I am trying to finish up my sta and wondered what is the best way to mount the windscreen. How to I hold it in the right shape and what is the best way to glue it. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

I just finished one for a friend! The best way is to heat up the windscreen by either hot water(soak it) or some light heat from a heat gun. Then form the windsceen on the bird and let cool. once this was done, I allpied thin ca with a toothpick working from the center out to the ends. After this was done I finished up with some matching 1/4" trim tape.

Thanks deputydog, your directions worked great. I will be flying it today. Thanks again for you help.

Rowdy, how did the first flight go. I just finished my ryan sta and was going to fly it last weekend. Engine problems prevented that but those are fixed and it will fly this sunday.

I am the fortunate owner of the STA-M that Deputy Dog built. Flies great with a YS-120FZ, plenty of power. Tracks like it's on rails. Landing are a bit of a challenge as the gear is very stiff, should have gone with the oleo struts. Looks tremendous in the air.

Still waiting on the first flight. We have had a lot of bad weather here. Hope to fly it this weekend.

I took mine out to the airfield wednesday but I still don't have the idle problems fixed. I have a saito 100 in it and it didn't want to idle inverted, my onboard glow driver isn't keeping the glow plug hot enough so it was dying. I am getting it tuned close now but it is still idling too fast to have control on the ground. I did some taxi runs and had the tail off the ground but I didn't take off. Our runway is only 300' and I'm not sure I can get it slow enough to land and not run out of runway. I think I'll have it fixed on Sunday though and I hope to get airborne. the STA-M looks great, how much room does it need to land?

I flew the Maiden for MANFRED and she was a baby! It was very windy but straight down the runway. The tail came up immediately and she was airborne at 1/2 throttle(did I mention YS-120!). Very stable and positive in the air. Had the guys puckering during landing! She floats and landed @ 20kts. Really slow.

DeputyDog; mine taxis at more than 20 kts. I need to get this idle down to a managable speed so that I can taxi before takeoff and lose enough airspeed to land. What size prop are you using? Do you have an onboard glow driver? What RPM is your engine turning at idle?

Ah. the beauty of a YS! 16x8 APC, no on board glow and idles @ 2k. You also might want to tighten up the wheel collars so you have a little braking on the mains. Not too much but enough to keep thyem from free rolling. Sounds like you either need to break in the Saito some more or lean out the low end more. Keep at it!

I was thinking of tightening the wheel collars just enough to cause some friction. Poor mans breaks. The engine has been running better with more break in and I have been slowly but surely adjusting the low speed needle. I think I'll put the bigger prop back on to slow the engine down a little. I had a 14X6 on it and I think that is part of the problem, I'll go back to the 15X6 and see if that works. Thanks for your help.

Good luck and keep at it! MANFRED reports that he has been having a great time flying his STA-M and loves it! Now i'm working on the TF P-51 ARF for him. Got the time now that I finished my baby.....

Flew the Ryan today, finally got the carb problems worked out, put a McDanials onboard glow driver on and got it into the air. It had to be trimmed a little but what a sweet flyer. Tracks like it is on rails and holds it attitude even in a stiff wind. Comes in for a nice easy landing, if anything it wants to float so much you have to fly it down and put the wheels on the ground. It does lose some altitude if you start doing barrel rolls but it recovers nicely. The stall was amazing, it just flattened out and started flying again, the nose never dropped below horizontal. I flew without the cowl in case I had to do some tuning and it flew flat and level with no throttle so I guess I'm going to have to take the weight out of the cowl that I epoxied in when I set it up. No big deal and three less ounces to haul around.

Harry

Any pics horseman? What spinner did you put on it? Size?

Lets see if I can do this picture thing. I tried the Dubro spinner but found out you shouldn't use plastic spinners on four strokes, the backing plate strips, I now have an aluminum spinner on it. I love the way this bird flys though. Put it in any position and it stays there. Landings are as easy as pie, if anything it wants to float in too easy so you have to make sure you put it down or it will just stop flying and drop. That messes up the landing gear and wheel pants. Okay, lets see if I can make a picture.

Nope, I can't figure it out

well, it says I uploaded a file somewhere

Beautiful looking civvy plane. Looks like you got the plastic spinner on it though. If you have the saito 100, what size is the aluminum spinner?

That is the plastic spinner, I now have a 2.5" aluminum spinner. This picture is of the maiden voyage, no cowl as I was still tuning the carb and it was a lot easier with the cowl off. I going to change to wood prop as the glass filled Master Airscrew prop really flexes a lot. I don't know that this is bad but you can really hear it unload in the air. Doesn't seem to be an issue once its up to speed I guess. Won't know if it makes a difference until I try. The wheel pants are taking a real beating so the next improvement will be some Robart Struts. That and more practice rolling it in on the landing.

I am thinking of purchasing the STA - M .

While doing some research I came an review in RC Report by Dick Pettit, regarding the high tank position. He was concerned and call GP they stated it worked well in there test. He went ahead with building and experinced no problems with the tanks.

Did they change the position on the M model ? Is this a problem I should watch out for or go with a pumped engine ?

Thanks,

I'm just building one so I'll take a pic of tank position and post it a bit later for your inspection.

This is the STA-M.

Note that the tank pipes are just below the carb line (this is a Saito 100 and unpumped). Keeping in mind the pic is upside down (or rather, the plane is), when in flight the centre of the tank will be slightly above the carb but still generally in the middle of the tank. Not a problem as far as I can see.

Other posts suggest unpumped is not a problem either.

voyager

Thanks for the quick responce and photo. Looks like it will be a fun project and plane to fly around.

Gary

No problem with tank location.
Buy the oleo struts when you get a chance. They make the landings look so sweet....
I miss mine... bet it looked cool flying at 145 mph in the hurricane...

any recommends for mounting the wheel pants?

Hey guys.

Sorry to butt in here. But, I'm looking for a second plane and really like the looks of the Ryan STA. I was just wondering how it flies and if you would recomend it as a second plane. BTW, I've been flying a Hobbistar 60 MKIII. Thanks for your opinions.