Big Mike,

I'm still flying my Avistar RTF pretty stock except for the recent replacement of the original .40 LA with a .46 LA. I know that's not much of an increase in power, but I was attracted to the ease of doing the swap. No balancing required since they weigh the same, no mount changing since they are the same size physically. In fact I think they are identical except that the .46 is bored out larger. It's supposed to have 20% more power than the .40, with no weight penalty. I just flew it today for the first time after breaking it in and it's a little more powerful, but it's not at its full potential yet since I'm still running it very rich for a few flights according to the break-in recommendation and I haven't taken the muffler baffle out yet. But even so, it seems to have quite a bit more power than the .40 LA which is well broken-in with over 50 flights on it and has had many props tried on it to find the ones with the best performance. I like the APC 10x7 and 11x6 on it. Once I see what the .46 LA will do, maybe I'll go for a ball bearing engine and really crank it up. I've been very happy with the .40 LA and have even had comments from more experienced fliers on how powerful it is for such a quiet engine. And that's with the baffle removed.

Everything has its trade-offs and the RTF construction of the Avistar is no exception. I'm still flying it with the original wing-joining and tail-mounting configuration. I know it's not as strong, but I keep a close eye on it and do what I can to keep it as strong as possible, like putting CA in the wing straps' screw holes to keep them from coming loose, which has worked very well. The RTF setup has had some benefits for me too, like a few weekends ago when I traveled quite a distance to visit relatives who had never seen me fly. I found out there was a flying field near there and got permission from that club to fly there when I visited. I put the Avistar back in its original box and put it in the trunk of the car with our luggage. It only took a few minutes to take apart and put back together. It makes travel with the plane very easy. I probably will lose that benefit if I put a more powerful engine on it and start pushing the airframe harder, but it's nice right now to be able to do that. Oh, and those rudder bolts are a real handy place to put the lead weight on the tail. I just cut a strip of stick-on lead to the right length, drilled a couple of holes in it to match the bolts and mounted it under the existing washers and nuts. Works great. I wish I could take credit for the idea, but it was suggested to me by a veteran flier at my club.

I'm starting to think about what my next plane will be, something more advanced, but I hope to be flying the Avistar for a long, long time. It is a great flying airplane.