Well, it’s official, I’m a Blejzyk fan boy!
At the 2019 Sunset Beach Camp & Fly I maiden the Blejzyk Mefisto. It was one of least stressful maidens I’ve had in a long time. There literally was no need for trim changes. Yes, I did trim the elevator for reflex and flap modes. I also trimmed the elevator comp for crow. But that was it.
The center of gravity is aft of 74mm (77mm) but not by much. With Aloft Hobbies 1300mAh 5 cell battery there was no need for trim ballast in the nose! This is only my second glider that I haven’t need to add nose weight to get the Center of Gravity (CoG) correct.
Rolls where nice. I will play a bit with the differential and the flap to aileron mix ratios. But as is, the rolls are more than acceptable. I did have to unload the stab (add just a touch of down) earlier than normal to get axial rolls.
Now to the rudder response, in a word fantastic! I really like the 100° “V” tail. I saw no wiggle during any part of the flight envelope. Nor did I notice any wandering at low speeds. Inverted flight had much the same feel.
Crow was very effective. Not like hit a wall effective but very nice. Even at full ballast I could fly backwards if needed to hit my landing zone. I have to note that the rudder was very responsive even at landing speeds. This was nice as it helps keep the wing tips level near the ground as I’m placing the model in the landing zone. This minimizes the chances of digging a tip into the ground and starting a cart-wheel.
Some set up notes. With the S6063 airfoil I placed the wing with about 7mm of the LE in front of the wing saddle. This does makes it look like the wing’s incidence is pointed up. To adjust for this I changed the decalage by raising the LE of the stabilizer by placing 0.7mm shim on the front of the stabilizer mounting pad. Looking at the elevator trim setting it looks like I could have used a 0.8mm shim. (The stab and elevator are flat on the bottom of the stab).
As noted earlier the CofG is aft of the factory mark 74mm vs 77mm(this is normal for my style of set up). I’ll make a measurement when I get some time.
All up weight looks like I’m 100g over weight coming in at 730g (25 3/4 oz). I have to say that with the coastal lift around here I really like that I put in the ballast tube. At Sunset State Beach there were times I could have used a bit more than the 370g (13 oz) of ballast I had allowed for.
At the empty weight of 730g (25 3/4 oz) the ship had no bad habits. At full weight my ballast tube shifts the CofG aft a bit to 77mm. At this weight 1100g (38.8 oz) and with the CofG a bit aft I noticed that the left wing would always stall first. This indicates that I may have a slight twist in the wing. (I can’t see it). I may sand the LE of the left wing a bit to lower the airfoil entry point. Please note that I had to really slow down the ship or pull real hard G’s to get the stall. As cut the Blejzyk wings have no wash out cut into the wing cores. (Another feature I like about the Mefisto).
To show that this Mefisto isn’t a fluke. I helped RalfH with his maiden of the Blejzyk Hammer. Again the maiden was a non-event. I’m sure a lot of this is attributed to his fine build. Now RalfH and I are both using Mike Shellim’s templet. Both models need to bring in the elevator comp (SpC) for Crow rather quickly. (This it true of most models). Yes, I have a very early Taranis plus with the amber screen.
Now we need to get RalfH to do a write up on his nice Hammer build. He added a few nice features!
All the best,
Konrad
