Rod Robbins

I've just started building my Falcon Trading Co. Cardinal 177 ARF. As I was reading through the instruction sheets, I didn't see anything specific about aileron hinging so I assume that this means you're supposed to use the preinstalled plastic hinges "as-is".

The installed hinges are VERY stiff, though. Looks like they're molded out of the same piece of plastic that the wing and ailerons are molded from. Even if I use dual aileron servos, I'm still wondering about excess servo load while trying to drive these ailerons. Can anyone who's built and flown this plane give me some feedback on this? Did you use the existing hinges or modify them in some way to loosen them up a bit?

Thanks,
-- Rod

jrf

My Feedback: (551)

Yes, you use the prehinged control surfaces as is. Flex them back and forth 20 or 30 times before you hook them up and they will get a little easier to move.

I used two standard servos side by side in the servo bay, one for each aileron, and had no problems.

Jim

Meesh

My Feedback: (135)

Ditto what JRF said. Work them in a little and use two standard servos. Two servos also gives you the option of flaperons which you may like as it lands a little hot.

Rod Robbins

Thanks, both of you, for your replies. I guess I won't worry about the servo loading...

-- Rod

Meesh

My Feedback: (135)

You're gonna love that plane. It's tough as hell.

Rod Robbins

Dang, you were RIGHT! [sm=biggrin.gif][sm=thumbup.gif]

I love this plane. Flies great, looks great, built great!! I'm really sold on this method of ARFing. If all of FTC/Modelfly's ARFs go together and fly like this, I'd buy another one in a second.

My Cardinal flies great with an O.S. FS-70 and APC 13x6 prop on Morgan Cool Power 5% and 10% fuel. In fact, the .70 is overkill. I can take off from a hard surface runway at half-throttle and fly with authority. I need nearly full throttle to take off from a grass field, but once airborne, it's just way more power than I need.

The plane balanced by putting the battery pack up against the firewall, underneath the tank. I had to input about a dozen clicks of uptrim and a few clicks of aileron on the first flight. Since then, I've also added about an ounce of lead inside the cowl underneath the engine. Handles just a little bit better that way.

I managed to tip stall once on a touch and go. I just let it get too slow before powering up. It cartwheeled once and broke the prop and the tiller arm off of the nose gear strut, but suffered no other damage -- not even a grass stain. I expoxied the tiller arm back on, using some wire wrapped around the strut shaft as reinforcement inside the expoxy. It's worked fine since. And I've not tip-stalled it again, either.

I made a modification to the rudder system while building it: instead of using the pull-pull rudder cables, I just installed a second carbon-fiber arrow shaft for a rudder pushrod with short lengths of pushrod wire epoxied inside both ends. The rear wire goes out the same hole on the left rear of the fuselage to the rudder control horn. That's the way most of my planes work the rudder, and I thought it simplied things.

I also used three-inch 1/4x20 nylon bolts for the wing holddowns. Since the bolts screw in straight up and down in relation to the center bulkhead, the angle that the bolt heads mated to the wing surface wasn't right: The wing surface slopes downwards towards the back. The bolt heads would have clamped down on the surface unevenly, which I didn't like. I looked around the hobby shop for a solution and bought a set of Sullivan (I think) square engine mounting angled thrust shims. I cut out smaller one-inch sqares from the shims to equal the mismatch angle between the bolt heads and wing slope. Drilled 1/4-inch holes and now the bolt heads clamp down on top of the shims, which contact the wing evenly all the way around.

Anyway, I'm really, REALLY happy with this plane!

Regards,
-- Rod

P-40LUVR

Where is the best place to buy this plane?
Price?

Rod Robbins

If your LHS doesn't have it, you can order it direct from the U.S. distributor, which is Falcon Trading Co.:
http://www.falcon-trading.com/prod.c...gory=Airplanes

I've also seen them advertised by Hobby Horse Wisconsin and other online hobby shops that I can't recall right now. Try a Google search...

Regards,
-- Rod