Well, being a fan of those WWI birds with inline engines (I hope to be doing an 1:6 scale Albatros CI next) I guess I don't mind cylinders "sticking up in the air." Honestly, I don't care at all about how the Calmato looks. It's just a realistic flying model that I'll use to put some solid runtime on the engine. And if it flies like it's smaller brother, I won't have to be learning the feel of a new model just to break in an engine.



But you'll be glad to hear that on the Kyosho I've mounted the engine inverted. Since the whole point of this model is as a test bed for the Saito 72 I'm going to be using my my Sopwith Snipe -- and since it will be mounted inverted on the Snipe -- it made sense to mount it inverted on the Kyosho. Actually, best would probably have been to mount it upright for the engine break-in and then remount inverted to do the fine tuning. But that's WAY too much work for an ARF! [:@]

BTW, it's unfortunate the so many ARF manufacturers only think of the set up for 2-stroke installation. On every ARF I've ever bought I've had to do some "ARF bashing" on the engine mounting and/or connection since I much prefer 4-strokes. On the Kyosho 60 this involved drilling a new hole in the firewall and one of the formers to run the throttle control rod. I also needed to reverse the postion of the throttle servo to the servo arm was on the same side as the throttle arm.

I've got it all put together now -- minus the tail-wheel. As mentioned above I've converted it to a taildragger. And a rough balance shows it's going to need more than a bit of weight up front. The 40-size Calmato Sport balanced just about right from the very beginning, which was a surprise given how long the tail is. But the 60-size isn't nearly as nicely balanced. Kyosho should probably have moved the servo tray forward (to the front half of the wing) instead of it's current position in the rear of the wing saddle area.

I still need to fine-tune the radio setup and get the balance right and since I'm going to be leaving Japan in a couple of days for a 2 month holiday in the US, I guess I won't get to do the engine break-in and maiden until the fall. [:@][:@]

Well at least it'll be here waiting for me.