3D Joy,

Aha, that makes sense. Something like a seaplane with a pod on top for the engine. Low center of drag = pitching down, = need for some upthrust. Many, many thanks for that.

Hey Paul,

Twitchy? Well, that's what 1/2A USED to be,,, in the old days with heavy radios and weak engines. Many of these needed full bore just to stay in the air and many were almost near the edge of a stall just to maintain altitude. NO MORE.

With light radios, batteries and powerful engines, I've got 1/2A planes flying just like the big stuff,,, and in some respects, better. :devious:

My first was an Ugly Stik with 34" span and 14 ounces. With a Norvel .061, it can do anything including touch and goes which transition immediately into stall turns, inverted all day, spins, inside and outside loops, etc. etc. Take off from grass fields are no problem, to boot. You can see this one in the May 97 issue of Flying Models, titled "Kit Bashing 1/2A Carbs" Follow up article was "Kit Bashing 1/2A Engines" in the August 01 issue. Finally, you can see a Norvel .074 powered Tsunami in the latest issue of FM in Randy Randolph's SMALL Steps column. Like the Stik, the Tsunami was built from reduced plans. They were built to exact scale, so to speak, using contest wood and light covering. I use a field charger and 150 mAh packs in the plane. Micro servos tops it all off for a very light airplane. The trick to making exact copies in 1/2A that perform just like the original is to make it LIGHT and have a powerful engine that throttles reliably. With modifications to the Norvel, I can idle all day and get perfect, no hesitation transition.

The Tsunami has unlimited verticals from take off and will do it all, including knife edge at 10 feet down the length of the runway.

Pardon my enthusiasm, but done right, the small stuff CAN compete. The CAP 232 that I'm building from StevensAero is truly unique with laser cutting and very, very light construction. A bit of beefing up for glow is all it takes.

Thanks for the tip stall warning though. I suspect, maybe, that this might be due, at least in part, to a bit of a heavy wing loading. Then again, we DO want snap capability,,, don't we?

Thanks for the input guys, I feel like I've got a tiger by the tail that won't disappoint.