Myself and another beginner at the club both kit built the Great Planes PT40. While the other guy was building it, he brought the wing into a club meeting and the more experienced flyers thought the wing had way too much dihedral so they convinced him to take a bandsaw to it and flatten it out. I insisted on keeping mine per print and giving it a shot.

He put his plane up first. I haven't seen it fly but they say it is barely contollable and he hasn't yet been able to solo as a result (this is with less dihedral mind you). My instructor put mine up today and had a hard time with it at first. It would fly straight but the aileron had little effect and he had to fly with rudder all the way around. He had a hard time landing it (whew!) and we changed the servo arm on the aileron to give it more throw. We also realized that it was a bit breezy and he was really struggling with it downwind. One of the other pilots thought he needed a little more power/velocity to keep the control surfaces more lively.

So he put the plane back up again and found the aileron performance to be significantly better and did find that flying downwind was probably part of the problem and knew what to expect the time. THe plane landed like a cream puff. It got dark and I didn't get a chance to buddy up

The other guy, with less dihedral, is apparently still having problems, I'd like to get both our planes out to the field at the same time and compare. DOes anyone know anything about this situation? i.e. is this plane naturally sluggish for some reason? I know the kit offers 2 dihedral options, one for trainer, one for sporty but I would expect the trainer to perform OK as a 4-channel.

Thanks for any comments...

Mike