Runway excursion into grass and through 2 ft ditch. I am extremely happy that this occurred. What !! you may say.  I have done extensive reconstruction of this Q2, a major item was a repair to the left GU canard 3 ft from the tip and re-attatch/re-allignment of the wheel pod.  A week of low speed testing proved all was well. Then during a morning and  afternoon of high speed testing (up to 50 mph) on the inactive runway ... failure.  First excursion into a semi smooth grass area in the morning and a re-check of  the tailwheel and canard.   In the afternoon after about 6 high speed runs I exited the runway left 45 degrees and through a two ft ditch bending up the left canard. I could not get right rudder authority or steering.   The left  canard failed about three feet from the left  tip where I had done major repairs.  Not re-built strong enough it seems.  I believe a spar within the canard may have helped. 

This week the objective was primarily to get a feel for the higher speed tailwheel steering.  It turned out to be a two fold test, the repair of canard was the second and it was not strong enough for this incident. 

The future for this Q2 looks like a new Ls1 Canard with the stronger spar style wing.  Also an improved tailwheel geometry.  During testing my tail was very light and I could hear the tailwheel shimmying or skidding around at the higher speeds.  At this point there was no rudder authority when using full aft elevator.

Disappointing...I felt I was close to being finished.  Better to find these weaknesses at the home airport.

Calvin Thorne

Aircraft building web page: http://users.xplornet.com/~vision/44/tailfeathers.html

(Sent from ASUS tablet