I recently had the opportunity to help a friend who is new to R/C build and fly his new Senior Kadet ARF. Purchased from Chief in Oregon with a Saito 56 4 stroke for power, I knew it would be a sweet flying plane.
My friend is learning to fly, and I knew this would be the perfect trainer plane for him. It arrived with the now well-known and expected busted ribs in the wing panels. Sig is working on the problem and I hope will eliminate the un-needed lightening holes in the thin ribs or make the ribs thicker. I was able to manipulate the cracks in the ribs back and apply thin CA to fix them. The servo installation in the wings was per plan except the addition of servo tape to help secure the servo to the ABS plastic servo cover. I also just cut out a hole for the pushrod to go through instead of cutting out the entire exit area. Threading the servo wire was real easy with the supplied string. One of the wires fell back into the hole requiring some fishing for it. I would recommend some clear tape over the large hole to keep the wire from falling in. The last thing on the wing panels was ironing the coving nice and tight. The covering job is excellent but needs help with some minor wrinkles.
Fuselage and tail feather assembly went perfect. I ironed all the parts to secure the covering and remove wrinkles before assembly. This is a big plane and needs room to set it up for gluing the tail feathers on. Getting the surfaces square was no problem.
The kit comes with metric fasteners with Phillips heads. I chose to remove the blind nuts and replace them with “RTL Fasteners” 6/32 socket head screws and blind nuts. This was a good choice. The plane comes out tail heavy, and with this in mind I put the battery under the tank just behind the firewall and mounted the engine as far forward as I could get it. You can feed the battery through the tank support hole and secure it with foam. I later cut an access hole in the bottom to add weight and secure the battery to the firewall.
I added 6 oz of weight to the nose to balance the plane. The only other mod I made was to pitch the weak balsa rods for pushrods and used Dave Brown fiberglass rods. Light and stiff and they work great. The tail feathers for this plane are built way too heavy. The kit Senior Kadet uses much lighter sticks for construction. Strong is good, but the addition of weight to the nose is a must to get this plane to balance.
Some cosmetic mods are a must for this plane if you want it to look nice. I removed the windshield and painted the bare exposed wood white to match the covering. I also painted around the side window openings before installing the windows. I painted inside the cabin area black and made a floor covering the radio compartment. I also used finishing epoxy to seal all the exposed balsa and to lock down the edges of the covering around the engine and wing saddle area. I used smoke colored striping tape between the white and red covering lines. This sets it off nice. Black or Blue would also look nice.
This ARF is outstanding in quality. Construction and covering is top notch. With a little know how and attention to detail, this plane turns heads at the field.
Flying this plane is pure joy. It’s the perfect trainer in every respect. Big, easy to see, slow if you want it to be, gentle as a feather to land. My friend landed it for the first time after just 3 flights. The Saito 56 is perfect for this plane. If you want to have fun with it, use this or bigger 4 stroke.
Check out the pictures of this plane on WebShots:
http://community.webshots.com/script...bumID=55861453
Jeff Duffield
http://www.angelfire.com/wa/JeffMDuffield