Astropattern

Vincent,
Yes, I had the same problem. My Episode was supposed to be one of the first Contra versions produced by BJ.
I purchased it 2 years ago and my airframe is #C44.

I assembled the plane as stock and installed the Contra flush to the nosering. I almost lost the airplane on the test flight because I could not go higher than 1/2 throttle without running out of down elevator.
When I returned to the shop and measured incidences with digital incidence meter, I discovered the following...

Using the canalizer as zero reference...

...the motor/nosering was almost 3 degrees upthrust.
...the wing was 0.8 degrees down
...the stab was also slightly positive

I think that the difference between yours and mine is how we measured.

Since this was totally unacceptable, I rebuilt the plane and re-set the stab zero to the canalizer, the wing at +0.5 degrees to the canalizer, and the motor at -0.25 degrees to the canalizer. During the trimming process, I have changed the wing very slightly, and increased downthrust of the motor to -0.5 degrees.
Also, I had to use a 1-meter stick bolted to the Contra unit and a string to equalize left/right distance to top of vertical stab...to set the motor side thrust to zero because the nosering was 0.5 degrees left, and the fuselage was concave/curved on the left side, causing the plane to yaw in the pulls. This adjustment is extremely critical with the Contra.

I was told that my Episode was the only specimen with these problems. I have not seen other Contra Episodes...only single-blade planes, so I cannot verify.

My Episode looks very odd, with the gap between the top of spinner and nosering at almost 7mm.
However, with all these adjustments, the plane flies very well.

I advise that you do NOT fly it without making the changes first.

If you would like more details, I can email separately, and I speak French as well.

Regards,

John