Hi All,

Just got this kit. It will be awhile before I "assemble" it as I have about 10 other projects in the mill right now.

For those of you that changed the tailwheel, did you find there to be good structure to mount to in the fuse? I will probably fit a carbon tiller style to mine. It aggravates me that these companies put out a very nice model and then virtually guarantee problems by using a tailwheel design that transfers all of the tail gear forces directly to the CA rudder hinges.

I also will likely use the new O.S. 155 four stroke on mine.

Overall like the plane and what I see so far but I made the mistake of contacting hobico services with the above items. I was really disappointed with the response. Here is my note and the response. Note the threat outlined in Red below. These guys are too much.

Dear Sirs,

I recently acquired this ARF from my LHS. First off I wanted to congratulate you on what at this point appears to be a beautiful model. The construction and fiberglass look to be first rate. I'm looking forward to flying this model and think it will make the other guys at the field quite jealous! The LHS owner is also going to be assembling one and we plan to fly them together.

I have a question and a comment.

We live at 5500 feet MSL and I'm considering the OS 155 four stroke. This engine looks to be very close in size to the 120. Do you see any problems with fitting this engine to the model?

The tailwheel on this plane I do not consider adequate for a model that will be closer to 15 pounds than 10. I will be attempting to retrofit a tiller style tailwheel that is mounted to the fuselage. Hopefully there is enough structure back there to mount one to. You've probably heard this before and perhaps you feel this design is OK in practice but I have two fundamental problems with it. 1) It transfers all of the landing stresses to the delicate rudder hinges and 2) It provides no shock relief for the rudder servo gears. I know we are not supposed to land on the tailwheel but the simple fact is that modelers occasionally make less than graceful arrivals and this design is quite unforgiving in my experience. I don't expect you to redesign this model but wanted to give you this modelers perspective for what its worth.

Thanks for taking the time to read and respond and again overall I really am liking most of what I see so far.

THE RESPONSE

Thank you for your recent email.

I'm sorry, but I can't recommend an engine outside the engine range for the model. If you used a larger engine it could void your warranty.

As for the tail wheel assembly, it passed all of our R&D Departments test flying and we have not heard of issues with it. If you want to upgrade to something you can, but we don't see any need to change it from our testing.

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