I know that this plane has been described over and over, but I just wanted tell my personal experiences with the plane. I purchased the Ono Special from Singapore Hobbies, and was one of the easiest kits I've ever built (see other threads about building). Friday afternoon, I took her up for the first time. I had an Irvine .53 in the nose swinging a 12X6 prop. total weight was a little below 4.5 lbs. The Ono special mods shows the cg at 5 5/8ths inches from LE, and to get the CG to this point, I had to put the battery way back in the tail. First flight was very squirly......I put the engine at about 1/4 throttle, and trimmed out the plane. Whew! after that, she was fairly docile....I decided to give it a little throttle, and the plane started to rise and almost did a loop all by itself! At this higher speed, I had to totally retrim the plane. Landing was a breeze. For the 2nd flight, I added some nose weight, and tried to take her off again. At full up elevator and full throttle, the plane wouldn't get off the ground! I brought her back and put in a couple of clicks of flaps. She jumped off the ground, and with the added nose weight, I saw a significant improvement. I took her home and put the battery back in the front, and today after work, I'm going to take her up again to see if she flies any better. This is definatly one pretty plane, and power to weight ratio is out of this world. If anyone has any comments, I'd appreciate an explanation.

BTW on inspection last night, I found out that the elevator control horn was loose. I used the provided bolt type control horn originally, but replaced it with a nylon standard control horn. I'm not sure if this was the problem, but will find out today....wish me luck!

*****UPDATE*****

I tried this weekend to take her up with the battery in the front. Even with flaps on, it wouldn't get off the ground. I believe the CG was way too forward, so I put it back per specs. There was a lot of slop in the elevator that I cleaned up, but I'm not sure if this was the problem with my trim issues. Comments would be wonderful.