After bashing the Magic as a poor hoverer I found a great mod that turned it into one of my best hovering planes, almost as good as the Knife or Ex-Treme

1) Pull out the rudder servo
2) Cut a hole on the top of the fuse just in front of the rudder and drop in a mini servo (0.6 oz)
3) run a short pushrod to the ONE of rudder horns on the pull pull
4) run a long extension to the receiver
5) set the rudder up for 50 degrees throw or more

My big beef with the Magic was lack of rudder authority. With this new setup and 50+ degrees of throw the Magic really comes alive.

I removed enough tail weight to keep the CG constant at around 5 inches back.

PS I stole this mod from someone (I forget who) on RCU The whole mod took about 20 minutes.

That sounds good for removing dead weight, but the stock configuration gives plenty of rudder authority for easy hovering. I get close to 50 degrees of throw with the stock pull pull setup. It hovers great with way more than enough rudder.

Jason

I found the original push/pull wires had a lot of friction and seemed to bind at 35+ degrees. Maybe I had an ackerman problem? The servo in the tail is very efficient and has very little slop.

Glad to hear the original wires worked for you.

My rudder was a little slow at first, then i tossed in a 6V battery. that helped a lot. You have to react pretty quick to keep the rudder under it, anything that slows the responce down makes it a little harder. More battery and faster servos will do the trick, but this sounds like a good mod to me.

Spaceman Spiff

I also had a hard time keeping the rudder under it, once it started leaning.......you know what happens next

Now with 55 degrees throw on the rudder I can kick the tail back under it. If you are already getting 50 degrees out of the original pull/pull then this mod won't help.

I just removed 2 oz. of lead weight from the tail and added a std. servo to the fuse.. works great

overhead shot of rudder servo!

Mine looks the same except the servo is a mini and it's right against the rudder. Also, I used a short single pushrod as opposed to the pull/pull.

Glad you liked the idea I stole from someone else

I wish I had a digital camera