Got a couple hours of training in a citabria over the weekend. Really gave me the confidence boost I needed. I’m going to get another 4 hours working on wheel landings, then I think I will have improved enough to fly the dragonfly.

I’ve been incredibly busy with all sorts of life stuff. Hurricane prep, real estate investing, family stuff.. Last weekend was probably the first weekend I had off in 8 months, but no flight training. My instructor is overseas for September and we are going overseas in October. So for now it has finally been tucked away in a hangar at the beginning of the month.

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The prop arrived Wednesday. I’ve been taxi testing at relatively slow speeds since. Went back and double checked the torque on all the bolts in the airplane. This week I’ll taxi test some more after work. Then re-torque and safety the prop bolts again. The engine is running well within limits so far.

​I’ve taken it up to about 30 mph. Because of insurance I can’t fly it without an instructor the first ten hours.

So here’s a picture of the airport at night.

Dragonflies come in a few flavors when it comes to landing gear configurations:

MkI - main gear on the canard tips
mkII - main gear inboard on the canard
mkIIh - hoop main gear connected to the fuselage, probably the most desireable configuration and the one I searched out.
mkIII - tricycle gear

My dragonfly specs are:
MKIIH
engine - limbach l2000 80hp
dual side sticks
center throttle
basic instruments
radio
transponder
nav and strobe lights
reflexors
antiservo tabs - think power steering for roll control
cruise - 140mph indicated
empty weight - 746 could save 25 pounds with a lipo battery and avionics upgrades
gross - 1250 pounds

This particular plane was purchased from Jeff LeTempt and is an excellent example of a very well built dragonfly.

Well I brought the dragonfly home the first weekend of June, and spent the rest of the week getting it back together.