I also got a chance to fly my sukhoi today. Much the same results as Silversurfer. I had a terrible amout of trouble with the first toc 53 from Tom. He asked me to send it back and at first I was hesitant because I wanted to try to fix the problem and it was the weekend.. blah blah blah. Tried to fly it last saturday and it didn't go well at all. Took the engine off and sent it back to Tom as he asked. He was a real trooper, didn't have time to really work on it and figure it out so he sent me the engine off of his sukhoi. I installed it, rerouted the choke and throttle servo ( his carb was rotated 180° to mine) started it up and it ran 100 times better than mine did. Took it to the field this afternoon, started it up, let it warm up, and off we go. I was actually jittery after the first 2 minute flight last saturday cause it was supper twitchy for some reason, and as stated before the engine was unreliable. Not the case this time. One click of elevator and one click of aileron had it straight and true for the most part. The engine sounded great and had awesome power. I need to get a real world weight on it as I have no idea. Re-routing the servos changed the balance a little bit, adding in more expo and lowering the throws all had the desired impact. A very docile plane on low rates that responded exactly as I wanted it to. I have had a few GS planes in the past couple of years, but have had self induced bad luck, so I haven't really learned to 3d like I would like to. In my limited ability the plane was still performing very good. I have a bit more tuck to gear in knife edge, and full on power straight up climbs wanted to veer left at both ends of the field. Engine thrust, torque, or nose heavy, not sure. Flew it around just having a blast for a bit. Tried to land it and all it wants to do is float. and float, and float. Finally got over the floating or so I thought. Every time I sat the plane down as gently as possible, it wanted to jump back in the air. These were not hard landings, stalled out landings or anything like that at all. I would touch it down and it would just float up or spring up again. Need more stick time! I need to talk to Tom about the idle on the engine. I wasn't comfortable with lowering the idle with trim, it sounded like it wanted to quit running. So I flew it to the ground and landed it in the grass on the side of the runway. Let it cool down before I flew it again. Almost identical to the first flight, except on touch down, I discoverd the tailwheel had fallen out of its bracket. The wheel collars and bracket were still there, just the wheel and its axle were gone. So that was the last flight of the day.

I know that was long winded, but I gotta say, after all the little tribulations I have had, this is one joy of an airplane to fly. Very responsive, good throttle transition. Need to adjust the low end I feel, but I want to talk to Tom about it first. I think its a little lean, but not sure. Tach numbers were 16 to 17 on the low and 6450-6500 on the high end with a 22-8 bunny prop.

Anybody out there on the fence about this beautiful plane can come on down off of it and get one. You will love it.