Today I flew my sukhoi, three days to finish, well actually I only worked on it for 10 hours, but sitting on the PC and B.S.ing with the LHS owner took a lot of time away from the assembly of it. I made a few mods that are personal preferences but some should be done anyway, Fist off I weighed the parts and the plane came to just about 5Lbs. total, next I set aside all the stuff I didn't like and found suitable replacements for them, next I made the ply-wood parts that I felt it needed that it didn't include. The build is pretty fast and I don't need to get into details but the all the hardware, engine mount, wheels and tail wheel assembly were changed. I installed ply-wood plates in the wheelpants to stiffen them up to avoid damage to them rotating and increased the wheels to 2 3/4" light-flight wheels. In the wing assembly I added a 1/4 dowel to the root ribs near the end and epoxied it shut, next I wrapped the center section with 1 1/2" glass cloth and epoxied it down. The last ply-wood piece to be added was the bolt plate, I can't figure out why they didn't include one but I highly recommend adding it, the balsa trailing edge will crush if you don't do it. The engine was clocked at the 10 O'clock position so the pitts muffler would exit the center of the cowl( why does slim-line offsets the tubes?), changed the tank to 10 oz. GP and added the ez fueler, the tailwheel assembly had to go, I took a leaf from an old set-up and silver-soldered a wheel collar to it and set up the wire and horn with springs. The final mod was pull-pull on the rudder, ny-rod on the throttle and solid 2-56 wire with guide tube to the elevator. Somehow I managed to come out to 6Lbs. ready to fly, I guess the wheels, tank, pushrods and tailwheel assembly weigh a lot, about 6.5ozs.! I ended up replacing it with only 4.5 ozs.
Flight time! the plane required a little trim but nothing serious, I read the posts about the elevator and aileron being very sensitive but I was passive on the warnings. I should have listened, but even thou I found it a bit touchy I still felt comfortable at the sticks, just point and go like it's tracking on rails. The MDS .48 pulls it with authority and with the larger tank it has full 20 minute flights at 1/2 to 3/4 throttle. I think that I can slow it down a bit with a 11x5 instead of the 11x6 but still it has almost vertical performance on the 11x6.I found myself adding down elevator in the invert of the rolls just by habit but it doesn't need it, like the traditional sukhoi design she flies the same upside down as it does upright. Knife edge is O.K. but even with 1 1/2" deflection it required a lot of throttle play to get it right. Possibly moving the CG back will rectify the issue but for now I'll play with it where it is and do the dive, roll and loop, trim and CG checks. I know it's a lot to read but this plane gets the "Thumbs Up" award for biggest bang for the buck ARF out there! I, like many others, I only spent $85.00 for it and it looks and performs very well with outstanding quality to boot.