Quick question. How do you think a old ST. X-60 blue head will fly this airplane. I am not concerned with unlimited vertical, but maybe a few torque rolls before running out of umph.
This plane is intended for funning around when I can't get my gassers out.

V-Snap

Personally I think it will do fine with your 60...the plane builds so light it won't be a problem.

There are folks who are flying it with OS LA 65 and having a ball.
Yours is definatly more powerfull than those.

And the hobby shop is only looking at the OLD catalog....if they call the distributer they will have the 13X4 W APC and the 14X4 W APC.....just force them to make the call.

Alright, I will call em up tommorow. Thanks Mike.

Course you can use it..I still have an Irvine 53 in mine and I can go about 3 rolls before I lose a considerable amount of height. Can do a bit of a knife edge too, but the plane doesnt have that big of a fuesalage area side so Its not for very long. I'm stickin a bigger engine in, but only so I can have vertical and hover it.

Has anyone added right thrust to the engine mount? I noticed when going into a hover it wants to torque over to the left pretty bad and the P-factor on the ground does the same thing. If you have added right thrust, how thick of a shim did you use?

The ground handling is pretty squirrelly on my plane. I think I will add more toe-in. Anyone else have the same problem?

Do you use irvine 53 in a razzle? Size prop?

Hideho and good morning...
Yup, the plane benefits from a wee bit O toe in..and I put a couple of washers under the left mount when I assembled mine...all three times ;^(

It still torks a wee bit on full throttle pullouts but not much..acceptable in my opinion.

The Razzle is my first arf. I have followed this thread for a while, and have read the posts about poor construction and grade of wood. I thought that people were just being picky, but it looks like the hit the nail on the head. I have never seen wood as bad as what is in the empennage of this plane. The lack of glue shocked me, joints broken or breaking with the slightest touch. The shear web grain is running span wise, it may as well not even be in there. Replacing it would be easier if they left it out. I removed the covering from every part to allow me access to re-glue everything. I reinforced all of the tail feathers with carbon fiber. Replaced the shear webbing in the wing. The wing appears to be built pretty good except for the web thing. Finally I hinged all of the control surface with monokote hinges. I find it strange that a company would go to the lengths to produce very nice mitered wood joints and then not use enough glue to hold it together. Hopefully it fly’s nice. Here are some pic of the mods I made. Are all ARFs this way? Just my .02

Another

Last one

Hideho all,

Nice pics and very nice covering to differentiate up from down...
I have to disagree with your assessment of the quality of the wing, however. Many wings do not need the shear webs going the "proper" way you describe, the H-9 Edge is just one for example.
Todays wings have been designed so that allot of structural integrity comes from the covering. I would rather have the mfg consider this and build me as light of a wing as possible than go overboard and heavily glue/reinforce each joint. I would rather make a simple repair on a busted clean joint after a cartwheel or similar accident than to cutout and remove structure that has been "beefed".
Furthermore, we the modeling consumers have been screaming build it lighter and the ever so popular lighter flys better so loud and long that the Mfg's are finally giving us what we want.

I have learned that it is better to build a plane that flys great/lighter rather than holds up well to crashes, (trainers excepted).

I have flown my Razzle so hard and tumbled it so violently that I was able to expose the one real defect in manufacturing, and that's the horiz stab. The balsa on the TE and LE is just too light for that application. Agreed the tail feathers do not have "alot" of glue and that suites me OK, as I'm sure the majority of strength is coming from the covering.

If given the choice by flyers who demand performance over "crash survivability" I'd bet a dollar to a donut that to a man, we would vote build it lighter, not stronger. Sure both are preferable, but we're not in a perfect world either. I can't tell you how exited I am that we are finally getting the planes that we have been pleading for the last couple of years..true 3D capable, fat wing, cool fuse, fiberglass parts, CapExtraEdge tail-feathers, slow flying, non tip-stalling, hover monster, NON profile type plane...
Disclaimer Not that profiles are bad...I have owned at least 5 or 6 of them, (still do) I just wanted something different.

You made the decision to recover and beef up your plane, and you did a fine job. I hope that there is no trade off in performance.
I do really like the difference in top/bottom, and on my left over wing I intend to do something radically different...perhaps a waving flag....

I look foreword to your flight test report.

No offense meant or implied by disagreeing with you.

Good luck

I'm still searching for the best one to use, so far I've used 11x7, 12x6, 113/4x73/4 and an apc 11x8. Goes like a missile lol

I use 13x4 apc in my flip 3d(irvine 53) hover at half trottle!! When i use 11/7 or 12x6 my flip hover at 3/4 -full trottle....
My advise try 13x4 !!

Yup, that's what I'm using...APC 13X4 W
Perfect match!
It ain't the speed you need...

Hi Mike,

The problem I found with the wing was the direction of the grain of the shear webbing, not its quality or size. The job of the shear webbing is to keep the two spars from deflecting in toward each other while under load. The farther the two spars are apart the stronger the wing will be. I did not beef mine up rather I removed the old webbing and replaced it with the same size web with the grain running perpendicular to the spars. Covering will not help here. The manufacturer is probably doing this to cut costs. I cant agree more with you about keeping the airframes light, it is my opinion that airplanes should made to fly not to survive a crash. However the airframe should not be failing due to aerodynamic loading no matter how hard you are flying the plane, this is a safety issue. The way I see it all of the extra weight I added to the airframe, mostly just much needed CA and a small amount of carbon fiber, does not equal the weight of the the goofy looking pilot I removed from the plane, therefore I am lighter than stock. I cant wait to get it out and fly it!

Hey Guys,
With all of this talk about props what would be a good choice for a Saito FA .91?


Thanks
Tom

If you talking funfly, and for the Razzle, the APC 14X4 W or if you have the clearance the 15X4 W. I fly the 14X4 W on my OS 91 Surpass and it's a perfect match, IMNSHO.
These are relativly new props in the line for APC, and some of the older LHS's don't show them in their catalog.
One quick call to APC will fix that.
Kinda spendy @$14.00 for the 14x4 but preformance is well worth it.

The thing to mention the the letter 'W' designation, it stands for wide

Use the 15x4W on the Satio .91S. The 14x4 will overrev the motor.

Thanks For the prop info

I had a Razzle 3D, and here is my 2 cents.

Yes, it is a very cost effective 60 size ARF Fun Fly. But:

1. The Turtle deck is all balsa stick-build-up without a lot of hardwood to dissipate heavy loads of say a harrier landing when the wind drops from 10 mph to 0 in a second. I know of three other Razzle owners who broke the tail off, right behind the sheeting. (Where the ugly yellow begins). So, when I bought mine, I first removed all the covering from the fuselage. I epoxied four sticks of spruce into the tail section. Now, One dude did this by cutting out only the bottom covering and sliding them in there, but I wasn’t to fond of the color myself anyhow.

2. In removing the factory covering out of the box, I noticed several stingers where not glued in place very well. While the covering was off, I pumped quit a bit of CA in it before recovering. It was held together by it’s ultracoat.

3. Second, the tail wheel mounting plate, it a simple piece of 2” X .5” piece of light ply, white glues to balsa stingers. Mine broke off 3 times. I finally sheeted the aft enf of the tail, after the servo mounting area, and glued in a 4” piece of .125” ply in place to the stock plate. This worked a lot better.

4. Last but not lest, the I used tail bracing on the vertical and horizontal stabilizers. The improved rigid/strength quit a bit.

With these mod, I had not problems, and didn’t have to add any nose weight. I ran a MDS 78, with a 14X6 and 15X4W APC prop.

After reading about all of the problems with the stab, I decided to brace mine. I have been thinking about it when I fly and have not been willing to wring it out. I used aluminum strut tube and flattened it at the ends and fuse. I glued a block of balsa between the stringers to put a #2 wood screw into. I wicked CA into all the holes and used 4-40 bolts through the stab. It is nice and stiff and added minimal weight.







While I was at it I changed the wheels and axles. I added a ply plate to the inside of the pants for strength. This was a much easier setup and is stronger.

Very nice job, Anthony.
Very nice.

Thanks
Now once I get right thrust put in it should fly great.
I also added big yellow stripes on the bottom of the wing for orientation. When you have it 2 mistakes high practicing new stuff you can lose it pretty easy without something added for orientation.

I like it! Very rigid!.

Are you doing anything with the fuselage. Specifically, the turtle-deck?

If not, be EASY on your landings.

Not doing anything to the fuse...yet. This thing floats like a sailplane. I keep running her dry and have to deadstick land. Everyone thinks I have glue on the wheels because it sticks and does not bounce. It makes me look good