Just made a couple flights on my new Harrier 46. It was, ehhh, mediocre. The CG was at 140mm, the frontmost reccomended in the book, and it was a bit squirrely. It had terrible rudder coupling, rolling out of knife-edge in any direction it pleased. This is a result of the pointy wingtips, I believe. My SudoKhoi did the same thing and it had this type of wingtip, as does the Flip. I remedied it by hacking them off. The gear is way too spongey, and I don't think it would stand up to a harrier landing. 3D, however, is great. The plane does most everything, and locks right up in a harrier. I hope it flies better. Probably post again tomorrow.

Thanks for the info, I just finished mine with a Saito 82. I should get to maiden it tommorrow or the next day. What engine are you running?

my 90 did HORRIBLE knife edge!

Cody, read the other H46 post and you will see that most everyone that already has the h46 will agree with you on the knife edge part. Mine will knife edge, but if you go past a certain point with the rudder, roll coupling suddenly takes over and rolls the airplane out of knife edge. After flying the H46 for a month, I've gotten better with flying it in knife edge but I don't think it will ever be great at it. The way the plane does everything else more than maked up for it, after all, it's called the Harrier 3D with stress on the 3D part. Mine balances at 140mm from the leading edge, I had to build a balance stand to accertain that as there is no way you can pick up the airplane by the covering at the wing roots to check the CG with any accuracy. With my balance stand I can be sure where the CG is at within less than mm. At that CG I wouldn't call it squirrely, just quick on high rated. On high rates I have the surfaces, including elevator, pretty much maxed out, and I can do a full elevator loop without the plane snapping. In low rates it flies pretty much like a sport plane. It does all the normal 3D manuevers, blenders, waterfalls, tic tocs and walls really good, and in a harrier it is solil as as a rock. Considering the only thing it doesn't do well is knife edge, I certainly wouldn't call it mediocre. You are right about the landing gear, it is much too soft. My son had the engine quit about five feet up in a landing with the nose up last Saturday (funny they won't continue running with the tank empty), it conpletly flattened the landing gear. Luckily, no other damage was sustained. We were at a fly-in flying over grass, if it had been over pavement there would probably have been some damage, including the valve covers on my Saito 82. I have found that the gear also twists backwards after a few landings, causing the tires to slide on take offs and landings. That wore the original tires out real fast. I made an aluminum 1/8 thick plate the width of the fusalage, bolted the gear to that with #6 stainless flat head screws and lock nuts and ran the gear mounting screws through both the gear and plate to mount the gear the the plane. That has stopped the gear from twisting backwards, but it is still to soft. With the backwards sweep that is built into the gear, I don't see any way to replace it.
Super D, mine also has the Saito 82. With that engine and a Tru Turn spinner and the reciever and 600 mill battery all the way at the rear of the radio conpartment, and using Futaba 9202 servos, it came out quite nose heavy. The original balance point was around 120mm from the leading edge. I never checked that with any accuracy, I made two marks at 140 and 150mm, transfered those to the bottom of the fusalage with a square, and set it on the balance stand. It balanced initially at least 20mm in front of the 140mm mark, maybe more. You may be happy flying the plane nose heavy, the only thing that really improved with moving the CG back was the walls.
All in all, I'm happy with the H46. After flying a Funtana 40 for a year with the same setup, I'd forgotten that an airplane could fly this good. The H46 does all the 3D manuevers at least as good as the Funtana, hovers and harriers a thousand percent better and isn't constantly on the edge of snapping, even in low rates. There may be other airplanes out there that fly better for other people, but so far I like my Harrier.

I'm ok with the Harrier not doing a knife edge, my Katana 40 does them great + KE loops.

Dyehard I'm using 3004's and 9001 on rudder. Your right my CG was also around 120mm with a 1100 nicad 5 cell, just in front of the throttle servo. I moved it back to the rear of the fuse and I'm ~140mm. I'll try it there then go back if need be.

Ive been flying my harrier for the past two weeks and have been very happy with how the plane flys...I have my cg set at 150mm but I also did as a few others did and set my expo on my elevator at 80 percent, and 40 percent on my ailerons. I replaced the stock landing gear strait out of the box with a set of composite landing gear and 3" Dubro foam tires since all i fly on is grass. I also replaced the rear tail gear with a better style that uses the springs to pull the wheel to save the rudder servo. So far I have been very pleased with it im just messing around trying to find props that I like for it. Oh I also covered the entire bottom of the airplane in red and yellow checered ultra coat to improve visability.....and I know someone will chime in with if you cant tell top from bottom your flying to high............but i dont care i covered the bottom just so there would be no question. My plane also knife edges pretty well also....Not as good as some planes but It does them pretty nice...I definately had to figure out a little bit of stick work to make them do better but I was pretty please with the KE. Like everyone else says it does everything else so well I couldnt complain.

I cut the wingtips off and it flies much better. For a hardcore 3D airplane, it's pretty good, but the wings are too short. It's twitchy on the roll axis, even on low rates. The CG is probably at 140 or 130 mm, and it's better, but still a little squirrelly. The landing gear are useless, especially on a hardcore 3D airplane. The fuel tank is way too small. I'm running an O.S. 60 FSR with a 13x4W, and it seems to be a good match, but flies for only about 6 minutes.

There's been some problems, however, with the motormount. It's way too soft, and flexes constantly. In fact, the front of the airplane isn't all that rigid, and it can be seen flexing with a little persuasion. This plane just kind of flies and feels cheap.

3D is pretty good, but if you want a hardcore 3D plane, build a profile. After flying that and then flying my modified Somethin' Extra, I just love the Somethin' Extreme so much more. it really grooves on low rates, has no roll coupling, and 3D's as well as anything. It's not as stable in a harrier as the, err, Harrier is, but I can gladly ignore that because it does everything else so great. Here's a pic. It's just a Somethin Extra with 3/4" added to the ailerons, 3/4" added to the rudder with a balance tab, and the hinge line moved forward, the notch widened, and balance tabs added to the elevator. I also built a second turtledeck on the bottom to help with KE, but I don't think it has much effect. It needs taller gear, but that can be remedied.

Cody,

Were there any negative handling issues with the removal of the wing tips? I like the way mine flies as it is, but if whacking off the tips makes KE better, I'll be getting out the saw. What did you do with the ailerons? Whack them too? I had a somethin extra that was modded similar to yours, but no way would it 3D like this one. I think the cg was too far fwd on it to get it past stall, but it did an excellent knife edge. It was my favorite plane at the time of its demise.[&o]

My SE does everything that the Harrier does but smoother. The roll axis is much more stable.

Taking the wingtips off had no noticable adverse changes. It's not great, but it's better. Just be careful when you cover the wingtips, the end ribs are very light and will bow with any heat to the covering. You might wanna glue a balsa support plate to the end.

I just cut the whole tip assembly so it was flush, and trimmed the ailerons to the same length. There's a rib in line with the end of the wing there, and I just cut it there.

Six minutes on a tank! I guess that is where the four strokes really shine. We were practicing last Sunday for a demo at the local airports full scale airshow. After a timed seven minute flight which consisted of a lot of climbs until the plane was very small, followed by some manuever down almost to ground level, I still had half a tank left. We commonly get twelve plus minuted to a flight. At a little over 16 ounces weight and the ability to turn a 14x4W at 10500 on the ground, the 82 Saito doesn't give up anything to the 60 size two strokes.

Man im getting over 12 min a flite out of my OS 61.....thats strange

I have been flying a harrier 46 with a Saito .82 14x4w at 10300 the run time is 19 minutes with a 12 ounce tank.

I have 3 gallons run through this engine and it just gets better and better i can't say enough about it.

Love the fuel mileage love the power.