Hi,

I bought a Phoenix Atlantis and I'm about to start building. Does anyone have any recommendations or things to watch out for?

Thanks,

Wayne Miller

Wayne,

I just completed my Atlantis a couple of weeks ago.........it flys great!

Mine came with a few pieces of trim that were sticky-backed "Pepto Bismol" pink! If you have any of the stick-on covering or trim, do not try to use your covering iron on it with normal heat. It is probably a PVC material and will melt! The rest of the covering on mine was very good, takes the heat very well and shrinks up tight. I took the few pieces of trim that was PVC off the plane before I flew it.

All the screws that come with the kit are very light and soft and should be discarded. I even removed the screws from the motor mount and replaced them with good socket head bolts.

The pushrod dowels were curved....I suggest using Ny-rod/Golden-rod or something similar, especially on the split elevator. If you use the suggested way to hook up the split elevator with the single pushrod, there will be a lot of side-to-side movement allowing the elevator halves to move independently of each other.

And the last but most important thing is that they state that the CG should be 140mm from the leading edge at the fuselage. This is WAY too far back! I set my CG at 125mm (about 30% MAC), and it flys very well there. In order to achieve this I mounted the servo plate about 1 1/2 inches forward of the former which is at the T/E of the wing.

I put the new Magnum XLS .52 2C engine in this plane and it has enough power to pull the Atlantis vertically out of site. I find myself flying this plane at about 1/2 throttle most of the time using full throttle only for take offs and vertical up-lines. A regular .40 would fly this plane quite fast. I am really pleased with this airplane, and since I only paid $85 US for it, is icing on the cake.

Hope you enjoy yours as much!

Gary

Hi Gary,

Thanks for the information. I took your suggestions then looked at the kit and I agree, I'll incorporate the changes when building.

I also read another post where they recommend beefing up the wing mounts and putting foam on the wing seat to prevent fuel seepage.

I have a Scanner it has the same fuel tank as the Atlantis. I had problems with the fuel tank leaking around the opening and had to put in a new stopper. I also had a rattling noise which I traced to the clunk in the fuel tank - I put oversized fuel tubing over the clunk to stop the noise.

I plan to put a new GMS .47 on the Atlantis and from what you said, I should have enough power.

Thanks for getting back to me.

Best regards,

Wayne

Wayne,

Your Atlantis will have more than enough power with the GMS .47. One other thing I thought of is fuel proofing. The grey/black painted firewall does not seem to be fuel proofed. I used thinned epoxy on it and the fuel tank area all the way back to the trailing edge of the wing saddle.

This plane eats up a lot of sky very quickly! I pulled back on the throttle soon after takeoff on the maiden flight until I had the plane all trimmed out.

Thanks for the tip about the fuel tank....I'll keep an eye on mine.

Happy landings,
Gary

Thanks Gary!

Wayne