opjose

I'm really enjoying this plane.

Many people have been impressed with how it flies and handles.

Without the battery pack, it is a very light but strong plane.

Even with the large 5000mAh 14.8v packs I'm using, the plane still seems light.


I ended up with four washers on the lower left post, three on the lower right, and no washers on either of the upper posts.

This gives it a slight right thrust, and the perfect amount of up thrust.

On my initial flights the nose would pull down, when throttle was applied,
The four washers cured this completely.

I also changed out the included wheels for 2.5" Dubro wheels instead.

These are larger and may allow for grass landings and takeoffs from smoother grass fields ( normally 3" is the minimum on our bumpy grass strip, so to date I've been flying the plane off and onto our Asphalt runway ).

The Dubro wheels fit perfectly w/o any wheel pant modifications.

I used a plastic retaining ring instead of a wheel collar to hold the wheels on. I affixed this with a bit of loctite.
With the Dubro wheels, and with two washers on the inside of the shaft to keep the wheel centered, I did not have enough remaining shaft space for the provided wheel collars... so I needed another mechanism.

For anyone else contempalting this, you could also grind a small groove with a cut-off wheel, towards the tip of the axle, then just use a snap-ring to hold the wheel in place.

Hint: If you have a drill press, put the axle on the drill press, then with the drill press running, bring the cut-off wheel against the spinning shaft for a perfectly straight circular groove.


The gear have held up very well to high wind landing abuse.

I managed to crack one of the pants, on a very hard ding that would have shattered fiberglass wheel pants.

To fix I removed the wheel pant, applied epoxy on the inside area, make sure a bit seeped into the cracked joint, then applied a bit of fiberglass cloth, and more epoxy.

A bit of Testors Acrylic RED paint made the seem disappear altogether, and the wheel pant is stronger than before.


The same rough landings also caused a tiny bit of wing rash on the outer edge ( almost invisible ) so I also installed a pair of wing tip guards.

The latter is something I tend to do with all of my planes, and I highly recommend it.