RCP Mig29 V4 NAMCV3 post flight report

Hi everyone -

I'm a very happy park jet pilot today, not only because it was the first time I got to fly in over a week, but I also managed to get the maiden flight done on my new RCP Mig29 V4 NAMC3... :)  It is the white one in the picture below, the green and brown camo plane is my stock built RCP Mig29 V4.

I must admit, I was a bit apprehensive about this maiden flight because of all the modifications I had made WRT to shortening the plane and moving the motor forward.  But luckily for me, the RCP Mig29 didn't let me down... :)  I managed to blast 10 batteries through my new plane today, very happy... :)

Fortunately the weather gods were on my side today as it was pretty much dead calm, great conditions for a maiden flight.  As mentioned in a previous post, I started off with the plane balanced dead on the CG per the plans and other than moving the battery ahead maybe 1/8" after the first flight to help keep the nose down at top speed, it balanced right on the CG per the plans.  This is interesting to me as with all my previous Mig V4s including stock, they all balanced about 3/4" to 1" ahead of stock CG, so moving the motor forward and shortening the back end of the plane brought the CG back about 3/4" from what I had been experiencing on all my previous Migs.

I have my battery almost all the way to the left side of the battery bay as shown in the picture below to have zero trim in the roll axis.  The tip of the screwdriver annotates where the CG is on my plane.

This plane felt rock solid and balanced from the minute it left my hand on the maiden flight... :)  By having all the weight, servos, motor, Rx, ESC and battery all within a 10.25" span on the plane, it is without a doubt the most precise and tightest feeling Mig of all the Migs I have built and flown.  Not that the others are sloppy, but the precision and balance on this plane is about the best I have felt in any plane I have flown to date.

It is very responsive, but not twitchy in all three axes (pitch, roll and yaw).  It just goes where I point it effortlessly and precisely with no wasted movement or energy.  The really interesting thing is that I would say I need about 10-15% less control input in all axes with this plane than with the other Migs I have in my hangar.  To do a stall turn, I just barely need to touch the rudders and it rotates smoothly without rudder roll.  In fact, if I put on the same amount of rudder deflection I do with my other Migs, it will start to rudder roll, but with just a delicate touch, it stall turns effortlessly.

Turns are rock solid, it just carves it's way through turns but again without being twitchy or sloppy, it just finds it's line and goes where it is supposed to.

Rolls are crisp in both directions, I almost get the feeling like there is a rod right down the centreline of the plane that the plane is revolving around, very tight rolls with little control input.

As expected with being 2" shorter than stock it is very responsive in the pitch, but without being too aggressive, again, it finds it's line and just carves through loops.

Where it really jumps ahead of the other Migs is in slow speed flight and high alpha.  I think that because of the motor and the centre of thrust (CT) being so much further forward coupled with the battery almost all ahead of CG, it just settles into slow flight and high alpha with amazing stability.  I was able to comfortably fly it around at about 35% throttle and it felt very solid and stable.  With my other Migs at times flying them that slow I feel like I am on a razor's edge most of the time, with this NAMCV3 Mig, it is much more forgiving at slow speed.  It settles into and maintains high alpha more easily than my other Migs although with the increased effectiveness of all the control surfaces, I will need a bit more practice getting the rudder throws and expos dialed in to keep high alpha smooth and stable when turning.

Like all the other Migs, it is very stable at speed, the faster it goes, the more stable it becomes.  In the video I mentioned it seemed to reverse torque roll at full throttle, but I discovered this was due to one of my rudders not being completely dead center :/ , so after adjusting that, problem solved... :)

Perhaps because almost all the battery is ahead of CG, on landing it does need a little more up elevator to hold the nose up and flare nicely on landing.

So despite some of my initial trepidation over how it would fly with such ambitious modifications, my stress was for not, it flies absolutely amazing.  Although I have not yet analyzed it's wind stability, in all other aspects it is amazingly crisp, solid and stable.  Being that much shorter than the other Migs and having all the weight so centrally located, it just feels so tight and precise.  Again, not that the other Migs were sloppy, but I feel this plane is tighter in everything it does, no wasted movement or effort, it just gets the job done better in every way.

I have walk around and flight video processing now and will hopefully have that posted on You Tube later today.  Then my next project will be to get a usable set of drawings, pictures and supporting documentation done to support and explain all the modifications I made to this plane.

So not sure what is up next for me, I think probably another FRC Su35 MK2 with the motor moved forward significantly after seeing how doing that improved slow speed handling on this version of the Mig29 V4.  But maybe a bit of a break first til my building buddy Bently gets his strength back...guess I have been working him too hard lately... :/ ;)

Questions or comments?  Please leave them below, or if you don't have a Google account, feel free to e-mail at  migsrus@outlook.com 

Cheers,

Scott