I have a GP Cessna 182 that I have put 5 or 6 flights on and I was wondering if the wing struts are necessary for flight? They can be kind of a pain to put on since i have to assemble/dissassemble my Cessna at the field. Are these struts just for looks? or are they necessary to reduce wing loading?

No, they are just for looks. Your wing is one piece and bolted on to the fuselage. If you built it you know that you epoxied the two halves to a center section with hardwood joiners inserted for strength. The struts are NOT required like on a plane with plug-in wings.

Question for you: Are you able to land the plane easily.....without dropping a wing......or at a reasonable speed? My first and only landing resulted a dropped wing from about 5 feet which resulted in a slightly damaged nose wheel pant and bent nose gear. I had 1/2 flaps deployed (my addition) so maybe it can't handle flaps!!

bring her in under power with the nose down level off a foot above runway. be ready to add a blip of pwer on touchdown this will mnake a smooth landing use full flaps on final but be ready to keep that nose down.

I kind of thought they were for scale appearance.

I don't have flaps on my Cessna but it would be nice to shed some speed on landings. I don't seem to have any problems with wing droppage and I havent yet stalled it. The main deal I have to get used to is rapid decent upon landing. Coming in with a little power does help some. This plane glides slightly better than a brick on a dead stick. Its a little more challenging to land than my Avistar .40 but other than that it is an easier plane to fly. I have been told that upping the size of the prop can help slow the plane down on landings but I havent tested this theory out.

That front nose gear is really bad. I have modified it by cutting the stock gear wire about an inch below the spring and discarded the stock string half. I then bought a standard nose gear replacement and cut it in the same place except I kept the spring part of it and spliced it with lower part of the stock gear so I could keep my front wheel pant. This really helped and I stopped bending the nose gear. My wheel pants are pretty beat up already since my landing strip is pretty rough.

What engines do you have on the 182. I have an OS 52 4s butI feel it could use a little more power.

I have an Enya .53 four-stroke. Powerwise I feel it is quite adequate and flys the plane very scale like. If I wanted the plane to be a faster and more aerobatic I would be looking at putting .50 2-stroke on it or maybe a .70 or .80 four-stroke. I am really happy with the Enya, it pulls very hard but doesent over the power the plane. I don't anticipate ever changing the engine, I think its a perfect match for the plane.