I had a Hangar 9 J3 Cub that a fellow club member gave to me. He had crashed it and said he didn't like it. I fixed it up and put a Saito 80 on the front of it. On the first night out with it, it took me 5 attempts to get it airborne. I kept spinning it around trying to take off. Finally, I got it airborne and was immediately all over the place with it. I managed to fly it around for a couple circuits and brought it in and landed it. When I got back to the shop, I discovered I was about 1/2" behind the recommended CG. I moved the battery pack way up front, as far forward as I could get it and I placed about 4 to 6 ounces of lead on the motor mount/firewall. The next time I took it out, it was dead on the recommended CG. I got it airborne fine and it climbed out real nice, but I didn't like the way it turned at all. I didn't like the way it flew at all, it flew "heavy". I was using full rudder in my turns and it felt as though it was gonna' stall everytime I turned it. I did several low passes with it and several more landings and take-offs with it. I brought it down for it's last pass to set up for a landing. I was about 50-75' up in the air. I was gonna' make a left turn and bring her in on final. As soon as I made the left turn, the Cub turned in on it's self and proceeded to fly straight down into the ground at about 1/2 throttle. It didn't spiral, it didn't waver, straight down it went. It appeared as though I had "no control" of it. I was carefully feeding in a little elevator, but it wouldn't come out of it's dive. I picked up the wreckage and tested the battery. It was well over 5 volts. The battery was unhooked from the extension I used to hook it to the switch harness. I am still not sure if I got into a stall and couldn't get it out or if the battery came loose and I lost contact with it. I will rebuild it and give it another try, MAYBE, but I didn't like the way it flew when I had control of it.

Good luck with your next Cub Woody.

Jon