CA Hinge Method is NOT good for CL A/C
1. PLEASE do NOT use CA hinges in your CL A/C. They are too stiff for our mission.
2. Just when you get into trouble overhead in windy conditions and you have very little line tension to give you control, the CA hinges will not move freely enough to give you the control you desperately need to avoid disaster. This factor applies equally to the beginner CL pilot and the seasoned contest flyer.
3. Contest Precision CL flying requires small light "feel" corrections and inputs from the pilot with the entire control system working as smoothly and effortlessly as possible. The beginner CL pilot needs to learn the "touch" required to fly CL planes, a stiff control system will prevent this learning to take place.
4. ALL the other methods mentioned in this thread are good for CL planes, as long as the result is a smooth movement of the control surface and a hinge that allows the control surface to drop down from its own weight with little to no resistance to its movement.
5. I flew my 1st CL in 1952, and my 1st RC in 1970. I think I have used every type of hinge along the way, my favorite by far is the Robart style hinge, they make them in every size we need. I use them in small foamy park flyers up to my 36 lb. IMAC planes, and in all my CL planes. They are the smoothest and strongest hinge I have found. They are also very easy to install accurately if you use their wonderful hole guide system and use epoxy AND read/see their install instructions on their web site. I have thousands of flights using them on all types of planes with ZERO failures. Even the individual planes that have more than 1,000 flights on them still have the controls move smoothly and as effortlessly as the day they were born. :-)
PS: CA hinges are Ok for sport flying RC planes. The servo is always there to push them past their stiff resistance when needed, but they are fighting the servo to do this. From a production standpoint, they are a brilliant creation for ARF manufacturers. They are very cheap and easy to produce, and they work OK for most sport RC flyers.