Been looking at this one. Anyone out there have any experiance with it.
Would like to hear some pro's and con's from someone who had built and
flown one.

IMHO the "Pinocchio" nose spoils the looks of the plane.

I hadn't even noticed that. I will have to take a second look at the pictures..
Can't seem to find anyone who has built one of these.

Just finished mine. Nose is too long, wingtips are incorrect, it is an ok airplane, but when I comapre the quality to my Great Planes Pitts, there is no comparison.

So how does it fly ?.
There was a real nice write up on this plane in MAN mag.
Figures. Just may have to go with the Goldberg one.

I have not flown it yet. I bet that it flys very well. The wing is huge, and it is not heavy. I have seen the Golberg model, the covering is much better, I prefered the size of the Global though. I painted the bottom half of my Global sky blue to match the blue in the stars and stripes. I have read that it is fairly easy to remove part of the nose by just cutting back about 3/4" and it helps alot. I may do this after I fly it a few time.

Mine is still NIB waiting its turn on the building table. For the current sale price of $250, it makes for a very good giant scale starter plane. I plan to shorten the nose by mounting the engine further back than specified in the instructions, and just slide the cowl back to suit. The recommended engine is 1.20-1.80 2 ror 4 stroke glow. I think it's perfect for a smaller gasser.

Volfy
Which one are you talking about ?.
The Goldberg list for around 329 I think on Tower and the Global is something like
179.00. I am doing this from memory and may be off a couple of bucks. Both "suggest"
a maximum size 4s of .91 cu.
Are you saying the nose on the Goldberg is also too long ?.

Fatboydrvr
I know what you mean about the size. That is what attracted me too. Was/am
also considering floats. So many cubs around, I wanted something a little different.

Ahh... I just re-read the original post and there was no mentions of size. When the replies started to talk about the longish nose, I just assumed we are talking about the 1.20-1.80 version, since there had been quite a bit of complaint about that. The big one is on sale here:

http://www.hobbypeople.net/specials/nov2003_01.asp

FWIW, the Goldberg is a very high quality ARF, and has the best harware package I've seen in any ARF. The tail wheel assembly is a Klett unit, for example. I finally decided to sell the Golderb version I had still NIB, mostly because I was really wanting something a little larger, and the Sportsman Aviation (Global) Decathlon fit the bill better.

I took a look at the picture of the Sportsman. It certainly does appear
to have a long nose like you said
I can't see it in the picture of the Global one though. Must be the angles
Decisions :-]

The Global 52-61 Decathlon and the Goldberg both look fine to me as far as snousal dimensions go.

Good to hear.
I am leaning at the moment towards the goldberg.

**WARNING !! Sportsman - Super Decathalon** 1. Check the wing dowels after several flights. Mine came loose, with one sliding back far enough to disengage from the fuselage bulkhead. This happened on the sixth flight, but I had rung it out on the 4th, 5th, and 6th flights. 2. Make sure you seal the hinge gap on the tail surfaces, and it would help to use Robart hinges. I used Sig Easy hinges with no gap seal, and broke the top rudder hinge on the 24th flight. 3. The landing gear is a little on the weak side and will bend at the fuselage if not landed smoothly. One of my gear legs was several thousandths thicker than the other.

My Sportsman (Hobby People) 86" Super Decathalon kit was o.k., but not on par with Hangar 9, Goldberg, G.P., etc. The covering is not as good as Monokote or UltraCoat, but I did not have too much problem with it. It took several applications with a heat gun to get the covering to quit wrinkling, but this was over several months with varied outdoor temperatures. The wing was full of scrap balsa pieces that were tough to get out, even with a vacuum cleaner and much shaking. The cowling panel lines are not correct and make the nose appear as if its cocked down. With the engine installed with the suggested down and right thrust the spinner did not match the cowling thrust line (large gap on the bottom and right side). I had planed on refinishing the cowling and installing the supplied star and stripes but never got around to it.

Overall, for the size, it's worth $279 (I paid $299 in January).

I installed my old Super Tigre 3000 with a Zinger 18x6-10 propeller, J-tec Snuff Vibe mount, and Slimline Pitts muffler. Dubro 24 oz. tank on the C.G. with a pressure system, Dubro tires on all three, one std. servo, two high torque servos, two 1/4 scale servos, and a 1700 mAh. battery pack as far back in the fuselage as I could reasonably reach (about six inches behind the most rearward window). With the exception of the landing gear bolts all hardware was converted to SAE, and used 4-40 rods on the wooden dowels for rudder and elevator.

Empty weight 16.20 pounds, including 3 oz. of lead by the tailwheel bracket to balance fore/aft (on the most rearward C.G. location per the book), and 2 oz. in the left wing servo bay for lateral balance. The C.G. range is conservative.

Flies very well with a lot of vertical performance, and will knife edge loop with ease. All this while only getting 6,800 RPM static. Inverted snaps are best done at low airspeed. Use good judgment while performing acro and try to keep the air loads to a minimum. Inverted flight only required two clicks of down trim; not bad since normal flight required three clicks up trim from neutral.

Mike

Volfy:
How is the construction?

Mine's about 60% done. What's left is mounting RX, batts, ign, tank, windows cowl, flying wires, and wing braces. I'm going to try to finish it this weekend and take some pics.

I made a few slight mods. I beefed up the fuselage former at the wing LE. Seems a little weak compared to the rest of the fuse. Propably okay the way it was, though. Put two elevator servos under the horizontal stab to balance the Homelite 30cc gasser. While I had those servo mounting holes open, I glued tristock to the underside of the horizontal stab. Again, probably okay as is, since the vertival stab pretty much "locked" it in. Plus, I'll install flying wires anyway. But... just seemed like the prudent thing to do while I was at it.

A single 1/4-scale servo mounted under wing drives the rudder via the included pull-pull hardware. I used a CB Associate HD tailwheel assembly - because it looks more scale and is heavier, again to balance the gasser up front.

So far the build has been pretty good. Fit and finish is good, though not on par with H9, WM and the better GP ARFs. The wing joiner tube fits a little loose inside the wing sockets. I'm hoping it won't be an issue once I install the wing braces. All in all, worth it at the $250-$280 street price.