Just back from the field & flying the Extra Magic with the Saito 72. I worked about all night to get it ready. Had the usual obstacles to overcome. The aileron rods were too short. I used some I had lying around and the rudder pull-pull rods were too short. Used Du-bro large threaded couplers and threaded on the ends of the rudder rods. This worked great. Would include a pic if anybody wants to see it. Plane balances about 4 inches back. Set the control throws to maximum travel, made low rates 50% of that. Used negative exponential on everything. Plane flew very good, had plenty of power, hovered at half throttle. Plane weighs 4lb 8oz ready to fly. Only made one flight, the motor mount seems very weak and allowed the motor to shake a lot. I think with a different motor mount and a little tweaking this will be one very fun plane to fly. It does fly a lot like my U-Can-Do.

i ahve several tt .46 and they all run great!!!! either 12 1/4 * 3 3/4 prop or 11*4 or 11.5 *4 prop. i always run os # 8 plugs w/ 15% nitro ( red) with the castor and usually 18% oil. never had a prob.
thx
chris

Well, I'm just about finished building it now, and, in hindsight, it's about the least pleasurable building experience I have ever had.

And I've had a few!

The hardware was terrible, including the rudder push rods being far too short, and the same with the aileron push rods. All the servo trays fell out due to lack of sufficient glue, the bottom cover cannot possibly survive the way they say you should fit it. The engine bearers are too close to the sides of the fuselage, and the firewall has triangular stock strengtheners that have been fitted so badly, that don't actually meet the sides of the fuselage.

The fuel tank cannot be slipped into the fuselage without removing a cross member and re-gluing it. I had to buy more control surface hinges as not enough were supplied. The trailing edge has to be cut away to get anything like a good fit when mounting the wing, and the belly pan is too long to get the trailing edge snug against the fuselage.

The fit in almost every area is very bad. In fact the fit of the belly pan is so bad that I have just come back from stripping my second set of wing hold-down bolts as they can only fit at an angle, thus cross-threading.

When drilling the holes in the trailing edge for these bolts, the instructions say . .

'IMPORTANT Drill the two holes parallel to the bottom surface of the wing'

!!

I presume they mean perpendicular to the bottom surface, but it doesn't make any difference anyway, as the holes are in the wrong position to enter the captive bolts in the fuselage at any sane angle.

The cross section of the side of the fuselage around the leading edge, and below the front of the canopy is far too small to survive any stresses provided by the engine and undercarriage at about the highest stress point in any aircraft, and I'm expecting the nose to fall off in normal flight. The holes in the firewall for the engine bearers are in the wrong place for an OS 46 (a recommended, and extremely standard fitting engine)

etc etc etc

Do I sound frustrated? You bet! (argh!)

Nice covering job on the wing though. It should look good as it flutters down having departed from the fuselage.

David C.

p.s. apart from that .. nice product! I think I'll go back to my Sig Somethin' Extra though. . . Now there's a quality product!

Dave ; You sound so negative, what do you expect with a $120 arf? Wait till you fly it, all the frustration will be worth it. It'll fly circles around your Sig. My friend has one & it wont hang with the Magic Extra when it comes to 3-d maneuvers. I'm sure in the next production runs they'll get the hardware & fit-n-finish a little better, but still for a little over a hundred bucks it's hard to beat. My one complaint is the narrow fuse at the firewall , can't get a descent muter mount in there for my Saito 72, the factory one lets the motor shake too much. Let us know how you like it once you've flown it. Later

Well yes. Maybe I did sound a bit negative, but that's because I had spent a few hours putting stuff right that had become a real pain.

Anyway, as you say, it does look like it may fly well (which is why I bought it).

Maybe I should have viewed the rudder pushrods as the latest designer rodlets that may be too short to actuate the rudder but certainly save weight. Who wants to go round corners anyway? What are ailerons for?

Oh yes, they had rodlets too. Seems like it's catching on.

If you are right about it flying better than a Somethin' Extra, I'm in for a treat.

<g>

David

Yes they are short, but all my rodlets seem to be working okay.
I did have to rotate the aileron servo arms one notch off-center, but I still get the full throw.

It's already got larger wheels, and now I'm going to replace the main gear. (My gear is too bent from the crash)!

If I can get the engine working by next weekend, I'll be back up there!

Do not even bother with the rods for the rudder. Just use a pull pull cable on the rudder and use the long rods and cut them for your ailerons. I have a cable pull pull on my rudder. The holes for the engine mount on my ARF matched up fine. I did not have all the troubles some of you are facing with your ARFs. Everything fit fine. The wing bolts supplied with the kits are very brittle. I replaced them with nylon bolts and new blind nuts. In all putting this thing together seemed like a normal arf. Again this thing flys much better than the Sig S.E it flys similar to the UCD3D. My C.G is way back passed what the recommend C.G is.
This thing hovers very easy does nice waterfalls very nice inverted flat spins harrier rolls harrier rolling circles etc. For a $109 dollars you cant go wrong. I let a very competent pilot fly mine and he said it flys much better than the Magic and he did cartwheels with this plane. This plane is a very good value. I fly mine with a plain TT46 no mousse can and the plane has plenty of power.

rlt55 ; Try using an OS #8 glow plug. They'll make a crappy engine run good. What kind of fuel are you using? All the guys at the field that have them love Thundertigers, I have a 36 TT & it's a sweet little engine. Hope you get it worked out, this is too good of a flying plane to be sitting around . Later

I was up real late the other night goofing on the web, and then yesterday I got the email from Tower Hobbies!
They are sending me:
(3) O.S. #8 plugs
(1) Dubro Landing Gear .35-.50 (plastic type)
(1) Macs Muffler O.S. .40-.46/TT .40-.46

Man, this internet is a wonderful thing!

Here's a pic of how I made the short rudder rods work & how I attached the tail wheel.

Got mine about two weeks ago, flys great, I pain to fix all the little problems, Firewall holes, wing mounts Etc. But worth it in the end. I only have a Maguim 40 powering mine and it will do waht ever I ask it to. Enjoy

Got the Magic Extra for Christmas. So far the building process has been good. No real problems with anything yet not fitting like some had said. So far so good. I do however have a question about the correct way to mount the control horn to the alerions. The instructions say to use wood screws, and don't mention using the backing plate. The screws when installed will poke through the alerion on the opposite side. Do you use the backing plate? However the plates wont work because the wood screws are not long enough. They give you the longer threaded screws to go through the control horn , and bolt on with the backing plate. Are you better off to use the through bolts anyway, with the backing plate? Any info would be appreciated.

The instructions don't give any real good hints on mounting the battery, and receiver so any info/pictures on that would be great as well.

Tried some Skis on a Sig LT40 Trainer yesterday, it was a lot of Fun! Now I may just have to put them on the Magic!

Keep all the good info coming on the Magic, flight treports and all. This thread seems to be the one for all the info. Thanks!

Look at the bottom of page 5. Those screws are 2x12mm machine screws. That 'wood' screw is a typo.
(it also says it right on the top of page 30).
Yes, use the back-plates. I cut the screws down with wire-cutters since they were a little long and took off the edges with a Dremel tool. (Most guys just leave em sticking up).

I did post a pic of my batt & rx. It's back one page.

I am using the OS 46 FX, a regular size JR receiver and servos, and I am way tail heavy to get even near the starting point of 3-3/8". I mounted the battery all the way foward up aganist the fuel tank wall, and the receiver is just in front of the wing hold down bolts, as the servo leads all reach to about there. The receiver does not weigh much anyway. Moving it won't make much difference at all. My CG is at 4-14" I followed the mounting instructions for the engine, but it appears so close to the firewall that getting the fuel line off will be a challenge. Question is, should I move the engine foward, and will that effect anything else?? Should I then put the battery in the center of where I have it mounted first, and then move engine? I figure if the battery is centered from the start, then you have the option to move it later if you like a different CG as time goes on. So the real question is, is 4-1/4' CG really bad, or will it fly like it is? Only problem is right now I am so tail heavy that I have nothing to adjust to get some weight in the nose. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, and thanks for the last response as well.

Read back a couple pages. One guy says 4 3/4" worked fine for him. Mine flew okay at around 4 1/4" (It was too windy to even get a good trim set up).
I'm going to have to recheck the CG again after I replace the main gear.
I'm already using larger (and heavier) main wheels.
Too much snow (and too cold) for me this weekend.
(I don't have any skis)

I have read all the post here and it seem that all of the planes have the same problems: on mine the push rods were short, the predrilled holes in the firewall didn't line up ect. The only Problem that really botherd me was the CG. I moved the engine(Enya 45cx)all the way out on the mount, Battery infront of the fuel tank(used 700ma AAA), used micro servo for the carb, used foam for tail wheel, 12.25x3.25 prop and the CQ was still at 4.5". It needed 60z of lead under the engine to make it at the recomended CG.. I like to start at the stated cq and then move back.

All that said, The plane flys really good, I will be able to remove some of my nose weight. It will do everything that the magic will and more. Overall I would recomend this plane. I emailed modeltec and they said that most of our kit flaws were already fixed on the following kits.

I feel that I have to respond to the person early in this post who said they got tired of flying the original magic. You may want to get into fishing, hunting,sports or somthing else. If you get tired of flying a plane that will fly and want to sell it email me, Some of us want to fly anything 24-7.

[email protected]

My engine was working real good today.
The ME is a mean machine. I love flying it.

Taking off is a problem and I only had one good landing.
It kept going over on it's nose, every time!

Guess it needs some skis. (Or less snow)!

My Magic Extra has no right thrust. For those who have flown them,is it advisable to add right thrust?

Thanks,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Dave

A fellow BRCF member is building his right now and told me today that he is going to put in some right-thrust.
He says space is so tight, he may have to drill the engine mounting holes offset a little.
He said somthing about clamping the mounts together and sanding down the bases on a belt-sander.?.


I'm using a TT Pro-46 and there isn't much room. The mounts are <1 mm from the cheeks.

My plane is tail heavy and needs some weight on the left wing-tip, but it flys just fine.. (Of course, I'm a newbie and wouldn't know the difference)
I didn't have to do much trimming today, just a little back stick for slow flying. I'm only flying 10 min flights so far.

I finally got the CG (way tail haevy) in the ball park by doing a few things. Battery now on top of the fuel tank,all the way foward. It is actually a nice fit there. If you are using the OS .46 FX don't mount the engine until you check the CG. If you follow the instructions for mounting this engine, it will end up way to far back ,and you can not even get the fuel line off, or remove the muffler screws. Move the motor foward enough so that the mixture screw is about in the center of the cut out area. Doing all this put my CG right in the ball park. I then also moved the receiver just about up aganist the fuel tank area. I then drilled a small hole for the antenna to exit out at the bottom of the fuel tank compartment at the back side. Fed the antenna through the hole, and put a small rubberband on the tailwheel to hook the antenna to. Works great. No on to balance in the wing to wing direction. Any suggestions of where to put the weights?

Again, mine is very tail heavy. I added weight to the back of it to make it way tail heavy and it still flys fine. Even if yours is balancing at the back end of the recomended CG it will still fly fine.

My magic was doing great until today. I finally got my CG perfect, was taking it through some gentle loops when the right rear horizontal stabilizer and elevator broke off at the bottom of the loop. I will post a pic of it in a later post. Needless to say the plane flew wonderful without it; it came around and landed perfectly. It was stable as a pattern ship even with one elevator. Since this was only the 2nd flight with it the manager of the local shop gave ma a new one to replace it (he watched the whole flight) and I am building the new one now. I am adding supports to the tail to keep it from doing that again and would suggest the rest of you think about it. It was a heart pounder to see it come off in the air.

Picture to fallow as soon as I make it small enough.
Bill

This is what it looked like when it landed.

Has anyone glassed the wings for this plane?

Any suggesitons for servos? I noticed someone was using HS 524MG's. I was thinking of getting 5 of the standard size sport or standard pro sport servos from Hitec.

ModelTech...I'm fairly sure they make the Hype 3D for Weston UK and many people have had catastrophic problems with the horizontal stab on that model including myself. Luckily when mine came back to mother earth the wing was OK and Weston kindly replaced the fuzz. Awesome fun to fly despite all the problems I've had.

Weston are going with a different manufacturer for the new 'Original Hype' which is supposed to be out soon.