[Sparky69]

Lessions learned from Parker.
The Sundowner class had 14 entries. All planes were run through tech and items verified. The weights were all over from 13.58 ponds to almost 14.5 ponds. Grunk made a little carb air deflector from fiberglass available to any one who asked, thanks Grunk! I think the races were pretty good with the combination of plane, prop, engine. the planes were quiet during the race. Eyeball speeds were about 110 mph maybe. I think most had done some work to add some color to ease the turn judges work I believe we had only one refly as a result miss identification.

My plane being flown by Blue Moon Racing team member Terry Williams who won the Gold with my plane. Terry hadn't flown any races this season and did not have a plane so he was the logical choice for our race entry. He flew the plane one time prior to the first checkered flag dropped
The plane was the one I used for the prop testing so the plane had about 20 flights sorting out the
various props. These flights were about 7 minutes long and I only did simulated pylon turns in race conditions. No stall turns, rolls, (OK one roll) loops. Just race laps. Control throws were optimised for race conditions they were maybe even a little soft Terry confirmed they were "Sluggish". In racing conditions the plane was not the fastest many thought that Mike Friesel's Sundowner was the fastest which was also part of our race team.

This is how the Gold Class winner was set up.
I did not put tape on anything for streamlining or covers over the landing slot in the fuse. I even had the antenna dangeling out the hole provided.
I was at about 13.75 lbs with a 5 cell 2100 NImH in the rear. A 2S 2100 Lipo under the rx. Hollow tubes in the tail of the plane. I used the Radial engine mount instead of the beam mounts.
CG was 3" control throws were about the book values although I think I could have used a little moe up elevator for landings most likely due to the forward cg.
The ignition module was mounted on the bottom of the engine box. I reinforced the firewall with Bamboo pegs around the edge just as extra insurance. slapped on an extra coat of thinned epoxy for furl proofing. I ran a 10 oz tank over the CG which I think would be better served with a 12 oz tank, Terry ran out of fuel at the end of one race while we were trying to figure landing order.
The cowl had tape over the left intake, lower "carb", and half of the right opening. I did not use Grunks air deflector. Just kept the stuff that works the same. I had no cooling ducts or baffels inside and I did have a additional cooling air exit on the bottom.

The way that Terry won the race was smooth consistant flying, paitence (it takes a while for the plane to fly the length of the course (1600')) and a great turn caller Bobby Slaughter. I wll be more than happy to answer your questions about flying the Sundowner.

We are installing a Moki 2.1 and will do additional testing with the combination and see haow things go I think everybody wants to go faster with these fun little planes.

Lets race!
Sparky