Was in the LHS the other day, wanted something to beat around with. The owner had a ModelFly Cessna 177 ARF on the shelf, been there a looooong time. He played the Godfather thing on me (made me an offer I couldn't refuse) and I took it and a SuperTigre .61 home, I already had Rx and servos from my recently defunct DR-1. One of our club members had a smaller version a couple years ago, it was a nice flyer. This one has a 66-1/2 inch wingspan, .60-size.

This whole plane is PLASTIC; well, the horizontal tail has a single balsa stick inside for a spar, but everything else is ABS. This one also has floats as well as wheels, so I have another floatplane now. It took about two quick evenings, and the thing was ready to fly (I put the wheels on to maiden it). I took it to the field, ran two tanks through it to break it in and get it tuned, and took off; boy howdy did it take off! This thing is a little rocket, and very responsive. It also flies very docile at 1/3 throttle, and the .61 with an 11-7 prop will take it straight up as long as you want to go. It lands pretty fast, but I'm going to program in some flaperons and see how slow I can get it.

Needless to say, I'm impressed with this thing. The plastic skin is tough enough that you can really beat it around without worrying about hangar rash; the downside, I guess, is that when you do really ding it, it's more difficult to repair. The only thing I don't like is the big-***** muffler on the SuperTigre, it doesn't fit well on the plane (there is an indentation molded into the fuse for the muffler to sit) and this muffler interferes with the front struts for the floats. So....I spent a little more money today and ordered a Pitts style muffler for it. The ARF comes with a piece that fills in the indentation in case you use a Pitts muffler or mount a 4 stroke. I would have used a 4-stroke, but the only one I had available is a .91, too much power. But for what I gave for it, this is just what I was looking for--something to throw in the car when I don't have a lot of time to pack up the big stuff.