Hey guys,
Just in the process of getting my Extra balance and ready for the maiden.. its come out nose heavy as i am running an OS 1.08 in it.. but it seems to be quite a bit more nose heavy than i though.. so my question is i know that any lead to balance a plane aint good, but how much is too much sorta thing? Like too much for it to be worth it? Cos i can't move my TX pack or anything cos theres no where to put it.. so lead is my only resort.

Thanks, james.

A lot will depend on which extra it is - and even if we knew, it would be hard to say.

But basically, by over powering it, you now have to compensate by adding still more weight. You could add a pound or two and the plane will still FLY well, but what you will find is that as the weight goes up, so does the wing loading - As the wing loading goes up, so does the stall speed. So you may find that your plane will not slow down on landing, or, worse yet, will tip stall on "turn to Final" if you don't keep the speed up.

I would suggest adding an extension to the battery wire and cutting an access in the covering so you can mount the battery in the tail

Already tried that buddy.. on the tail underside of the fuselage, there is about 150mm from the tip of the fuse back towards the front of the plane that is balsa/ply sheeting from there forward to the wing/fuse opening its open frame.. so on the section of balsa sheeting at the back there is already a hatch opening for the rudder servo.. so i cut the hatch further to the tai as far as it could before the tail wheel.. but after all that the battery was too thick to slide into the tapering tail.. so i had to redo that section.. i then looked towards just before the rudder servo hatch in the open frame section but the dual elevator servos are mounted there and i wasn't keen on mounting the battery on the servo's in case of interference for whatever reason. And any further forward than that and it may aswell be where it is at the back of the fuse/wing opening. So atm i can't think og any other way to set it up.. other than to just fit some slim lead pieces into the tail cos thats all that will fit.

P.s. Its a CMPro 65" Extra 300s.. the 90 2c/120 4c size plane.

I don't think it would be a pound tho to balance out [X(] I gave it a balance before and it was around .5-.75lbs or 200-300gm's to get it to level out.. is that much?

Wow! A half pound in the tail is a LOT for that size airplane! Even though you're putting in a 108, that would still be lighter than a 120 4-stroke. I would double check that you've got the position right on your CG - and if you do I'd do everything possible to shift weight back (Even if it meant making a new battery pack where the cells were loose so you could slide the batteries in one at a time, or 3 behind the servos and one in front etc)

Maybe even see if you can slide the engine closer to the firewall

Yeh thats what i thought, was a bit nose heavy.. the CG is as per book at 125-130mm from leading edge next to fuse.. so i bit the bullet last night at 2am and couldn't sleep so i started on the attack of the tail lol so i cut back the covering of a part in the open fuse section right near the elev servo's.. and made a mount to strap the batt pack to the ply former in there, re-enforced a few things, made a nifty hatch and bobs ya uncle!! Looks really good to so i'm happy with that.. i hate when you have to butcher something to make it work and it doesn't look like a factory effort, but this does so i am pleased. So now the batt is in the tail i should be able to balance it much easier now.. as for the engine it can't go any further back to the firewall otherwise the thrust washer wont have adequate room from the cowl. So i'll see what i can do now with the batt back there, i'll triple check my CG position and mat even make a small balancing devise to make sure its more precise on the points its balancing on. So we shall see! Thanks MinnFlyer.