PeterF

It's been a while since anything was added to this, and I have been waiting to add this for near 6 months. I bought the kit in my first year of flying, I was hooked when I saw it and thought it would keep me busy building and by time I finished I would be good enough to fly it.

I built the kit, with flaps and home made retracts - our field is a little bumpy at times as the other users are sheep, cattle and horses and did not trust the look of the Robart set for strength. Also glassed the whole plane and sprayed. Final weight is a little heavy at 10.5 lbs but only marginally over the max weight. Hauling it around are two Enya SS40 (plain bearing engines) which are more than adequate. Also, with respect to keeping both fires lit I installed a device called the !QUOT!Intelligent Glow Switch!QUOT! which is available in the UK. This device monitors the plug temperature and gives a burst of power if it cools off. The plane is based on one running in New Zealand - I just saw these really cool images of this plane (ZK-AWP) on one of the full size DC-3 web sites.

First flight was not good (September 2003) crashing just after take off and crunching the nose in but not doing any structural damage. Various things got in the way of the repair, and I have only just finished this and got it into the air. 3 flights this week and what a plane, sounds great, looks great and flies really well in a scale manner. My first flights were with 11 x 7 props as I did not want to risk my expensive 3 blades and these were the only 2blade matched pair I had to hand. Engines peaked at 9,300rpm, I know a little low but it was enough to get the plane up in a good take off run (no horsing it into the air) but it kept the 2 stroke sound to a real good beat with both engines in sync.

Peter.