful launch, and flight. I was surprised at how well it handled, even in the slight breeze we had. Landing went prefect, and had 2 more flights just like that one before my battery drained.
Now I guess I had a little question. It sort of "bobbed" up and down as it flew, any idea what could have caused this, or how to fix it?

you mentioned "slight breeze". even this will affect the um planes pretty well. mine would "bobble" around flying into the wind, but flying with the wind it was smooth. i think when i would fly into the wind the plane would climb and i would push the stick to try and keep the plane level, thus i was causing the bobble.

i've flown the um t-28 in around 10mph winds and its a handful. fun once you get confident enough to do it, scary as all get out if your new to flying!!

congrats on the maiden flight!!!!

Thanks.
I guess it's just a little sensitive to the wind compared to my champ...I can usually pilot my champ in up to about 6 mph winds and still be able to keep it airborne and on a general flight path. I guess I could have thought and figured it out, just sort of used to my champ, I guess, so I wasn't expecting the bobbing effect so much.

Update: I flew it again today! However, I did have to wait the whole day for the wind to die down. I had a nice first flight, practicing keeping it nice and steady, and had a nice landing. Second flight was absolutely beautiful, I kept it very level and had some nice turns. Third flight was interesting... I ended up losing orientation of the plane (it was getting a bit dark outside.) and then cut the throttle, and promptly hit the branches of a tree, thank goodness it didn't get stuck, but just took a fall. The only damage was some paint chipped off the cowl and a *tiny* bit of crumpled foam in the same spot.
That was my flights today in a nutshell...

lol, it seems that trees just love to eat planes!! i swear they will jump right out in front of a plane to get a bite.

I know right? Not the first time one of my planes had a run-in with a tree. My champ got a face full of branches once as well.

I hear you on that one. I fly at dusk when there is no wind most of the time also. I could see the plane easy enough, just couldn't tell exactly if it was coming at me or going away. Especially in turns. So I added (4) 3mm LEDs, 2 small resistors, and tapped directly into the wires from the batteries. Only reduced flight time by approx 45sec at full throttle.

The 'bobbing' up and down sounds like it's maybe flying in a series of climbs, stalls and dives (looks like a roller-coaster?) that's often simply due to not being trimmed out properly, you may just need some downtrim?

Yeah, figured that out yesterday. I noticed when I came in for a landing it acted just a bit tail heavy, so I figured it had too much up trim on the elevator. Thanks for trying to help anyways!

Sounds like a nice idea. How much would a setup cost for something like that? I think I might try that. I almost always fly around 5-7 PM so it's usually getting a bit dark out.

I think the small spool of 30ga. wire was the most expensive part. 12$ IIRC. 3mm LEDS were 1 or 2 bucks for a pack of 3. I got red, green, white, and blue. A small pack of 100 diffrent size resistors was like 5 bucks. You could do it with a basic soldering kit. I set it up on a breadboard to make sure it worked.

Oh, side note, tape a length of .060 CF rod down the center of both wings. Keeps the wings from cracking during rough landings and chance encounters with trees.

Sorry didn't respond earlier, I'm on vacation and I've been busy. Anyways, I really want to have one of those LED setups, but, I didn't think about having to use a soldering kit... Because, I don't have one. How much does a soldering kit cost? I don't want anything fancy just one that'll do the job. Thanks!