Well here goes, my first write-up. I thought I would do this for the communitity since there isn't too much out there on this plane. I picked mine up a few weeks ago from Troy at [link=http://www.maverickhobbys.com]Maverick Hobbys[/link]. If you haven't had the pleasure of dealing with Troy you're missing out. I've taken several pictures along the way, some better than others. Bear with me, I had to use my cell phone for some! My girlfriend took my camera to the Garth Brooks concert here in KC and I just now got it back!

The packaging was adequate. Foam peanuts and lots of newspaper. Nothing was damaged when I opened the box, which is always a plus. The components seem very well constructed. I laid everything out on the floor to get an idea of what I was working with. Pretty much everything is there minus pushrods and the normal stuff like engine/radio.

I went ahead and taped everything together to get a rough idea of how things would look. The only thing that concerned me initially was the elevator. I wasn't sure how the single piece of balsa would work out. See the pictures to understand what I'm talking about. The covering was better than I can do, so I wasn't complaing. Several years of custom design and scratch building and I still can't figure out how some of these guys do this. I can't remember for sure but I think Troy said the covering is something other than China-cote or the Cedarcote mentioned on the site. Maybe he can chime in. If not I'll ask him again the next time I see him.

There were only a few wrinkles. I think the transition from warm in the garage to cool outside sped up the process. A quick shot with the heat gun and they disappeared.

The interlocking contruction pleased me. For $115 I was happy. The wings have more than enough glue, as do the eppengage and fuselage. The foam filled fuse and carbon tube running the length are also a bonus on this plane. It's very strong. I should know, I already knocked mine off the workbench and nothing happened! On my trial fit I did notice that the two rib halves used to join the wings had a very snug fit. They did require some sanding. That was fine by me, I was able to achieve a very solid bond before I epoxied anything!

The landing gear went on easy enough. It seemed a little flimsy. I think the aluminum could be a little thicker or replaced with some type of composite gear. Nonetheless it worked out just fine initially.... If you hold the fuselage up against a light you can see the holes for the carbon tube exits at the front and aft, the holes for routing the fuel tubing from one side to the other, the location for the throttle servo (the locations for the elevator and rudder are obvious), the location of the slot for the two spar halves, and finally the hole for the alignment dowel on the wings. I went ahead and trimmed the covering back on everything and used my covering iron at about 250* F to seal everything back tight.

The elevator and rudder servos fix snugly into their holes. I had to trim some small pieces of wood away to make clearance for the cabling. After that everything fit very well. I will mention something I missed above, when I trimmed the aft hole for the carbon tube, I only cut the covering on one side. I left the other side intact as there is nothing feeding in from that side of the fuselage. Before I started on anything major I took several large lengths of cotton string and taped them together. Since I had the holes cutout for the carbon tube I fed the strings through so they were running out each end. These were very helpful in routing the servo cabling through the tube, through the wing, and from one side of the fuse to the other.

After I had mounted the elevator and rudder servos I turned to the throttle servo. I'm not quite sure what size servo this was intended for, but my standards were too large. The only micros I had were too small and fit inside the hole. Rather than build a bracket for the micro servo I went ahead and enlarged the hole to fit a standard size servo. This might sound like a PITA, but it only took about 2 minutes. Piece O cake! As far as routing the throttle cable, I've seen a lot of planes where a small hole was poked in the LE of the wing and fed into the radio compartment. I opted to try something different. Using a 3/8" spade bit, I drilled a hold through the frontside of the engine mounting area. Some may argue this weaken the engine area but I haven't had any issues yet. Even after drilling the hole there was plenty of wood to support the surrounding areas. Then, I used a coat hanger with a hook bent on the end to feed through the foam (it's everywhere, yippee!) and pull the cable through. This worked out perfectly as the cables ran right to the forward hole for the carbon tube, and right into the radio compartment on the wing. This produced a very clean install.

Next I moved onto the tail feathers. I sorta skipped a step and intalled this before the wings. Lucky for me everything measurement wise came out ok. I did a trial fit for the horizontal stabilizer and it was off-canter a bit. I trimmed the balsa and it was snug and aligned correctly. I like to use tape to mask off where the horz. stab. meets the fuselage. This way I don't have to use a black marker and mess everything up, and so after I remove the covering to glue it in place, any extra glue goes onto the tape and not the covering job. Works very well for me.

The hardware supplied included control horns but no screws, a complete fuel tank assembly, zip ties for the fuel tank, and CA hinges. I supplied the pushrods, screws, and landing gear axles. After I got the horz. stab on I went ahead and installed the rudder and elevator. I don't have any pictures of the glue job, but they were glued to high Heaven! The surfaces were all beveled and pre-slotted for the CA hinges. Everything installed without a hitch, so I was happy. I did have to run my hobby knife through a few of the pre-slotted areas to make the hinges fit easier. A few quick drops of thin CA and they were in solid. There was no binding or overly-large gaps in the surfaces. Don't fly too fast and flutter shouldn't be a problem.

Next was the wings. I did several trial fits with the two plywood wings spar halves, sanding them both to get a snug fit. Make sure you take your time on this. You don't want a fit so tight you struggle to get them on or you may have your epoxy setup before the wing halves are all the way on. I used medium CA to glue the two halves together and then used small clamps to hold everything tight. After the glue was set, I slid the wing halves over the spar to mark the perimeter of the wing halves root rib. I used a magic marker, DOH!, and left a black streak that was hard to get rid of. I should have used my tape again! Slide the wings back off and trim off the covering about 1/4" inside the line you just made. This will expose the bare wood and ensure good epoxy adhesion.

Now, before doing anything else, I turned my attention to the wings and my string. I trimmed the holes for the ailerson servos and once again used the iron to seal them back up. I removed the compartment hatches and then fed another long piece of cotton string through each wing halve, from the aileron servo hole through the root rib on the wing. I ran the string through the forward hole in the fuselage for the carbon tube and tied the two together. Then I mixed up my epoxy in generous amounts, had my alochol ready for wiping up excess, and then epoxied the two wing halves on. Be sure not to epoxy your strings in!. I used a small cargo strap wrapped around the wings from tip to tip pulled tightly to ensure a good bond.

The fuel tank provided seemed good to start with. I set everything up as normal. I opted to use a different piece of fuel tubing for the clunk than the piece provided. It seemed a little small in diameter. I zip tied everything tightly and then used some masking tape to label which tube was which. Now, to jump ahead, it would be my recommedation to replace the tank assembly with a Dubro tank or something equivalent. Maybe it was me just over-doing it, but on my first engine run, the plastic backing piece that goes inside the tank cracked in three pieces when I tightened it. I didn't notice it until I had ran my first whole tank through the engine trying to tune it. No wonder I had issues, it had a vacuum leak! Check the tank!

For the two other pictures above, I used a little trick. First, I setup the hardware for the tail surfaces. I used 4-40 hardware and some Heavy Duty standard, LOL, dubro control horns. You will need some extra long screws for the rudder as it is almost 1/2" thick. I set this up first to get the weight on the plane. Next, I screwed a small brass eye-bolt into the bottom of the fuselage right at the CG (CG is setup on the two wing spar halves you glued together earlier). I used this to hang the plane from upside down to help balance it from wing to wing and from engine to tail. This allowed me to place the engine in various postisions before actually mounting it. I was able to achieve a great slightly tail-heavy setup without having to add any weight.

You can see in my camera phone picture how the plance was hanging. It works! Just be sure to coat the threads on the eye-bolt with medium CA before you screw it in, just for good measure.

Oh, I also forgot to mention that as the wings were being epoxied, I installed the ailerons. Nothing too unusual there. The supplied CA hinges were more and adequate.

Everything is now primarily assembled. Here is there the strings come in handy. You can to this in any order, but this is how I did it. I used 3, 18 inch servo extensions. Two for the rudder and elevator and one for the engine-side wing. I used some Spider-wire fishing line to tie the leads together so they won't come apart while flying. I used 2, 8 inch extensions on the throttle and other aileron servo. Using the string, I was able to tie a knot onto each extention for the rudder and elevator and pull them through the carbon tube in the fuselage, into the forward exit hole for the carbon tube, into the radio compartment in the wing, and right to where the receiver should go. The extentions for the wings are easy enough. Make sure you put the radio and batter gear on the side with the fuel tank to offset the engine weight.

Everything is together. My first day with the plane at the field yielded a problem with the plastic piece on the fuel tank breaking, ending that day before it started. Make sure you check that. On my second trip, the range check was great, no issues there. I guess I could mention I drilled a small hole through the radio compartment hatch and pulled the receiver antennae through. I used three pieces of fuel tubing glued to the bottom of the fuse to route the cable.

It was a partly cloudy day with winds from the south at 5-15. Takeoff was normal. The plane started to climb a bit. It required some down elevator and some left aileron trim to fly straight and level.

I'll be honest here, I'm not the greatest 3D pilot, but I threw some manuvers at it. Knife edges had some coupling causing it to pull to the gear. High alpha KE was a little more extreme and required more correction. This didn't seem too unusual to me. It was easily corrected by 'feeling' it out. Walls are easy, fly in and pull back. It only wanted to snap out hard if you entered them really fast. Inverted flat-spins took a while with this setup, but like I said I'm not the greatest. I was able to get them after a few tried. As far as other stuff goes, I know Troy flew the daylights out of his and absolutely loves it. He's much better than me :-). You should send him an e-mail (on his site) if you have any other questions.

I did have a problem with the engine, it died on me forcing me to deadstick from low altitude. I think the Thunder Tiger Pro 46 I have is older than me. I know this plane would be much better suited to a Saito 82. Unfortunately I was building this on a budget and used what I had available!! Anyways, upon landing, the aluminum gear bent. It was a simple field repair, but I quit for the day, learning long ago to stop when I'm ahead :-) I think some composite gear would be a nice upgrade.

As a final note, I purchased everything for this plane from [link=http://www.maverickhobbys.com]Maverick Hobbys[/link] minus the pushods and engine. I used some of his servos on the ailerons. All the servos were standard S3004 Futaba servos. There are a few things I need to work out with the engine but everything else on the plane is great. If you are looking for a cheaper plane to get into profile 3D-ing, you should really try this one.

Nice job! Might want to use rubber bands instead of the zip ties. The rubber bands will give, where the zip ties will break. The zip ties will work.....