Hi all,
I flew my first flight on my Sig Kadet Senior ARF this morning, a little windy for me, but I managed to get it back on the ground in one piece. By my 3rd flight I was getting comfortable flying it and enjoyed my time in the air. The only problem I have is at full throttle the ailerons will not roll the aircraft. Once I back off the throttle it will roll quickly as you would expect. I am running a Magnum XLS .52A engine which has performed great. The servos are Futaba 3004 ball bearing that connects to a short 6-inch control rod straight to the aileron. Has anyone else had this problem with 3004 servos? It seems like they don’t have enough torque for the job, but I can’t imagine why standard servos wouldn’t work in this airplane??

Thanks for your time...Brian

have you tried them out on the ground with the engine off to see if there is a connrction or mixing problem.I have standard size servos in a 14 pound robinhood 80 and they move the airlerons fine.

I've got a Senior built from a kit but with ailerons added. IF you're wing has as much dihedral as mine, it won't matter if you put the biggest digital servo known to man in those wings, it won't WANT to roll. The plane is made to "re-set" itself back to upright to help the new flyer sucessfully fly the plane. The only way that I could get it to go inverted was to do a half loop and try and keep it there. Trust me, it wasn't happy doin it either. I could get somewhat of a roll if I used some rudder with the ailerons but they weren't really pretty. My dad (the builder of the family) assembled another wing with little, or no dihedral and now I can do rolling circles with it.

Another thought, I had a 50 Saito on my Senior when I was first learning and one thing I found out was that the only time I needed full throttle was getting it off of the ground (grass field). After that, anything over half and it was gaining altitude like a banshee. I'd suggest pullin back on the right stick a little. I concede that when I was throwing around the plane a little, I'd always give it more throttle, and maybe that's what you're doing but if you're just flying around that way, you're losing one of the best lessons that your Senior could teach you- throttle control. The other would be using the rudder. Enjoy the plane and learn all that it can do and that doesn't necessarily mean hucking it around in the air. This plane was made for touch and go's and if you can't learn to control it at EVERY speed, you'll never be able to control your next plane to the best of your abilities either.

Okay, I'll pack up my soap box and move on now. Thank you, good night and don't forget to tip your waitress!

I don't think I saw anywhere in his post where he said he was constantly flying a full throttle, he just wanted to know why it didn't want to roll at full throttle. I have the Kadet SR ARF with an OS 70 fourstroke on it. I fly around mostly at 1/4 throttle or less, if I want to play a little I will throttle up and it will roll and fly inverted with no problems (at 1/4 throttle or at high speed). Granted it takes some rudder and down elevator to control the rolls and some down pressure on the stick to fly inverted. I only have futaba 3001 standard servos in mine also. The only difference in the 3004 & 3001 is number of ball bearings they should have the same amount of torque so the should be enough servo. The Arf version does not have as much dihedral as the kit version so it will roll and fly inverted better but don't expect it to do very pretty rolls thats not what it was designed for. It is a touch and go animal like tcrafty said, If you want to be great at takeoffs and landings this is the plane to learn with. If the plane is set up right you can almost takeoff and land using just the throttle and hardly any elevator at all. Don't get into a habit of firewalling the throttle to take off or pulling the throttle all the way back and gliding in to land. Learning to use the throttle properly and learning rudder control will pay off in helping to fly other type airplanes and flying aerobatics. With that being said if you wanted a more aerobatic trainer you need to get something with a semi symmetrical wing. Didn't mean to be so long winded & hope this helps
fossil

Thanks for the replys. I only gave it full throttle while staight and level for a short distance just to check it out. At speeds less than full throttle it rolls pretty quick.
I set it up in my shop and gave it full aileron and tried to return it to level with my hand and it wouldn't budge a bit, I was afraid to give it anymore push than I allready had and it seems pretty strong to me. I will fly again next weekend and see if it repeats. Here are a few photos of the installation. Thanks again...Brian

J-3,

From your photo, it looks like the servo control arm will bind with the control rod if you don't cut off the arms you don't need.

JC

Thanks JC, I will cut them off before I put it back together. I think I will drop it one hole lower on the servo side to give me a little bit more leverage.....Brian

Mine has a bad habit of flutter in the ailerons at high speed. A good reason to throttle back! One of the guys at the field has his control horns moved to the rear of the aileron as well as beefing up the area around the servos to control flex. These mods eliminated the flutterand will roll at any speed. Yes, you lose some degree of movement on the aileron but his airplane can perform rings around my stock configuration at higher speeds!