HowardT

i have one of those, its a great plane even on an irvine 61 abc with tuned pipe and 12 x 12 prop, as someone else says it flys great even in adverse weather and is v.fast.

One thing though, the wing bolt mounting blocks (wooden blocks with threads tapped) are glued to very thin sheet on the inside of the fus. If you land and clip a wingtip on these can actually tear out a chunk of the fus. rather than break the wing bolts.

I have installed a reinforcing plate either side , sliced off the additional thickness from the wing bolt threaded blocks and have braced across the back of the blocks to stop them twisting and therefore shearing when the wing bolts should be snapping!.

I have to say that i have had a lot of trouble with the tank / engine setup and as a result a few dead stick landings. It must be said that they fly well on dead stick until the flair comes at which point it can stop dead. I think this is down to the long section wing thin wing(and the fact that I need more high speed dead stick landing practice) and the ability to stall this wing is high.

Engine on landings with a 12 x 12 prop can be interesting as it will not slow down even on landing so low and as slow as possible is the order of the day using the grass as the brakes.

Overall flying is very accurate and knife edge perfomance allowed for a few knife edge loops before its semi demise.

Still should be back to normal quite soon! (unlike the pilot.)