James,

I have to put in my two cents worth here since I have several pattern planes. I just today made the maiden flight on my second Javelin II. The day before my 67th birthday back in late Feb. I had one of those brain farts that older folks sometimes have and over controlled my first Javeline on high rates a tad too close to the ground. I was doing inverted snaps and just lost where I was. I immediately ordered another one from Cermark when I hit the house. Took me about 2 weeks to put it together and get it ready then I was gone to the Braves spring training camp for 10 days and came home to nothing but rain.

Anyway, both of these have been powered with an OS .46 AX ABL and the plane simply screams with an APC 11-6 prop. It's on rails and is the best pattern plane I have flown to date. I've only been back into the hobby since about October of last year, but flew pattern a good bit some 20 years ago. This plane is light and very sleek and will do much more than I'm capable of on high rates and it's so very smooth on low rates. My only concern with the two planes is the positioning of the landing gear. On the first plane I had a nose over on most all of the first few landings until I remembered to switch to high rates on the elevator just after touch down. We fly from pretty smooth grass field here as it's on a sod farm, but the gear was just a little too far back even with the CG set to the max setting, the first bump and the tail would come up and the prop would dig in. The last few weeks on the first plane and now on this new version, I put the gear in a vice in the shop and bent both of them forward about 15 degrees. That does in effect lower the plane a bit, but I don't have any of the nose over problems now.

I think you should take a look at the Cermark site and consider the Javelin II if you are wanting a true pattern plane, but one that you can fly around and hot dog with on the weekends. For what it's worth, the first version of the Javelin I got, I went with the package that got you the GMS engine and all servos mounted. Don't bother with that. Just get he plane and put that other money towards the better engine, i.e. the OS .46 and then put in your JR or Futaba servos. I still have the GMS engine and the servos that came with the first plane in a box somewhere. I would only use their servos as a backup throttle servo and I never got the GMS engine to run correctly through a single flight. The OS is just an outstanding engine and I can't wait to break this one in.

Just my thoughts... take care,

Tommy
Valdosta, GA