It is a smaller version of le fish at 48 inch, the build is almost similar to le fish except the placement of the servos are on the outside. This made the build slightly easier and allow the servos to be serviceable if need be.
At our slope, le fish only managed to keep up on good lift days, so i wanted to keep the guppy as light as possible - only used single filament tape at places when its really needed, placed the electronics as far forward as i can and keep the weight at the tail down.
Sand it round as usual
Dry fitting to measure the amount of weight needed for correct C.G which was set at 2.25 inch from LE. HS65 for ailerons.
Only the CF rod reinforcements, battery and weight goes inside the fuselage this time. 4xAAA eneloop rx pack.
Everything else goes on the outside. HS56 for elevator, HS65 for rudder, Berg 4 rx.
The vertical fin was glued to the horizontal stab this time round and glassed at the joints.
Cover it all up with the left over oracover from le fish and cut a slit for the wing extension on both sides.
All done top and bottom
Head to head with le fish
The build was straight forward after having experience with le fish. It turned out ok and not much trim was needed on madien. With a lighter wind loading, it could stay up in lighter lift conditions and climbed higher than le fish could. That said, it still need quite some lift to fly though and fun only starts when the lift picks up.
It felt much more agile and nimble than le fish, i needed to turn down the rates to keep it from being too twitchy. Due to the lighter weight, it doesn't has as much energy retention. The tail as similar to le fish is the weak area, after a few tumbles the epp at the tail area tore open. A few drops of light CA and back to flying again. All in all a fun plane to wack around with.
With the wind dying down, i will have to wait til the next season to fly her again. It has been a fun 3 months sloping with the guys during which we flew, chatted, ate, complaint abt the wind together and in the process knew each other abit better. It was great, see you guys next season!
