On Saturday Justin Gillen and I had the opportunity to ferry an awesome airplane for a friend from Stead to Mojave.
Miss Demeanor is a long time racer. The airplane currently is configured with a stock Cassutt vertical and horizontal and a Craig Catto tapered wing that was originally on outrageous. The wing installation was well done and addressed a lot of the handling concerns of the Cassutt. The limited throw of the aileron (5" at the stick, vs 12" in pitch) helped liven the roll axis, and balanced that axis against the high rates a Cassutt is historically known for in pitch. This airplane also has a lot of stiction in the pitch axis which also helped to dampen that axis. The airplane has no dihedral effect, and is even lighter than my stock cassutt was directionally, probably due to the longer wing. With light rudder forces, no stick free directional stability, and little to no stick fixed directional stability the airplane had to be actively flown the whole time, which was fun. There seemed to be some difference between the incidence of the vertical, the thrust line, or the rig of the rudder pedals as the rudder displacement required to center the ball varied greatly with airspeed and power setting even between 150 and 220 MIAS.
I really enjoyed the upright cockpit and great over the nose visibility of the airplane compared to my racer, it truly felt like a gentleman's airplane. I landed the airplane by coming over the fence at 80 MIAS and touching down in a tail low wheelie. Conveniently I found the tail only needed to drop another few inches before the tailwheel made contact and the hard part of the landing was effectively over, the airplane has a fixed non-steerable tailwheel. A great airplane and a well behaved tail dragger. What a great time!!
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