<div>Hello to all! I picked up my camel a few months ago and have been reading through this thread learning everything Ican to help get mine in the air. The day finally came for the maiden a few days ago and it went pretty good thanks to all the info Ifound here! Iput my GoPro Hero wide camera on the gun hump looking out over the guns and set up a tripod with a video recorder in the middle of the field for some flyby sound and action. Kinda boring from the static ground view but here is the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lRZ37BZf_o
The grass was WAY to long to be landing in but I just HAD to fly it anyway so it did the usual nose-over on the landing. Later landings at another field with shorter grass have been very good with the stock wheels wrapped with electrical tape and with the Williams Bros wheels both allowing nice level 2 wheel landings and no nose overs! I had to make some bushings on the lathe to fit the Williams Bros wheels onto the stock axles because the axl was way smaller that the hole in the wheels.
Anyway I thought I'd share my setup and info to help anyone else on here with there project. I have mine setup with a Power 60, Quantum 65 amp ESC, VOX 15 x 7 wood prop, batteries are four 2200 MAH 3S Ternigy 30C lipos wired 2s2p and Hitec 5085 servos. Ground test with the Watts-Up in line showed at full throttle it pulls just a bit over 44 amps and makes 1025 watts of power and will fly a minimum of 10-12 minutes with plenty of reserve for a couple of 'go-arounds' to get the landing just right. (not to bad for only $60 worth of batteries!)
My maiden flight was pretty mild and only lasted about 8 1/2 minutes and only used 1115 MAH from each battery pack (1650 MAH is 75%). AUW is 9.8 lbs with the battery packs mounted through the firewall above the motor in a custom made light plywood box. The stock lead box wasn't used but I did still have to add about a pound of dead weight to get it to balance @ 3.5" COG. Pics in my gallery.
Overall aside from the usual ARF quirks we have to deal with I think it's a really sweet plane that fly's really good and very similar to the real camel.
Bill W. Milan, IL USA!</div>