I have misplaced the DR-1 instruction sheet. Please advise the correct position of its center of gravity.

From : Don Stackhouse

The C/G location on the Triplane is at the aft edge of the lower skin of the middle wing, in other words about 9/16" aft of the middle wing's leading edge.

For flying the Triplane, use lots of power. Take off with full power. Hold full down elevator as you open the throttle and get the tail up immediately so the rudder won't get blanked by the lower wings and the stab. Neutralize the elevator as the tail comes up. Be ready to apply a big dose of right rudder to hold it straight on takeoff run. Leave it at 100% till you get it stabilized in cruise, then you can pull it back to about the 85% position on the throttle stick. It takes a lot of watts to drag all those wings through the air all at the same time.

Leave the throttle at about 50% for landing, wheel the plane on, and leave the throttle at 50% till the plane decelerates enough to put the tail down and decelerate to taxi speed. Bring the throttle back to 25% till it rolls to a stop. You need to keep power on any time the plane is moving on the ground or in flight, or the prop's windmilling drag will blank the rudder.

If the plane seems sluggish, recheck your aileron and rudder trim. You may need to rig about 1/8" of right aileron to counteract torque, but the rudder should be centered when the ailerons are adjusted for level flight. If you don't get the rudder adjusted properly, the incorrect and unnecessary rudder command will yaw the plane in flight, creating massive amounts of drag from the fuselage. The plane will act like it's severely underpowered, when the real problem is rudder trim. One other test is to turn the plane in both directions. If the rudder trim is off, the plane will yaw to the outside of the turn when turning one way, but not the other. BTW, if it yaws to the outside of the turn in both turn directions, you're flying too slow. Get the nose down. The Triplane seems to have a pronounced "step" in flight. Keep the speed up and the top of the fuselage level with the ground, and it seems to become more efficient. Try to hang it on the prop and fly too slow and it will mush right out of the sky. It's very challenging at first, but a tremendously fun airplane once you get used to it.

Don Stackhouse
DJ Aerotech