Had an exciting morning at the field today feeding my Mig addiction... :) I flew a total of 18 flights today, 2 each with my stock Mig29 V4 (the camo one in the middle) and with my NAMCV1 (blue one on the right) and 14 with the new NAMCV2 (blue camo one on the left). Hello, my name is Scott and I am a Migaholic... :/ :)
The NAMCV2 (I'll shorten it to V2 for the remainder of this post) flew just awesome right from the time it left my hand... :) I started off with the CofG 1/2" ahead of stock in anticipation that it was going to be forward and that is basically where it stayed all day. I needed a couple clicks of right trim on the maiden flight as I started with the battery dead centre, then after moving the battery to the right of the battery bay, I had no trim in any of the axes. Always love getting lucky when a plane dials in so quickly... :)
I won't bother comparing the V2 to the stock Mig29 V4 since the changes made make it much closer to the NAMCV1. I hesitate to make this judgement with only 14 flights on the V2 as compared to 132 flights on the V1, but I saw what I saw... :) I found it to track just a bit more solid in all phases of flight, especially the turns, not a whole lot, but enough to be noticeable compared to the V1.
Normally a bit of extra weight helps make most park jets just a bit more stable in the wind in my experience. Today it was one of those early fall days where the wind was swirling and a bit gusty, up to about 15 mph at times. But considering that this plane is 0.7 oz/20 grams lighter than the V1, I can only assume that it is something else that helps make it track a bit tighter and more quiet and stable in the turns. I might be going out on a limb here, but I think it might be attributed to the difference in shape of the vertical stabs/rudders. Here is a picture comparing the two.
It is hard to tell if there is a big difference in the total surface area of the two vert stabs, but you can notice that the V2 vert stab is quite a bit deeper in chord at the top than the V1, the difference is about 3/4". I can only surmise that as the plane is turned on it's side in a turn that this small addition of width at the top of the vert stab helps provide just a bit more stability.
The new rudders definitely have more authority, but I wouldn't expect anything else with the increase in size of almost 5 sq inches between the two rudders. I did not really get a chance to evaluate the rudder authority in high alpha which was one of the reasons I wanted to play with the new design, but hope to get some calmer weather to try it out. I don't know if it will show up in the flight video, I tried to demonstrate how direct and clean the rudders are in a stall turn. I would estimate that to get the same response, I need about 50% less stick travel with the V2 compared to the V1.
I have the same amount of travel and expo on all control surfaces between the V1 and V2, but I would say that the V2 is slightly snappier in the roll axis. It is tough to say if that is because of the longer, thinner ailerons (surface area is the same for both planes) or because of the reduced wing loading, but I am very happy with it's agility whatever is causing the improvement. Also by moving my aileron and elevon servos further forward, I have more of my weight centred closer to the CofG, making it just a bit more responsive in the pitch. I am not sure how this is going to affect high alpha as planes normally seem to do high alpha better with weight distributed more evenly from back to front, but we will have to see.
By moving the servos forward however and having the CofG not quite as far forward on the V1, I have about another 1 and 3/4" of room to place a 1600 Mah battery forward, so it might be a trade off between good high alpha and being able to fly lighter that I have to accept with modifications, but only time and more flights will uncover the possibilities.
As I said, perhaps a bit too early and premature to make the final decision, but for how I like my planes to fly and feel, I think the changes made to the ailerons, rudders/vert stabs and reduction in overall weight make this just that little bit better than the V1. As Stephan mentioned to me when I shot him a quick e-mail to tell him how it flew, it is kind of like a race car driver talking directly to the engineer, we are now making little tweaks here and there to squeeze out just that little bit better handling, speed and flying performance. It is really fun playing around with these little mods and I'm always amazed how a 1/4" here and 20 grams there can make such a difference in performance in these planes as we continue to fine tune our favorite park jet, the Mig29.... :)
Video is taking forever to upload, should have it posted tomorrow. A great day at the field today... :)
Cheers,
Scott
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