The Merlin is finally complete! The first fine weather in six weeks or so saw its first test flight. Once it was trimmed out I took over, but was not happy. Despite the fine weather, a strong north wind was creating quite a bit of turbulence and with the large wing area it felt quite a handful. So after a couple of quick flights she was put away.
The next day saw better conditions, much smoother air so we took to the air again. But something was not right, the ailerons seemed to be glitching despite a satisfactory range check. Landed, swapped the brand new GWS receiver for a tried-and-tested Futaba and flew again, this time no glitches. This was probably part of the problem the day before.
The only problem to note was the engine spluttering on tight turns.

A few more flights has shown a tendancy to pull to the left in normal flight, correcting this by trimming the rudder has been somewhat successul, but the cause is a mystery. The fusalage appears straight, the thrust line appears ok, wing is square, fin and other surfaces appear to be aligned fine. An email to the designer has also failed to reveal any hidden problems.

Unhappy with the performance, the old Enya 40 was replaced with a new Thunder Tiger GP42. Still the performance was mediocre until the prop was reduced to a 10x5. By this time I had gotten a bit bored with it and had acquired a limbo dancer, so it was sold on and the gear transfered. In retrospect, it was a nice model, but would have been better with the built-up wing and a better engine, although a 10x4 would have been a better prop with the GP42.