Torii's Real Flight - Satisfied

Assalamu'alaikum,

[This entry described Torii flight session on Monday 11-May-2009]

Monday was a holiday for me. I was actually a replacement holiday, just for my office! Thank god, I was able to spend more time with Torii. As what I mentioned in my previous post, I have arrange with aerobrain to come over to my house and snap some photos for Torii flight session.

It was about 11.00 am. We reached at Putra Height field 2. It was already quite late, the sun already high and the environment was quite hot. The sky is clear with a bit of wind blowing intermittently.

Put down, arranged Torii and the related equipments on the grass. Filled up the tank, this time really full. When starting the engine, I have same problem as previous. The crank shaft was too heavy to be rotated by the starter. I need to take out the canopy and flush the fuel from the engine, just like the previous session. Just before I tries to start the engine again, I noticed there were 2 screws missing from the Torii, while the impact is not that major, it may impat the flight behaviour of Torii. One screw was for holding the battery tray to the frame and another one was one of the screw for Torii's skid. Luckily I have some extra screws available in my box, for that reason, I was able to replace them very quickly.

Engine started up easily after the engine flushed. Did a normal lift-off and in-flight control check. Everything was just fine. Tested the climb rate, also very good. I brought Torri to the ground, to check it's engine temperature, it was fine too. However when I spooling up for lift up again, the engine died! I need to bring the Torii to the shades to start the engine again.

This time the engine started right away. Then I did take off from the shades it self, cool but dangerous (!). I don't have enough margin for error or parts failure. But again, its really cool :)

Start spooling up the main rotor


Just before the take-off


Took-off and 'taxi' into the open space

Switched to idle-up flight mode. Yup, everything was ok. Did some figure 8 and some half stall-turns. Nice, just nice.

The fuel almost finished after about 10 minutes of flight. Landed for refueling, in the shades as well (again this is dangerous!).

For the second tank flight, I was more confident. I did was able to do figure 8 flight confidently and the stall turns as well. I even did some negative pitch test while in the vertical posture. Yes, the negative pitch responded as expected (important for inverted flight).

I was flying with confidence this time.. just enjoy the photos..

Quick in-flight check

Truemax and Torii


'Taxi' towards open space


Diving from a stall turn


Direcly above!

However, I decided not to try the inverted hover yet!

Heading towards landing location

Landed safely at about 11.45am. Decided to end the session at the completion of the second tank. I should have more practice in simulator before the inverted hover with Torii, don't want to take any risk.

Fully satisfied. :)


Note:
1. Thanks to aerobrain for all high quality photos for this session!!
2. Sorry, so many photos in this entry, can't restrain myself from sharing the excellent quality photos. Not many time I have these for Torii.

::truemax over and out