2nd Flight:

 

I figured there were a couple of things wrong on the first flight.  I thought maybe the plane should have a little more nose weight because it nosed up so rapidly.  I had also read the plane naturally climbs a little with neutral settings so maybe it was climbing so fast because I had put on full throttle on the first flight.  So, I added just a little more nose weight by moving the battery forward and I decided to hand launch at only 60% throttle instead of 100%.

 

The wind was still only 2 – 3 mph for this launch so was not a factor.  I gave the plane about 60% throttle and gave a good moderate hand toss.  The plane went straight out and sharply up – again to about 12 feet.  Again, it was in a stall before I could even get my hand to the radio, again I pulled full elevator and again a nose dive into the ground.

 

Here’s the damage:

 

 

I resolved that next time I’d try a rolling take off so I could have my hands on the elevator control at all times.  I was out of epoxy as I’d already slathered it all over the fuselage to put the tail back on.  I had errands to run and had to wait to fix it.  Later I got to Hobby Lobby (the craft store, not the cool RC store) and picked up some more epoxy.  I also got my kids some foam and balsa free flight planes as they are well interested by now.  And, to fall back on, I picked up a model rocket.  I haven’t done one of those since I was a kid, but remembered that they’re a lot easier to fly – just point and shoot.  The rocket should be a good fall back for next time I take my kids flying.  That way we’ll have something to do after the plane crashes.

 

After I fixed the plane it was snowing and the wind was around 8 mph.  I wanted to get an idea of if this thing would take off from the ground so I took it to the road in the park – just behind my house and throttled it into the wind.  It looked promising.  The wind was just too strong.  I don’t classify this as a flight as I was just testing to see what it would do.  Basically it rolled into the wind, but when it started to lift off it wanted to go with the wind so started turning. 

 

I did a little web surfing and found a sight where a man also had a Wingo and the picture looked pretty patched up, apparently from similar experience.  He gave his e-mail and offered to answer questions, so I sent a few.  I’m wondering if he’ll reply or if the web page is one of those old forgotten ones that litter the internet – like this one will.  We’ll see.

 

Here’s what it looked like after the 2nd flight.  Read about the 3rd flight.