Well, my wife has decided she wants a Kyosho Cap 232 (40) !

I tried doing some online research on this plane, but didn't find any valuable information.

Can someone answer the following questions:

What's this plane is like ?
How easy is it to fly ?
Will it snap at low speeds ?

In general terms, do you recommend this ARF ?

Thanks a lot !

What's this plane is like ?
How easy is it to fly ?
Will it snap at low speeds ?

In general terms, do you recommend this ARF ?


My plane flys great once you get used to it. It flys like a cap which in my opinion has its own unique feel. Snaps tumbles
and flat spins awesome. The key to a great flying cap is elevator throw and expo. This is definitely not a bank and yank plane. You really have to watch that elevator throw cause it will without question snap on you particularly when your coming in onto final approach. Once you line up straight down the runway i find that it slows down pretty good without stalling . I power mine with a 61sx witch i think is the perfect combo. A ys 63 would also be a good choice. Stay away from the 46 as it will offer marginal performance and cause balancing problems. I would recommend this plane to any experienced flyer who wants wild and crazy aerobatics as long as you remember to respect that elevator.

Tim

Tim,

Thanks for your reply !

"Stay away from the 46 as it will offer marginal performance and cause balancing problems."

She'll be using one of my old heli engines .. an OS 50 SX-H ! ... it weighs more than a normal 46 and has considerably more power.

She's not into serious aerobatics yet so I guess there will be enough power for pretty much everything except for 3D ! She will be doing mostly loops, rolls, hammer-head and those sorts of basic / intermediate aerobatics.

"I would recommend this plane to any experienced flyer who wants wild and crazy aerobatics as long as you remember to respect that elevator. "

She's not what I'd consider an experienced flyer yet, but she has flown several of my airplanes (Majestic, Edge, Profiles, etc ...) and this would be her 2nd non-trainer plane (assuming the H9 Super Stick counts as a trainer). My guess is she'll get the hang of it sooner or later; hopefully before the plane becomes conffetti

Again, thanks for your reply !

Again, thanks for your reply !

Your quite welcome, just be sure she is real gentle on the elevator particularly when landing. You will find this plane doesn't need much elevator throw to make it a wild ride. Happy flying .
Tim

This is a responce I provided some months ago.

Roy gave you an outstanding responce RC. I desided to respond also because of some significant differences between what Roy did and experienced and what I did and experienced. I did experience a lot of what Roy did.
I built 2 of these, one with the original Kyosho color schemes and one brietling, so there was quite a bit of time between the production of the planes. I powered one with a ST.45 ABC (pits muffler) and one with a webra.40 (pits muffler). They both perform the same. Flight characteristics are good, they have no ugly tendicies and don't snap under any conditions unless told to. They are extremely nice to land and takeoff. Both airplanes came out with the CGs at 3 and 3/8s without adding any lead and with the battery packs just over the front of the wing. 3&3/8s is the aft limit per the addendum as I recall. I have about a 150 flights on the first one and just a few on the second
Building:
Build per the addendum, especially control throws.
I used almost all the hardware that came with the plane even though it was of poor quality. I haven't had a failure of it in 150 flights but I would still recommend throwing it away. I'm just not smart enough to do that. I did throw away the shrink sleaving for the control rods and instead used flat cord and ca. I also chucked the bolts intended for the axels and replaced them with dubro axels. Threaded bolts in bending is a fundamental no no.
I hate the vacumn formed plastic for the wheel pants and cowl. Don't put the wheel pants on untill you have a good solid feel for the plane and can grease it in every time. Even then they probably won't last long. I used 9 screws to attach the cowl. 3 on top, 2 on each side and 2 on the bottom. The cowl is still cracking out at the attachments after only 150 flights.
The engines are completely enclosed in the cowl so I cut a one inch on a side triangle out of the cheek behind the engine head about .5 inch forward of the trailing enge of the cowl. I don't have any heat problems but I have heard of others who had but had not made this change.
Both planes came out between 5.25 and 5.5 lbs.
Landing gear mounting to the fuselage has not been a problem.
I a got good quality covering job on both. I mounted the canopy with 4 wood screws.
Flight:
I have just slightly more control throw than the addendum calls for and I'm very happy the way it flies. I haven't been able to get it to do tumble maneuvers as yet but that may be me. Flat spins aren't quite as flat as I would like. It will spin in either direction from upright or inverted without the need for aileron input. I like that. I also like the fact that it will stop snap maneuvers the instant I neutralize the controls. I don't have use a big handful of rudder to stop the rotation. This I'm sure is do to the very light wing.
On my first flights I had about 2 inches of rudder throw instead of the called for 1.25 inches. This was a mistake. The rudder will start stalling at about 1.5 inches. This results in pitching to the gear and in spins with aileron it will actually cause rotation in the oposite direction. I could actually roll the plane inverted, apply full rudder only and do an outside loop. The heading changed of course but it would complete the loop. Knife edge maneuvers are good with only a little rudder input.
Hope this helps.