Flight of the Bonanza Vtail…at last!
At the point I had finished the assembly of the VQ Warbirds Beechcraft Bonanza Vtail we were still on Coronavirus quarantine here in SoCal and all of our flying sites were closed. Well, when our fields opened up again I could not wait to get the airplane in the air! So, the first day out I brought her along and promptly logged 6 flights on the airplane. It took a few flights to get dialed in, and once tuned, I fell in love with the flight characteristics. It has great power and speed and looks awesome in the air with that characteristic vtail.
WHAT’S IN THE AIRPLANE
To recap from our Assembly review, the VQ Warbirds Bonanza Vtail is a nicely sized ARF of all wood construction coming in at a 62″ wingspan. At final ready to fly weight of 9.75lb the airplane flies beautifully and has a really wide flight envelope. The power from the E-flite Power 52 and Master Airscrew prop is awesome as the airplane is quick and maneuvers extremely well (and is happy performing any sort of non-scale high performance aerobatics). Here are the final specs and equipment that are in the airplane:
- SERVOS – Ruddervators Hitec HS5496MH, Flaps, Ailerons, Steering – Hitec HS5085MG
- RECEIVER – AR9350 9-Channel AS3X
- MOTOR – E-flite Power 52
- ESC – Spektrum Avian 100
- BATTERY – Spektrum Smart 6s 5000 mah
- PROPELLER – Master Airscrew 12×8
- RETRACTS – Robart Electric Retracts and Shock Absorbing Struts (used Robart 650 Robostruts for the mains and is separately powered with a 2s 1300mah lipo)
AIRCRAFT SETUP & CG
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, it took a few flights to get the Bonanza Vtail dialed in. Most notably, the airplane wanted to carry down elevator for trim and also would climb at full throttle. I adjusted the CG and thrust line to try and mitigate those characteristics and ultimately they didn’t make significant enough differences to continue exploring (i.e. a much larger thrust line change would be required than I cared to explore as it would require realigning and remounting the cowl). Ultimately, I moved the CG a bit further forward than the recommendation (stock location definitely felt tail heavy) and then added Continue reading