Well the maiden flight of CF-104 703 is complete. It took about two and a half days to work out some small problems but it now is officially an aircraft and not a model any more. The video is a bit shaky and in some places it looks like the plane is wobbling  a bit but all in all it is pretty good and I would like to thank Frank Musil for taking it.

Here is the link to the video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1clw2a7w18

Well engine run complete and a brief taxi test. Test flights coming up next month.

Also was out with my buddy Jack Lowe who had his new scratch built P-51 out for an engine run and some taxi time as well,

This little beauty has a Kolm 100cc inline four stroke gas engine that sounds fantastic.

I have a bit of time prior to the taxi testing and flight testing of the 104 so I thought it would be a good time to service the A-10 landing gear.
This gear is very scale. The oleo is air over hydraulic and the brakes are a disc pack like the real ones.
At the end of last season I noticed that one oleo was  a little low on pressure as it sat a bit lower on that side of the plane.

Here you see the disc as it sits in the wheel.

It is a beautifully made little unit. It sits on the splines of the hub which you can see in the picture.

Once the gear is off the plane there is a valve at the top of the oleo that must be in the upright position or you get covered in hydraulic fluid. There is a little plunger that comes with the gear. You suck up some hydraulic fluid into it and once you have released the air from the unit you can remove or add fluid to the oleo. After that you can add a set amount of air in the strut (this varies depending on the model) and you are done.
Now resembled and ready for another season of flying.

One thing that I forgot to do was to make up some inlet covers. The Princeton jet site is semi arid and the soil there is like sand and gravel mixed. It can be very windy in the afternoons which usually shuts down the flying. Planes just sit and the dirt and sand blows into the inlets unless protected.

The A-10 has some nice engine nacelle covers (made by my dear wife) and that solves the problem for the Warthog.

A few adjustments and the plane is ready for initial engine run  and testing.

The hardest part is yet to come. TEST FLIGHTS.
Taxi testing I will do at my club field here in Victoria but the flight testing will need to be done in Princeton BC which has a full size runway. Nice to have 5000 feet of pavement in case you are up wind and the engine quits.

The C/G and the weight is all done as you can see on the screen of the electronic c/g meter screen.

This screen shows the plane with 0.18 LB nose heavy. I am planning on test flying it that way and will possibly need to go to a lighter pilot to save some ounces forward of the C/G to move the balance back a bit.

This screen shows the all up weight and the weight on each of the main gear legs and the nose gear leg.
I have some programming of the ECU to do for the turbine and some minor radio programming changes to make. Taxi testing  in another month or so, as soon as the runway is firm enough.

I am finally in the home stretch with the 104.

Been working on the placement of the batteries for proper C/G.

Did a final test on the lights after relocating the battery.

position and nav lights working

Landing lights working

Radar working