Crash-RCU

I am using an Axi 2808-24 and 10x5APC Eprop. Only have a couple of flight on it but it has plenty of power. I sure wish they would dump the clear covering as it is hard to fly a see though plane that looks the same top or bottom, have already dumped it once with minimal damage. Am now painting the bottom of wings and stab white with red stripes. Testors model spray paint works good for this.

cessna152pilot16

like if your doing a harrier how much power do u have when you climb out as apposed the the rimfire 30 35 950. cause that motor has crap

ramon49

The rimfire 950 is a very lame /weak motor for this plane. If you want a spirited YAk dump the rimfire 950. I'm using a Hacker A30-10xl and it burns holes thru the clouds. I re-glued all motor mount joints with 30 minute epoxy, problem solved. The plane overall is OK as a low middle performer. Good for practice 3d and harriers.

ramon49

Oh yeah! The covering scheme will get you in trouble if you take your eyes off of it for a second. Needs contrast covering bad. Seems they rushed this one to the public without covering the most rudimentary aspects of RC models. $100.00 price says it all. The Fliton AJ330 is a superb replacement with heart pounding excitement. Hacker A30-10xl with x-40 esc and what a cadillac type feel compared to this YAK volkswagon..

Accumag

I suggest that if you insist on using a glow engine in the plane I would use this engine with a 4oz tank GP-07 AIRCRAFT ENGINE [TTR9007] $49.99
it is avalib at www.thundertiger4u.com think about it the electric set up is only 220 watts and will be pulling 15 amps and fly's it like nobody's business and that is smaller than an os LA 10 that is my input on it well good luck and happy flying

Flyin C

Anyone still flying this?

djmattdaddy

This is my first plane ever. I literally went from the G4 simulator to flying this Yak. Over 25 successful flights so far! The guy at the LHS recomended my current setup- Hacker A20-L w/ X-20 ESC. 1350 Thunderpower 3s and a 10/4.7 APC Prop. His intentions were good to lighten everthing up but it just doesnt have rediculous power (probably a good thing for my first few flights). Im giving this one to my brother.

I ordered another one and will set it up with the CF Mod, A30-22s and 2100mah TP Prolites. but which ESC?.....X-30 or X-40?

jrwilliams27

I would go with the X-40.

I love the new G4 simulator. In my opinion it is far better than any other version of Realflight sims. Happy Flying.

mensaboy

just flew this plane for the first time, its my first plane since 1988 , and i wanted to share a bit

running a Futaba 7C 2.4 Tx/ 617FS Rx
4x Futaba 3110 servos
ElectriFly RimFire 35-30-1250 outrunner
Flight Power EVO Lite 2100 3S
CC Phoenix 35 ESC

ive done 2 mods from stock, i removed the covering on the bottom of the wing and fuse and replaced it with white for easy top/bottom visibility, and i added a small carbon rod to the stabilizer to prevent in flight failure

i put this plane together about 2 months ago and just now had a nice day with little wind and went to the local high school lot (3 baseball fields together in a triangle)

there was more wind than i would have liked and the field was a bit rugged due to the frost making it fairly bumpy, but after a couple taxi runs i was definitely ready

i took off and pulled up into a banking turn and did a level flyby at about 1/2 throttle - and the rust just flew off my thumbs, absolutely no trimming required at all, flipped it into high rate and did about every aerobatic maneuver i could think of - im no pattern expert by any means, but i did things with this plane i have never done outside a simulator, with absolute ease

even with small gusts of 5-10 mph winds this plane tracked well, when the wind died it was on rails - did a harrier and short hover and it responded predictably, i figured it was time to land and the cutoff quit on me, pulled low throttle to reset in case i need to wave off the first landing (remember i havent flown in 20 years but i only just needed to feed about 1/8 power to make sure i didnt stall the landing, and down it came like butter

i wanted to post this primarily to say just how happy i am with the quality of this little ARF - i havent ever flown a Yak and even with the small scale it flies straight and true, im truly impressed

panioul

I have just bought this plane and soon I will start building it. Mensaboy do you have any suggestions for the stab mods?Or any pictures if available?I am worried how to make a slot at the h stab to fit the carbon rod inside it.

RysiuM

My Feedback: (1)

I just finished my Yak that was sitting in the attic since last Christmas. First I read about all the issues guys reported at RCU and RCGroups. With small changes this plane still goes together very well and some solutions are quite clever. In general I am very pleased with how the plane is designed. I love Great Planes for well thought designs (and hate Hangar 9 for very poor ones )

So here is the story.

First how the finished plane looks like - very nice looking machine and I hope it will fly well too.



Inside there is Hitec 05s receiver, four HTX900 servos (thy almost fit but still holes needed to be enlarged by 1mm), Castle Creation Phoenix 35, and Turningy 3650 kv1100. All powered by Zippy 2200mAh.



I did not use much epoxy on the plane and to make sure wings are glued well I used Gorilla polyurethane glue. It shows a little around the wings but not much.



Someone reported this problem before - Ruder horn is to big and it will interfere with elevator unless it is cut to the second hole. At second hole HTX900 with original horn makes full deflection.



The ply tail skid just sucks as a solution. It will not work on my paved runway. It did not take much to make entire tail wheel set for this plane. Now it looks like something



I read about weak horizontal stab. But I did not want to strip covering and do any changes. I could not believe it is true. But IT IS TRUE. Horizontal stabilizer can not sustain any load from wild acrobatics. It will make elevator to flutter. No question about that.

I noticed it when I glued it already in place. So I decided to do bracing. A solid one. What I did I glued CF plates that sandwiched horizontal stab and vertical stab at he bracing points. The each strut was made of CF rod (0.9mm) that is cutting through the stab. On both sides the CF rot was wrapped with thread and soaked with CA.



There is no way it can be pulled of the stab. At the bottom of the fuselage at the bracing point there is CF plate too.



The next thing I did not like is the mounting of wheel pants. I added one more nut (nylon locking) to secure the other wall of wheel pant to the axle.



Guidance holes for elevator and ruder pushrods are OK except the first support near servos. I had to enlarge these slots so pushrods don't bind.



In order to install tail servos you need to cut through the cockpit floor. The covering I cut off, I ironed on piece of depron and when servos were installed, I put the cockpit floor back in place.



There are six different types of horns provided in the box. None of them fit HTX servos so I decided to make my own pushrod ends. Piece of wire with Z-bend glued to the pushrod, wrapped with Kevlar and soaked with CA. Black heat-shrink is just for the look.



One little thing nobody talked about. The screw that atracts the magnet from battery cover supposed to be placed in balsa. Make sure you soak that balsa with CA otherwise it will split for sure. I know.



Next installation trick. The instruction calls for gluing elevator halves when they are installed in the tail. At the same time you supposed to install CA hinges. I did one thing at the time. First enlarge the slot in the fuselage that was prepared for horizontal stab



Then glue two elevator halves on the table. Make sure everything is flat and in line. Then put elevator to the tail and slide it back to the extra cut. Now you can install horizontal stab. The extra cut gives you enough room to manipulate with elevator to install hinges.

BTW I did not use CA hinges provided. So small [X(]. I used Mylar hinges cut from floppy disks. They never failed me.

Finally I notice that the transparent bottom is terrible. No way, I will be able to see it. But it's ARF, so I did not want to re-cover it. So I used red ZAGI Tape (very light) and I apply to the bottom of the wings and horizontal stab. This should be enough to see it and distinguish from the top.



The plane weights all together 29oz. It has a big battery that later I may change for something smaller. I son;t have right prop yet. The one on the pictures is APC 9x3.8 and the motor takes 18A at WOT. I need probably 10x4.7 or maybe 11x4.7 to load the motor up to 30A.

Kostas1

Damn RysiuM what building skills you have!

I liked your explanations on the building tricks u used very much!

Please ,

capture a video and post it from the maiden!

GL mate!

Kostas
Greece

RysiuM

My Feedback: (1)

No video, but I have a report. This is absolutely GREAT PLANE. I flew with APC 9x3.8 prop so I did not expect crazy power. The plane took off in 10 feet almost by surprise. Just took off and started to climb with me just watching it flying. No trim required except one click down on elevator. A flew on low rates but still rolls are quite fast. I tried barrel roll with ruder and ailerons and the addition of the ruder made the plane to do roll in a split of second. Inverted flight without no correction. Knife edge was not holding altitude (but I used only 1/2 throttle) but did not require any correction. Like many wrote already, this is extremely well tracking plane.

Before I try high rates I need to get bigger prop and see what kind of flying I can do.

The transparent bottom sucks big time. The only way I could see the plane from the bottom was thanks to my red stripes. The tape worked very well it was easy distinguish it from the top covering even ant the distance. But this is the only thing I was able to see - the rest of the transparent wing was not visible at all.

Overall I am very pleased with this ARF. Great Planes proved me again, that they can do "great planes". It is not easy to make such small scale looking plane that have great flying characteristic and good stability at the same time. Good job Great Planes.

ramon49

I don't know where you guys got your YAK 54 , but mine is a piece of poor quality and problem after problem. The latest being the aluminum landing gear that almost came lose after a soft touch and go. The balsa was cracked in several places. Nothing 30 min. glue couldn't solve. I replaced the landing gear and tires (came off hub) with carbon and good du-bro's. Added some weight but had to do it. The plane is poorly built , just read this whole thread. I would not buy this MFG. plane. Who needs to reinforce the fuse , wings and landing gear. I want my monies worth. As posted before, the retailer won't stand behind it, don't really blame them as it's probably a money loser, not mentioning Customers...

Put your money on a better quality plane, avoid the hassles..[:'(]

RysiuM

My Feedback: (1)

The one i got was from last year, updated version. The update was about the wing joiner. I noticed also that they enforced the spar by CF stripes. My LG is not mounted on balsa. It is plywood all way around. The whole engine box and frame is well glued together - usually I run CA or epoxy on all ARFs but this one did not require any.

I did no other mod except described in my post - this is nothing compared to H9 crap where I had to almost reinvent the fuselage from scratch (I know at least few H9 designs that broke in half from nothing). Of all planes I got in my hands only GP and SIG were worth the money. What I mean the design and construction well thought though. Of course that there are small glitches and bugs like here too, but notice that in this model other than week stab and original wigng join this plane holds well really wild stuff. I will try to prove it to myself, when I get a bigger prop. If I fail, i will report too

ramon49

Well good luck to you! I just hate it when you have to keep fixing the weak spots. GP is usually spot on but this one is worth skipping in my opinion, just my bad experience with this ARF.

planebuilder66

My Feedback: (8)

I've been staring at mine for 1 year now, it's been built and sitting there waiting to fly, I was seriously thinking of putting my old trusty os max .25 into it and see how it flies. But since I've been flying ep heli's for a while, I'll just use one of my 2200 28c packs in it and give it a whirl. I'd feel bad about losing the battery but not the plane or motor, honestly, I could care less if it fails in flight. That's part of the hobby, if your going to push it to the extremes, then that's the risk your going to have to live with when it fails. Yes, it say's 3D on the box, and sure it can do it, but how much power and G's do you honestly think this little bird can take? I'd say just by looking at the airframe with the covering, not much more than light 3D, when you start loading it with more battery and motor it will fail.Usually at the case of flutter or exceeding the airframes structural ability. I have nothing to lose by flying mine, so I won't get my underware in a bind if it crashes, but sometimes , people point fingers at manufactures when things fail because they were venturing into the land of extremes. As far as I know, real extra's and yak's don't come with a 3D sticker on them nor do the say aerobatics are covered in flight failures, but then again, if they did fail, no one who had one failed, lived to complain.
Just my 2 cts

ramon49

No need to get technical about this, the plane is indeed built light. However, I want to geta least 4-5 good flights before it starts coming apart with stock parts! This ARF has been, as many are, misrepresented as a 3D screaming machine. Put your battery in it and stretch your thumbs and go flly or put in a big gas engine and tear up the skies and send us your success photos. [:'(]

planebuilder66

My Feedback: (8)

The way I see it, it's been sitting there for a year, it's waiting space. If I don't fly it, it go to waste, if I do fly it, it will make me happy, for a moment or two, hopefully more, but I don't push the envelope every time I fly, I stay within my limits and learn more of what the aircraft is capible of doing before I push it to extremes. Long before I raced BMX and was state champ for 5 years, I never looked at my bike and said I want to jump tripples or go 40+ MPH, hell, all I wanted to do was just ride it and take it easy to see my and the bikes limits. My planes or heli's are no different, infact, it's the unknown of how the fly that gives you the knee knocking symdrome, I've had planes bite me in the ***** because I was arrogant and thought I knew it all. Try building a top flite p-47 with all the bells and wistles and have it total it's self on the maiden voyage. Not a good feeling, but that's life.

ramon49

I agree, you build em and fly em and hope to have a good result. The unfortunate part is that we do crash and crash we must to be sane. The odd part of the sport is that a MFG pushes his/her new YAK%&(( and it turns out to be a turnip. Of course,[:'(] we have the skill and brains to figure it out and make it go, but why do we sometimes have to try and make a TURKEY fly. It seems they scam our money (oil) and say your doing it to hard or you built it wrong. I called the MFG and what a mouthful of &*&*()*) I got from the tech rep. Now I have 1 bad ARF and a earful of crap. Why can't we all get along. GP knows the fixes but still pushes this box of repairs on the unknowing....

RysiuM

My Feedback: (1)

Actually the only thing GP can fix is to remove "3D" and "extreme" words from the box. Look at the wing profile. Look at the wing area. Look at the tail surface area. It will not be able to do 3D in extreme way.

Some people think 3D is just hovering. Yeah, than this plane will do it. Some think it s flying at the high alpha. This plane probably will do it but not really well. The wing does not have good profile for that. It will probably fly more like a pizza box than acrobatic plane on harrier. For that weight the wing frontal profile is way to "sharp" to be stable at harrier.

Now talking about extreme, like full power down blender, parachute, wall and other high-G stuff - I wouldn't do it with that plane. I've seen 40mm aluminium tube bent on "wall" executed by giant scale. This balsa spar will not do any good.

I would say stay within the list of listed maneuvers in the instruction, don't over-speed and you will be good. The way I look at this plane it will not take high speed and high G. But what has been repeated many times, it tracks very well. IMAC and light 3D. This is what should be on the box. It flies very stable, it is very responsive what for scale look is quite unusual with that size and wing-loading.

I have looked through the airframe and it is good structural design. It is strong where it should be, it does not waste ply where it is not needed. The only exception is the horizontal stab. They should use thicker profile and use CF spars there.

ramon49

I think we beat this to death. I had a similar experience with Atlanta Hobby and their super duper Katana, built just like this one. After a lot of fixes and reinforcements it flew OK and then they replaced it with the Carbon Fusion version. Maybe we'll see a GP carbon enhanced YAK? I doubt it.

Adios and good nite....

RysiuM

My Feedback: (1)

I take it back. I just look around the box and I did not find "extreme" on it. It says "3D action on demand" and:

"E-performance YAK 54 rewards your low wing skills with any 3D maneuver you can imagine". Maybe here Done Anderson underestimate our imagination

BTW this is one specifies actual Weight on the box (24-27oz). 27oz is very doable with 100g battery. I could probably loose one ounce more on other stuff.

i love nachos

I have read through all the love and hate going on here and I feel the need to put in my two cents. i have only been flying a few months now, starting with a parkzone t-28, then into the RCU Bipe, and finally the Yak. I am by no means an expert in flying building, or even aircraft design, but I have to say that i am very happy with my Yak. i was scared to death to fly it for quite some time, but I have a friend who has helped me alot fly it, and get the trims all set up. Once we got through that, and i took it off, it really flew fantastic. It is a plane that I am still adjusting to, but I do fly on high rates and will throw in an occasional 3D manuever. i did have one issue with a high speed pass. As I began to pulled up, the CA hinge ripped out of the elevator on one side. Amazingly, the plane flew well enough for me to take it out about 100 yards and turn it around for an nice landing. I added a larger hinge and glued the heck out of it, and there has been no problem since. I have probably flown it 10 or so times, and my only major complaint is the darn transparent wings! What were they thinking!? [:@] i haven't yet put this plane through the wringer on stunts, but its flies fast, predictably and responds extremly well. i give it a thumbs up[sm=thumbup.gif]

wedgewing

"I love Nachos" is a very good pilot and I watched him bring in the YAK as it was fluttering its elevator. His hearing was very good because I told him to take it around for a roll and shake out the screw he left in the fuselage somewhere when he built it

For those looking to help him out, I ironed on 8 inch white stripes on the bottom of the wing, along with 2 inch wide red stripes (invasion style) and we still could not see it at around 7 PM. he is flying the snot out of it even as a newer pilot, but i can tell that the orientation issues caused by the clear coating is affecting his ability to have greater confidence in his abilities to chuck it around.

Pure white on the bottom did not seem to fix it. is there a coating out there that is opaqued on the inside (silvered or something) that can either be applied over the current coating, or serve as his first "recovering" project

Can't you help a Nacho out?