July 15th

We had talked about Colusa or Woodland for one of their fly-ins today, but it was forecast to hit 108F and I was on call, so, uh, nah... 

Having had success with Randy's rotor, we went to the airport early and started working on mine.

The first circuit didn't get any data, so we went back out for the first set.  It was miles out.

First span balance

We figured we'd need a lot of span and chord, so we wound in 1.5 turns and added 4 rounds of electrical tape.  The next flight was so bad that I almost just landed as soon as we took off, but decided to tough it out just to get some data.  Well, it had shaken so much that the sensor was moved off the reflector point.  I figured one of the changes was wrong, so I took the tape off and we tried again.  It was still shaking all over the place, so I figured we'd gone the wrong way on the span.

Second span balance

Not so - we'd gone too far.  Interestingly it was closer than it had been, so we took out 0.5 turns and tried again.

Third span balance

It was better, but we also noticed that it had tracked towards the centre, rather than just down.  Another 0.5 turns out.

Fourth span balance

It was almost central, and moving closer to the vertical axis.  Another 0.25 turn.

Fifth span balance

The odd thing here is that it had moved down, but not right.  Another 0.125 turn.

Final span balance

Again, 0.1 is considered good, and we're under 0.05 :o)

We went to lunch with Shane, and Vic joined us, then went home to celebrate by printing little plastic knobs to hold bolts into helmet visors.