I am thinking on getting the E-Flight Tribute to try indoor flying with and was wondering how it performs with the stock motor or should I just upgrade to the E-Flight brushless motor? I plan on using HS55 servos a Li Po battery pack with this plane also. Not sure on the receiver and speed control yet. Leaning towards Castle Creations 25 amp speed control. I think Any comments on those would be appreciated also. I plan on doing 3D with this plane also. Thanks for any input. Chuck

I just had a e-flite tribute. if you are going to use the stock motor you dont need a 25 amp speed control. go brushless trust me. the e-flite park 370 or the 400 motors are better. then use the 25 amp brushless speed controller.
Another thing replace the balsa elevator joiner with a graphite pushrod. the stock will break with the stress of flying. You have to brace the rear fuse a little. The whole tail section will flutter just in front of the horiz. stab. And that caused a horrific crash. Other than that nice flying plane. Just a bit on the flimsey side.

If you are considering the Tribute here is my honest experience.

The wings flex way too much even in level flight, the gear will not hold up, the elevator joiner will break and the fuselage flex is also unacceptable. In my opinion it does not fly well because of the excessive flex in both the wing and fuselage. I think the design is great but the foam is weak and the wing tubes and elevator joiner are not strong enough.

It looks great but is not very good quality. I think you could basically pick any other foam profile on the market and come out better off.

I agree. I'm really enjoying my Tribute but with all of the flex and the weak foam, I know it won't last very long. I don't even know why they give you that landing gear. Waaaaaaaay too weak.

Gosh my fuse section right infront of the stab just bursted in little foam bits after a couple of flights.

Stock it was a great flying plane. Crashes well to! Over priced 'cause some famous dood put his name on it. Just wasn't worth the $60 I paid for it.

It uses a 370 motor with a cloned GWS 350D gear box (1:6.60 if I remember right). The tail is very week. I had to re-enforce it with small pieces of triangle stock. I was getting ready to re-enforce the wing, but it blew up when I stalled 3 feet off the deck and hit the ground.

I'm checking out a 3dfoamy.com plane. For $30 you can't go wrong.

I am backing up tucaver, as I to am replacing my $53 Tribute with the $30 3DFoamy. I could have spent $50 at 3DFoamy and got carbon landing gear, I guess you live and learn.

Been flying the Tribute using 3 cell Lipo 2100mah Brushless Eflight 400 and quite a few build improvements for a few weeks. Very easy to do 3-D but have had the tail flutter, fuse flex and wing bend. Currently the tail section and prop area are very far from correctly aligned. The strange thing is it flys perfectly straight and appears to have zero impact on 3-D. The only improvement I am having trouble with is finding a good way to secure the two aileron servos I using under the wings. I've tried industrial strength double stick tape velcro the works, any suggestions out there to help?

Hot glue on the aileron servos maybe?
My brother has the Tribute and has flown the heck out of it. It flies great.
It's needed some regluing and repair but he's really getting his money's worth out of it.

I USE 3M EXTERIOR MOUNTING TAPE IT GRAY W/RED BACKING FOR MY ULTIMATE AILERON SERVOS & RAPTOR

Ok dudes, nothing is wrong with this plane. Brace the wings with wing struts with 2 pieces of carbon, I mean come on, how hard it that? THe tail flutters due to a bad hinge. Replace that hinge and the problem with go away.

IF you are pying $60 for a Tribute you are plain stupid. I won a hobby shop and sell them for $45. I mean you cant beat that for a gear box and all hardware in the box.

I dont know what you guys are talking about, the tribute is extremely stable...ive crashed it 4 times today pretty hard and the foam is holding up great. Once inverted under my deck and i thought it was over but i just picked it up and flew again

Let me tell you they are pretty tough.

on mine i can't get enough aileron throw

How much do you have? Should have around 45 degrees.
Are you putting the rods into the outer holes of the servo arms and into the inner holes of the control horns? This will give max throw. If you still don't have enough all you can do is use new longer servo arms or find a way to make them longer.

The early posts in this thread had me questioning my purchase, but now I feel a little better. Sounds to me like the experienced guys like it, and those that ding and dork planes all the time are having issues with it holding together (imagine that).

Thanks for the tips. I picked up the Park 370 brushless and some Hitec 55 servos. Sounds like I'm on the right track.

You will love the way the Tribute flies I'm sure. And your motor and servos are perfect.

I have flown mine for a year now with a 370 brushless and a 2 cell lipo. Have had it torque roll on me a few time while hangine it on the prop....my fault....but the only thing I have found is the prop shaft bends if you breathe on it. They are about $1.20 a piece so I buy them 2 at a time. This is a tough plane. Just throw the stock motor in the trash unless you have an Estarter or something you want to put it on, get a 2 or 3 cell lipo battery, a 10 or 20 amp ESC (whichever applies) and ask the good Lord to make the wind stop blowing for just an hour a day when your off work. Man, my only problem is catching a "no wind" day. Other than that, this is a tough plane...just fly within your skill level and you'll have a ball. Also, if you mount your servos with that stock glue (no one uses) they will hold great and you can peel it off if you mess up and need to move them or something.

FLy often, fly late, fly safe, but just fly.

My first flight with my Tribute after the first (and last) flight with the kit motor, using an E-Flite 540 kv bru$hle$$, Phoenix 10 ESC, and 2x1500 lipos was in a wind when no one else would fly.. not a problem.
It can't do anything other than fly around with the kit stuff, but with the bru$hle$$ it's a winner... capable of doing more than I can.
The landing gear is awful, needs bracing, the wing bends amusingly/alarmingly without bracing.
With the Phoenix ESCs, you MUST program the low voltage cutoff to suit the number of cells you're using.. 6.0v for 2 cells, 9.0 v for three.. otherwise the battery will dump totally in flight, which is a drag..
Wire bracing the landing gear and adding CF rods to the bottom of the wing and fishline to the top of the wing stops the flexing..

Very interesting Paul with the fishing line. Did you glue the line to the wings and then the fuselage to act as wing struts? also, what do yo have on the leading edge of your wings? I agree on the landing gear, it is very flimsy, but Ijust always make it a point land easy. I apply about 1/4 throttle when about 2' off the ground and it sits down nicely.


Happy flying.

The fishing line on the top after the epoxy dried at the tip connections was stretched tight on to the canopy.
The CF rod on the bottom did a fair job of removing most of the wing flex, but not in negative g manuvers.
CF is probably overkill for that job.
The leading edge is 1/8"x3/16" balsa, to give a rounded leading edge. Not a fan of square l.e.s
On my E-flite Ultimate biplane I intend to do the same l.e. treatment.

has anyone put an outrunner on their tribute? i have one but im not too sure how to mount it since its a flat fuse. should i just mount it like an X but glue just the top/bottom?

I put an AXI on a tribute. Just took a piece of lite ply and cut out a square in it so it would attach to the hard wood block that
comes with the kit and then drilled 3 holes in it one for the motor shaft and two for top and bottom screws( you don't need 4) .
epoxied the ply to the hardwood and then screwed the motor to it and mount it on the CF shaft just like any other motor.

How did it fly?????

Here is a Tribute with fuse stiffeners. The wing is on upside down, as it flexes more in only one direction. It flexes away from the carbon rods for some reason. The servos and radio gear are mounted, clustered on or near the CG with pull/pull on elv. and rud. useing fishing line. There is a Himax 2808 outrunner up front, spinning an 11/3.8 APC SF. This is my favorite piece of dome foam to date. I don't think you could do better with 'any other foamy out there' as someone mentioned earlier. Check the specs on all the kits. None offer 374.6 sq. in. of wing area right out of the box. They are mostly 260 to 307 sq. in. All that wing area makes this a real floater which is what you want indoors. With the mods, flight characteristics are great. It loops tighter than most without snapping or falling out. Last night it showed just how easily it could do a beautiful climbing flat spin. Snap rolls and shoulder rolls are tight and precise enough for a confined flying area. You can get real comfortable with this plane as it is so predictable. @ $45.00 its well worth it, if you don't mind adding two extra pieces of foam. The landing gear is fine. Come on, if you can't float in a 14 oz. piece of foam without damage, whats that tell ya? If I didn't trace the first one, I would buy another one. Check it out. Joe