I've got about 10 flights on my Pizzaz. Here is my setup and my observations. Hopefully some of you can save me some time by sharing your setups. I'm less than thrilled at this point.

1) Irvine .53 with 12.5x6 and 13x4 APC props. I actually think this motor can easily turn the APC 13x4 Wide blade. This is a nice motor! It blows my 46FX with a Macs one-piece muffler away!

2) Standard ball bearing servos all around with a 700 ma nicad above the trailing edge. I used a carbon arrow shaft for the elevator pushrod and pull-pull on the rudder. I did not use the supplied pushrods. They were very soft. I used all the other kit hardware.

3) CG is at 4.25"

4) Weight is 5 pounds, 4 ounces

For starters, the gear is too short for 13 and 14 inch props on grass. I'll go with bigger wheels for now, but I'll also look for a replacement (lighter) gear.

Knife edge tucks to the gear, but I can mix that out. Rudder is very effective. Not a lot of roll coupling until you really hammer the rudder.

It does awesome flat spins. I haven't totally explored this yet, but it likes to spin inverted. It will flat spin upright to the right, but not the left as I have it set up right now. Knife edge spins were not very tight...it just drops like a rock while rotating in a slow spiral. But I haven't played with this much yet.

It rolls nicely, and very fast on high rates. Loops are very tight, especially with the flaperons on. It dips through multiple high speed stalls if I loop too tight on high rates, but this is normal for extreme throws. Stall turns, and all the normal stuff is fine. Landings are really easy.

3D? Not really, yet. I'm still trying to get it to harrier. I tried raising the spoilers a bit. How far should I go? I haven't pulled off a decent elevator yet. Waterfalls are possible, but I'm working with a new motor so throttle response will be better later. I think it will hover okay, but again, I kept it up there pretty high and didn't want to lean the motor out too much. When you get it perfectly vertical it will torque roll quite fast. It was 40 degrees, cloudy and windy last time out so it was tough. It does a pretty good blender, as well as a decent wall.

Summary - I think the Pizzaz could be a good second plane for someone that wants to learn aerobatics. It would fly fine with a bushing 40 and low rates with a sensible CG. I think it will be fine as my "knock-around" practice plane, and for club fun fly competitions. It's small enough to fit in the back of a car, and it's one piece so it's fast to get in the air. It was a good idea, but it needs more wing area and less weight. I got a good deal on a trade in at my LHS so that's why I have the Pizzaz. If I had it to do over...maybe I would have gone with a Top Cat ARF.

I'm going to work on things to make it fly like I want. I'll see if I can remove a few ounces off it. I've heard of guys pushing the CG back to 5"! Any comments on your optimum CG? Any other suggestions?

Let us know what set-ups you've got!

Chuck

Ditto every single thing you said. I think you may find some stuff easier with the CG between 4.5 and 4.75. I have mine at 5 now with no improvement over 4.75 but it is now unstable but manageable.
Mine will spin in either direction upright or inverted, but flat spin only in one direction upright and inverted. But thats to be expected because of "P" factor.

djlyon,

Thanks for the reply. I was starting to think no one would answer!

I'm going to put it on a diet. I'll replace the 700 mA nicad with a little 720 nimh that I got for Christmas. I'll remove the Dubro aluminum spinner cone and put a wood prop on. I think I'll also try the Macs one-piece muffler as well. That saves 2 ounces, but it will blow exhaust all over the wing. I also want to make my own landing gear.

With these chances I should be able to knock 6 ounces off of it. And it will move the CG back as well. I'll give an update this weekend.

I have a simular setup in my Pizazz. I have the Irvine 53 with a 12.25x3.75 APC. I tach'd it today and it was turn'n12700 on 10% omega I should have put better servos in it but I use futaba 3003 & 148's.
I like the Pizazz. Mine really flies good. probably the best hovering plane I own right now. Maybe its them Irvines. I have 3 46's , 2 53's and 1 25.
I will say this about the hardware in the kit, it sucks especially the hinges
I 'd like to get another pizazz, strip the covering off it, cut the fuse sides off around the eng compartment, re-do the firewall with the motor on it sideways, and then fare it in with balsa. Cover it in transparent green. Might have to do it this summer.....Gator

Off topic, but sometimes I can't resist!

Hi AntiSpad! I was surfing the forum and couldn't miss your handle! Cool! It's great to see the planes have made enough of an impact to have an AntiSpad! Rock on, I love this hobby!

<<<DO YOU LIKE YOUR PIZZAZ>>>

No, not really.

I have a saito 91 in mine, while way unlimited vertical, wont do much anything good. Harriers are tough to do--wings rock too much. Mine wont tourqe roll worth a hoot either. Wants to fall off either side quickly. I have no good way of weighing it. I have added some down thrust and moved the cg back to just shy of 4''. Flew it today and seemed a little better. I was able to remove most of the mixing for knife edge flight and inverted it stoped diving hard. I had read some people moving the cg back as far as 4 1/2---4 3/4. Going from 3 1/4 to just shy of 4 sure woke mine up as far as elev response. Pushrod must be flexing when doing the wall, I have a dave brown fg one to install some day. I used light foam wheels and mini servo's to help keep weight down. I guess I'll remove the aluminum spinner and move the cg back to 4 1/4 and fly it again. If I make a hole in the ground before sorting this thing out, I wont be to heartbroken . Any thoughts???????Dave

Yea, that 91 in the nose is a lot of weight. I've had a YS63 and a Saito 72 in mine, both lighter than the Saito 91 and had to put the battery at the trailing edge to get to 4 1/2 and add lead to get to 5. 4 3/4 seems to be the comfort point for mine. I can hold the nose up and it only takes very slight down in inverted flight. A real fast servo on the rudder also helps. But it's still a hard plane to control because of coupling. But it will now do stuff it wouldn't even start to do when I had the CG between 3 3/4 and 4 1/2. I also put a 5 cell pack in to get the servo speed up. A much better flier than me and a computer wiz could probably make this thing work.

Thanks for the replies!

Tattoo, I'm not totally "anti spad", but I have fun teasing the newer fliers in our club! Personally, I figure it's better to fly a light plane rather than a "tough" one. Maybe the Spads can survive "soil sampling", but nothing flies as good as a light, balsa plane! Actually, I have a SPAD downstairs that Wingman made for me!

Back to the Pizzaz...

I agree with all the other posts. Mine falls off to one side after a turn or two in a torque roll. I'm going to calculate what percent of the MAC I'm at when the CG is at 4.25". I had a Global Raven funfly that would hover when the CG was WAY back. I had to program a landing mode (some down elevator & up spoilers at a certain throttle threshold) to get the thing down on an empty tank.

Too bad it's a one-piece plane. I could ship it off to someone that isn't as picky as I am.

But I'm not giving up yet! That's what makes this hobby fun.

Chuck

I agree about the one piece design, if the wing was a bolt on it would be a great ebay item . I'll screw with it a little more to see where I can get......Dave

As luck would have it, the Mac's one-piece muffler won't work on my Pizzaz unless I move the engine forward. The tail pipe is resting too close to the wing. I can remove the engine and flip the aluminum mounting straps around and it should work, but that will move more weight to the nose.

As I was looking at the model, I noticed that the flat face of the canopy could possibly be directing the prop blast up and away from the vertical fin. And the vertical fin actually seems rather small as well. I might tack on another piece of wood to the fin to see if it helps. Any thoughts on this???

Maybe I should just paint it pink and tack on a curly tail.

termagator said:

Mine really flies good. probably the best hovering plane I own right now

termagator: How long can you sustain a hover with yours ?

I love my Pizzaz.Mine has an OS 91 four stroke and does great.I don't know what it weighs or waht the CG is,but I put one elevator servo on each side in the back,one rudder servo with a pull-pull set up, and a 1650 nimh pack stuffed in the trailling edge.However mine also falls off to one side after about two torque rolls.It hovers pretty well I don't know how long but it's not bad.Flat spins are great,knife edge stalls are great,Blenders or so-so.Elevator not so good either.Walls are also great.It's the only plane I have that I will touch the wheels on the runway and pull up into a hover,with the .91,I just gas it and it pulls straight up out of any situation.I am building a Magic right now so I will see how it compares.

Well, I moved my cg back to 4.25 yesterday and flew it before the rain came. Doing that made quite a bit of difference. Inverted flight takes very little forward stick and knife edge mixing was all removed. It will still pull to belly a tad but not enough for me to worry about. I was going to try my first low inverted pass and touch the tail on the runway, but now that it's flying like a totally different plane I dont want risk it. Harriers still no improvment, maybe the saito 91 is just to much wieght for those little wings. I think I'll try 4.50 and see where that gets me. You guys running yours at 5.0 how stable is it?.........Dave

At 5 inches it is a little unstable but still takes a touch of down when inverted. When landing with low fuel state it will hunt in pitch. So it helps to go to low rates and disable flaperons when landing. No problem with flying but it is more sensitive in roll and pitch. It seems to fly as well at 4.75 but lands easier. It seems to me that I was about 4.5 inches before it would do power off flat spins and knife edge spins.

Hello, I don't have a Pizzazz but was interested in the comments on the Irvine engines. I have a Sig SE that I just rebuilt after a dunk in the lake where my OS91FSR still is! The SE flew very steady with the 91 pulling and now the plane doesn't seem to be as steady with the Irvine .53. I am using a 12X6 APC turning about 10,400 so perhaps need to go to a 12X4 or 5, weight is about 5 3/4 lbs. I have about 30 minutes of running on the Irvine, how long did your breakins require?

Dick,

Have you checked the balance? The OS 91FX weighs about 24 oz. with muffler, so I'm sure your FSR is close to the same. My Irvine 53 weighs 18 ounces with muffler. That's 6 ounces lighter, and it will make any airplane fly differently. Other than that, I'd have to know what you meant by "steady".

For break in, I just ran about 10 flights of SIG 10%. It's an ABC engine, so if you run it too rich it will take forever to come in. But don't lean it out and then fly it! When you hold it with the nose straight up it should just break into a steady 2-cycle, but not fully lean. And stay away from long vertical lines until later. I like to fly large loops during break in. This works the motor on the climb and cools it on the dive. Be patient. You should be okay with the 12x6. I like the APC 12.5x6. For 3D you can use any of the popular funfly props...APC12.25x3.75, 11.5x4, 12x4, etc.

Chuck

Thanks for the info, I am using one of the 12.75X3.25 props on my OS46FX so thought the .53 should be able to handle a little more but I will try that prop on it. I rechecked the CG, I had about 3 oz. of lead on the tail with the OS91 and took all of that off and the CG came out at the rear of the wing tube socket so maybe 3/8" or so behind the spar. I just added about an ounce of lead behind the firewall this afternoon and will try it again like that. When it was flying it appeared that the tail was down a little bit and then on a landing the tail wallowed around a little bit and I didn't notice that before. It could be that I might have gotten the incidences off a little on the rebuild too. Thanks for the ideas on break-in I will try that.

I love my Pizazz, without question the most plane for the buck on the market!
I'm running a Saito .91 (w/longer gear off of a Hots .60), and standard BB servo's all the way around. HS-605's?
We initially built it to act as a trainer for the more complex set-ups we run on our big acro machines. I.e. flaperon/spoileron mixing... We ended up putting double the flight time on it than we did on any other machine.
If it won't torque roll for you with a .91, change the prop. Frequently with high power loadings the engine is at too low an RPM during hover to generate rotational torque. Change to a Zinger and the (less efficient) prop will allow the engine to rev-up a little higher during the hover. Mine T/R's like a top. I've even done a few tail touches with it. The key to good torque rolls with any airplane is coordinating the throttle whne it starts to fall out. If you can hear the prop cavitating (ripping sound) the plane is falling backwards, increase throttle to straighten out then back off the power again.
There is a lot of rudder coupling but come on! It's a fun fly machine! So does the Su-Do-Khoi, Top Cap and Big Boy! If you wanted to be bored to death by something that tracks like an arrow buy a HYDEOUT!
Harriers are a little more difficult because of the short wingspan on the Pizazz. There is very little roll dampening effect with low aspect ratio wings with servo's in them. You can Harrier and Elevator it but you really have to juggle the controls. Try to find the "sweet spot", about 30 deg. nose high and fly the elevator, don't hold it full up. Try spoileron mix, and finally try it in the last 4 minutes of your flight after you've burned off that 1st half pound of fuel. The snap/tipstall characteristics soften as the weight goes down.
Don't ever add lead to an airplane, it's like driving with the parking brake on! Move the battery, motor and servo's to get things right. Especially in the extremities, lead not only adds weight but inertia too. With nose or tail weight the plane becomes more difficult to initiate pitching movements and recover from them. If you need nose weight ditch the motor and get a bigger one!
In addition to getting wild, it'll slow down to a walk for landing. Guys at our club bought out the hobby shop inventory and caused a small backlog of orders for Horizon after flying it. We even bought a second one. It'll be Transparent Purple with Yellow and Black checkerboards (in case anyone's keeping track).
If anyone's dissatisfied with their set up, drop me a line and I'd be happy to offer up some ideas to correct it.

Chris

Love my Pizazz, I've got an OS61 in the nose and swing a 12/8 and with my normal take off I use the full runway and pull up and kick the stick and she rolls out of sight at about 6 rolls per second. Like to fly it in a stiff breeze, stops in mid air and just sits there and stares at you.... like I dare you and then do a vertical landing. Its really a blast and makes me a better pilot. I've cut the rates way back and let trainees fly it and they are amazed as how stable it is at slow speed and low rates. just can't seem to keep one from falling apart in the air. I'm on my 4 one know and just know I'll be needing a 5th ver soon. Ken....The "BALSA BANDIT"

Well, I've got a couple more props to try, and a different muffler. Plan B is to put my YS63 in. I moved the CG back to 4.75" and it doesn't really get me anything.

Mine doesn't snap well. I'm trying hard not to bury it too deep with the elevator. It's more like a snap barrel roll.

One other thing. It sounds like a space ship! What's up with the thrumming sound?

I started flying mine on an MDS .48, what a dog! Made a huge racket too! The 4-stroke is much more agreeable. I think that sound is called PIZAZZ!

The snap barrel roll is because you may be putting the controls in the corners. Try flying it thru the snap. start by not using full aileron

I tried the APC 12.25x3.75 today, and a Tower .46 muffler. Pretty sweet. Forgot to tach it...next time. Even though the Irvine can swing a bigger prop, for an airplane that weighs in at almost 5.5 pounds I found that you really need mucho thrust. This prop/muffler combo is about as good as I've tried on my 53. It sounds more like a dirt bike than an airplane engine. Very pipey sound, but cool. If I had it to do over again, I'd go with a light 60 or a light 70-100 4-stroke, and put the rudder servo in the tail. I still might put the YS 63 on to break it in.

I had a scary thing happen. While cleaning up, I noticed that one of the SIG easy hinges on each elevator on the inner end was broken. I've been using them for 20 years and have never personally had that happen. Must have been the half throttle blenders today!

first place jeje

Has anyone flown this plane with a Saito .72?? How did it balance? Need to adjust anything? What prop does the .72 like?

I've flown it with the Saito 72, YS 63 and TT54. The Saito and YS dearly love a 13/6 APC. With the YS and Saito put the battery pack over the wing and as far back as you can get it. Put the reciever over the wing in front of the battery. This should get the CG at about 4 1/4 to 4 1/2. For the first flights you might want the CG further forward. Mines now at 5 but I first flew it at 3 5/8. Flew fine but was kind of trickless.