I am having a huge problem balancing my Magic extra 300L. Its extremely tail heavy. I have the receiver and battery as far forward as I can get it. I have a OS 46ax motor with muffler mounted up front. I am trying to balance it @ 3.5" from leading edge of wings, which is about in the middle of the range. Its going to take more lead than I prefer to mount on the plan to balance it. So I was wondering if I could just move the motor forward about a ½” or more to balance it. I have plenty of room to move it forward. Should I move it forward?

fly it like that. mine was well over 2 back from were they say. had 46 fx cut hatch in tail to put battery in flew great.

do a search...you'll find most all of the ME's are tail heavy if you go by the book and all of them fly fine. mine was test flown at 4.25 it's now at 4.75. what ever you do DON'T move the motor out...add the lead if it makes you feel better then fly it, you'll soon see the lead is not needed.


John

Listen to these guys, what they say is fact. I read all about this plane, trust me. Must have read 100+ posts and they all tell the same story: The CG can go as far back as about 4 3/4 inches. Mine is around 4-4.25. It flies like a dream. Where is your CG? Get the thing to balance and let us know where it is. If it's in the 5 inch or more then you might want to make adjustments (put battery on top of tank for example). You may be just fine as is. Let us know.

Joe

OK, well it looks the CG is around 4.25" - 4.5" Its hard to tell with my fat fingers. Will this be good enough?

with my 4.25-4.5 CG should it hover fine?

4.25 to 4.50 would be fine for ME..... for you it may be to much. set your CG at 4 inches or less, it will be a bit nose heavy at 4 inches. you'll need to add lead...go ahead and do it,once you see how it fly's remove lead too move it back no more than .25 inches at a time. mine ended up CG balanced at 4.75, inverted flight requires little to NO forward pressure at 4.75. BTW invest in or build a CG machine, it makes setting the CG so much easier.

John

I'd say you're fine. That's right around where mine was and it flies better than a trainer in slow flight. Approaches and landing are no effort at all. At least try it and see if you like it. I promise it will be as stable as you could ever want it.

Joe

Thanks for the replies. I'll probably add just a little weight to the front to be safe and try it out.

Chris, my one was also tail heavy so I added some balancing weights for tyres ... they come in a strip of 12 units of 5 gram blocks and they have a double sided tape backing. You can break the pieces off to whatever weight you need. What I did was to attach the weights to under the fuel tank cover. To place the weights here is great, makes shifting the CG an ease ... also the recess ensures that the weights do not get in the way of anything.

I got the nose a little heavy for the maiden flight and now I am going to slowly remove the weights to see what is nice. I think this is one method that is easy for adjusting the CG. Just keep on removing the weights till you like what you get.