A light weight Gloster Meteor

It was calm enough yesterday to try with a pair of the 600mAh batteries.
First attempt much as before. About 10 feet flying level then drop the left wing and dive into the ground!
Only modest nose damage so a few clicks of RH aileron trim and with a harder shove try again.
It went a bit further and then dropped its right wing and dived in. As it was going a faster it cartwheeled into the ground!
 
Apart from the damage my big concern is just a few RH aileron trim clicks completely reversed its aerodynamic characteristics! This questions whether it is indeed even controllable in its current configuration! At its current weight it is just having to fly too fast with insufficient power.
I suspect my original guestimate of a 100g all up would actually solve both problems but it is hard to imagine I can achieve a 30% weight reduction without starting all over again with everything, including the airframe, new and lighter apart from its brushed EDFs.
Still thinking about that one! 

Possible but I very much doubt it as apart from the EDFs wing is by far the heaviest construction being made from 3mm foam sheet. It had to be rather over built to carry the EDFs at nearly mid span. It has been pointed out that the outer panels are quite sharply tapered and coupled with a rather inadequate thrust might lead to a stall starting randomly at one tip or the other!
 
As tested it has a wing loading of about 4oz/sqft. That may not sound much but at just 20" span it is quite a small plane. At best it has a power loading of 80w/lb. Fine for a prop plane but very low for a EDF with low power 35mm fans!
I am sure the answer is to significantly reduce its weight to both cut down the wing loading and improve the thrust to weight ratio.
As my current micro receiver will not work on 1s.
Plan A is to use two 300mAh 1s each independently driving an EDF through small 4A 1s ESC but with the LiPo coupled in series to power the receiver. This layout will save close to 20g giving an all up of about 115g.
Plan B would be at considerable cost to use a 1s compatible lightweight (1.5g) receiver. This in conjunction with using 1.5 mm servo plugs & sockets in place of the Futaba type  would bring the all up much closer to 100g.
Plan C would be to find more 2mm Depron, rebuild the wing and nacelles to actually get just below 100g.  

Very calm this afternoon although the field was very muddy to the extend it was only sensible to walk just a short distance where the ground is a few inches higher!
The Meteor does fly, well sort of.
 
Apart from the mud only the nose cone damaged! 
The CG was a bit too far back and the wing shape has rather poor stall characteristics. This coupled with a low thrust to weight meant that the flight looked like repeated left and right tip stalls with full aileron inputs to correct. It actually flew about 100ft yawing left and right before the ground go in the way.
Hopefully with the batteries moved a bit further forward it will fly in a stable manner for long enough that stick inputs will be just small "adjustments" rather than full on corrections. 
With all the low pressure regions lined up in the Atlantic the next calm day could be some way off.       

 All mended!
 
The batteries can go forward right into the nose cone if required.
Tomorrow, Tuesday, looks about the only possibility to try again but I am very tempted to just do nothing till its dryer, warmer, calm and sunny - all at the same time!  

Actually on the 16th Dec the weather was not bad.
3 short flights.
For the first it was still tail heavy so the flight was erratic with a rough(ish) landing with some nose damage but not too serious.
Moved the batteries right into the nose cone for the second flight which improved things a but the roll sensitivity was extreme made worse by a strong tendency to roll to the left. A bit more nose damage.
Added a few clicks of right trim to hopefully allow it to fly for a few feet level without needing "instant" correction which it did! The lack of panic control inputs meant also meant it was flying rather faster than before but unfortunately it was going down wind!
I gingerly tried to do a gentle 180 turn however the extreme roll sensitivity resulted in a wing drop such the LH tip touched the ground. The extra flight speed resulted in a full cart wheel with an inevitable result. 
 
It is getting close to flying properly but I think some aileron "expo" is called for before trying again.

Spent some time actually reassembling the nose from just the bits. The only new bit is a PLA nose former to give a sound base to glue on what will be the only other new bit the LW-PLA nose cone.
 
A bit rough and ready but I want to save my limited supply of 2mm Depron for when I build a second one!

With its third new nose cone today it took three attempts but on the third it actually flew for nearly a minute! 
 
It flies alarming fast and glides like a brick! At very best I would guess a ratio of about 3:1.
The biggest issue is it is extremely sensitive in both pitch and roll. I tried to achieve some sort of "straight and level" but just one click on the aileron trim changed it from tending to bank from one way to the other! You can imaging what actual stick movement does! Pitch control is not quite so bad.
After only being able to just swoop about I decided to land before I wrecked it so closed the throttle and even managed a "sort of" controlled glide approach and landing. Its all in one piece!
Perhaps now I know how it flies I will be able to do a bit better next time
.     

After my troubles trying to get the Meteor to fly it was pointed out that some aspects of it were "a bit out of scale" ,particularly the nose.
Can't have that so I set about making a new nose!
 
With three new light weight PLA formers.
A planked 2mm Depron skin and a new nose cone.
  .
A bit of filler, sanding and silver paint.
 
Note the canopy/battery hatch is now about in the right place.
I am sure it won't make a jot of difference but it does make me feel better!