*grin* You're just having fun with this thing...

Removing dihedral will make it more maneuverable, but I don't think I'd bother unless the wing was broken. Disassembling (read: sawing) the centerjoint out of a wing isn't to be taken lightly. By 'moving it down' do you mean carving on the fuselage to lower the wing saddle?


There's lots of aerodynamics involved in airplane design and simply lowering the wing would probably require changes in other areas, like thrust line, or the plane would become a thing of evil. By 'thrust line' I mean you'd have to-aim the engine. It's probably got down- and right-thrust now - lowering the wing would change the aerodynamic 'balance' of the plane...I can't think of a better word to describe it.....

You wanna play? Find a buddy with a crashed plane and swap his wing onto your trainer! *grin* You ain't seen nuthin' 'til you've seen a Balsa USA Stik with a symmetrical wing that was probably 25% smaller than the original...I think it was off an UltraSport..... It was horrid for a while.....but with solid wood tail surfaces, you can go at it with a saw and make 'em smaller..... Bigger engine, smaller wing, smaller tail surfaces... *grin* It was stupid.

A minor 'aerodynamic balance' thing I did was swapping the 2.75" (I think) maingear wheels for Dave Brown's stupidly huge 6" foamies Just cuz I had 'em j- why not? This was on the same Balsa USA Stik, though with its original wing/tail. You know what? It flew better! That was simply a fortunate coincidence, but I figured it out:

As a trainer goes faster, they almost all 'balloon' - the wing generates more lift at higher speeds and you've gotta feed in down-elevator to keep it level. The wheels added so much drag below the engine's thrustline that they counteracted that lift, 'pushing' the nose down due to drag. It also kept the speed down with all that additional drag.....but trainers ain't meant to go fast anyway.

Have fun