OK, another weekend of experimenting and the plane is getting pretty cool.

I can get it to go into deep stall by doing a zoom climb at about 45 deg and then feeding in up elevator as it slows to maintain attitude. As it slows, if I can keep the nose straight, it will decend under full power very slowly at a very high angle of attack. You can hear the prop buzzing( probably stalled) in the tubulent airflow of the fuse. To get out I just let off the elevator a little.

I did some more mods that allow me to do this. First, I took the Rx antenna and got it completely inside the wing. THe plans have it running out the left wing along the leading edge with about 20" of it hanging off the tip. I cut a channel along the trailing edge and then up the fuselage and taped it completely within the wing. Even though the antenna is compacted almost into a closed triangle - I range tested it and it's fine. I've now put 5 or 6 flights on it without a problem as well. I believe the drag from the left wingtip is why it always went left when slow. It has also increased the performance noticably

I then used a couple of pennies taped to the bottom of the right wing to balance the plane laterally. THis did allow me to get the aileron trim very close to neutral.

Now, when I do the deep stall maneuver (above) sometimes it goes straight, although it will wander to either side if there is a slight bank. At these angles, the ailerons are just about useless for steering

Did I mention I put winglets on the plane? They might decrease drag - but I'm not sure. Looks good with them on there though. They are made out of posterboard stiffened with strips cut from a 2-liter pop bottle. It will glide quite well when left at it's best-climb trim. Pull back just a little and it "drag's up" and comes down steeper. The steep approach is cool too.

I will be working on a nifty little yaw-vane device that works like a rudder on long nose airplanes like this. It was developed by NASA and tested on an F-18. It should just take another micro servo and a couple pieces of balsa: Here's a NASA drawing of the device:



Hopefully, that will allow directional control of the plane when very slow or deep stalled.

I also have been able to get a bit of very inefficient inverted flight out of it. Going full speed, pull up, roll over and immediately pin the elevator full down (high-rate). There is just enough there to eek out a slight climb inverted. I'm sure the highly undercambered canard hates the inverted flight (aerodynamically speaking)

AS for the motor - a friend was out there with his Zagi. He has a Multiplex speed 400 and a JES 14 speed control with the same prop and same battery. It draws 14A vs 10 for my setup. We tested them side-by-side with a loop ammeter. Seems that this no-name 400 motor from Tower may be a weak sister. Of course, the MPX motor is probably a 6v motor as well. I can't upgrade to the MPX motor with my current speed control either ( 12A limit). So, I don't use the original battery, and I'd like to have a better motor/ ESC. I'd say that I definitely can't recommend the power system they give you with this plane. You are better off buying the bare airframe for $40 and buying the other stuff from Trick RC ( Zagi) I doubt you need high $$ brushless stuff to get really good performance from this plane - just higher end speed 400 equipment.