I know there are pages and pages of history on this plane. What must I do to this ARF to work the weakness out of it?

G

Weakness??
My buddy has one with a .46 on it and bores holes in the sky with it every weekend for the last year or so. What's weak on it?
Terry

In my opinion, there ARE no weaknesses, only design intentions. This is a trainer and as such, it has all the inherent qualities to make it EASY to fly. It gets easy for you to fly it, you might like to do more advanced stuff with it, like inverted flight, hovering, rolling circles, etc. With the dihedral in the wing, these things are tough to do. Mine was a kit and had a lot of dihedral so, we built another wing with much less dihedral. Now, it'll do a lot more and is a heck of a lot of fun to fly, and, I still have my other wing if I want to instruct someone on it. I can change the wings in seconds. I've got a 91 4-stroke on it and have a ball flying it.

Tcrafty,

Your plane looks nice. I just put the wing together on my arf, and there is almost no dihedral. I do want to do all the crazy stuff. I am not making a trainer out of it.

As far as things to strenghen, I am doing the fire wall and expoying all joints inside fuse.

What about the vertical stab? Seem like a weak connection. Did you beef up?

Thanks

My senior (kit, remind you) was built about 7-10 years ago. I've not found any variances from the standard build. I'm not totally sure how the ARF's firewall and engine mounting is constructed. My kit plane uses two rails glued in as part of the fuse and doesn't have a flat firewall with the use of a removeable mount. That, I believe is possibly one difference between kit and ARF. Also, I noticed that there was a lot less dihedral on the ARF, but again, the ARF has aileraons planned in whereas the kit doesn't so more dihedral would make sense. I've had to hit the brakes pretty hard in my truck as I was headed home from the field one day and the plane slammed into the front of the bed of my truck. The only thing that happened was one angled brace broke loose on the side of the fuse just in front of the elevator and the covering, brittle with age, cracked in a few spots. Being a tainer by nature, I think that Sig built in a fair measure of strength. I've done some pretty crazy stuff with mine and it keeps coming back for more. It is a pretty good sized plane so giving the firewall a little more strength wouldn't be a bad idea, especially if you're planning on hovering a bunch. Mine will with the OS 91 but it's not responsive enough on the control surfaces for me to feel comfortable enough to do it low on deck. I've seen guys do it but not with my servos!

What engine are you planning on putting in your Kadet?

Thanks. I can't decide on the engine. I have an OS .61 and am debating Saito .91. I want the power to be able to hover and climb vertically.

Thoughts?

I had a 50 on it at first, then a Saito 72, now, I've got a 91 on it and love it. The throttle stick moved less from idle as the engine increased size and now it's mostly 1/3 throttle or under but when I want to go up in a hurry, it'll do it. I do a lot of low passes and fly around the field at a foot or lower many times. WHen I need to get some air in a hurry, I just blip the throttle and ta-da, theres another two feet of altitude. I like just idling around in the air so the 91 does fine. The engine wieghs about the same but has more power and I can really make use of the extra torque. I have a 15X8 prop on the 91 so it might be a little over-propped for a 91 but like I said, half throttle is really all I need. If I point it straight up, I can use 3/4 to full throttle.

The real beauty of this setup for me, is that to fly around, it just putters around the air and, I think, sounds MUCH more scale than screaming through the sky.