Joining the thread of discussion - Just bought the floating brick after spending sometime time studying hydroplanes.
spent £20 on the boat and tried with stock equipment. Then tried 8.4v some improvement - marginal.

My obsevations on the stock setup:-

- 3 point Hull ride plane very close to the real thing.
- far to big and heavy for electric, will never get up to plane onto prop and front sponsons
- centre of gravity slightly to far aft

The Hull is not bad apart from a couple of moulding lines on the rear wing.

I have seen all the videos and noticed the following:-
Drag from aft sitting to low in the water - this would also cause drag with built up air beneath the hull. The air flow dynamics are not working. Think back at the basic airplane wing principles !!

Suggestions apart from chucking in the Bin;

- keep the bottom part of the moulding and make a new top half - should reduce the weight considerbly. improving power to weight ratio.
- keep the sponson angle as stock- if you increase the angle then this will only cause a push down on the aft.
- Single prop with adjustable pitch, prop to lifting
- 18 to 20 cells if you want to keep it electric ie you need about 300-500 watts of power for a model this weight and size. check out this site http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/a...article_id=516


I am looking at a lighter toy model for about the same price before deciding on which one to modify. I have also found a smaller version of this NQD model which i might also buy.

Weight is the key reduce weight increase power and you should get this up to plane. Problem with the electric to generate this amount of power the model will only run for about 5 mins.