RE: J3 cub, crash on take off nearly every time.
It is interesting that two of you have said that this plane was not meant to fly because as I walked away from the crash site that's exactly what I said. In my first post I mentioned that my friend was real jerky with the controls, that was obviously not the case at all. I can not help but think it almost acted as though the rudder and elevater was fluttering? I am not sure if thats how best to describe it but I can't think of any other explanation. My friends name is Kevin and from now on I will refer to him in these posts as such mainly because I am not into saying friend or bud and I realy do not want to type BF! (JP is myself as everyone I know calls me that).
There are a couple of things that I noticed about his plane and maybe you can shed some light. The first and most important thing is my J3 is a Richmodel, and his is a Nitro special (yes that was sarcasm). I imagine that the two are almost the same quality and price but they are very diffrent in size. Infact, the only thing that was the same was the wing span and wing width. For the Nitro, the fuse was shorter and smaller in diameter, the vert stab was shorter and smaller, and the elev. was alot smaller as well. Kevin also told me that the hinges for the rudder and elevater were like micro size compared to the aileron hinges. I am not saying one should not buy a plane from Nitro, instead just that they are built cheap and fast.
Last question I have is, how do they figure engine size to plane size? My J3 has a 71" wing span and calls for a .46 - .50 2cycle and it flys just fine. Kevins calls for the same but his plane overall as stated above is smaller. I have been lookin at other J3's and from what I have read so far all of the cubs that call for a .50 engine have 76.0" - 84.0" wing spans and heavier flying weight.
I lied and have one more question:
Does anyone have any ideas on better main landing gear? I am using the stock set-up which consists of two wire type with metal straps holding them to the fuse. On the sides of the wire there are wood skirts that again are straped to the wire and have plastic hinges screwed into the fuse bottom. I have yet to not destroy them on landing and can't help but think there has got to be a better way.