I got quite a few flights on the E Forza this weekend at the World Soaring Festival at Sky Park. The site is epic nestled over a mile high in the San Bernardino mountains overlooking the greater Los Angeles basin. Gorgeous! The is for sure not the normal slope site, its Slermal (slope+thermal). This weekend it was blowing well so the slope part was working great in close, and boomer lift far out. I could easily launch motor off, punch out into the lift and end up going as high and as far out as I wanted. Different style of flying for sure, but much like I imagine what Alpine style flying must be like in Europe. I failed to take enough pictures but there were 60+ pilots there and tons of cool airplanes.
The plane flies great, no surprise since the regular Forza is a sweetheart. I have not weighed it yet, but I'm guessing it is around 80-85oz. My set up is a Dual Sky 3036EG outrunner, 10 x 6 Aeronaut folder, SkyWing 40A ESC and Tattu 4S 1800. I used Tomas Liu 9mm servos and frames in the ailerons and tail, 10mm for the flaps. Climb at 1/2 throttle is in excess of 45 degrees, full is straight up and accelerating. After about 1/2 dozen climbs, the brake function stopped working letting the prop windmill. This of course kills the glide. I think this may be a thermal issue, as there are no cooling air exits. I plan to cut some in and try that. After cooling down, the brake functions again as normal. Not sure how much total motor run time I get as I didn't keep track, but I flew 3 flights on one pack without recharging. With 3-5 second climbs, you don't need a lot lol.
I explored the CG range and as expected I like it well aft. Climb under power does require some down elevator. Easily handled with my thumb, but I did add a small mix and I plan to let everyone fly it. There is minimal coupling in glide, easy push while inverted and good manners at slow speeds. I run the flaps coupled as ailerons full time, so roll rate is quite lively. Thermal turns like a bit of rudder when tight, otherwise with about 70% differential it feels pretty neutral. Huge loops, point rolls and fast inverted passes are all super fun and confidence inspiring. Landing manners are good, I have about 60 degrees of flap, and 15 degrees of up aileron for crow. It takes quite a bit of down elevator to keep the nose from coming up and I have rudder mix turned on with Crow as well. With all of this it is nice and stable, you can just drive it in to your landing spot without over speeding and pick your spot.
It was flying well enough right off the bat that 2 other pilots flew in on the maiden. About 1/2 dozen got a try over the 2 days. Looking forward to some flat land flying over the holiday weekend.
Red
