http://theworldmodels.com/para/produ...?airplaneid=36

Is anyone flying this airplane? How does it fly? Are the retracts in this airplane ok? What engine are you using?

The specs show it weighing only 7.5lbs. I’m thinking an OS .70 4-Stroke would fly it just fine.

Looking for opinions.

Thanks,

Scott.

Hi Scott, I have this plane. It flys great with the C.G. as per instructions. I installed a Supertigre G-90 in mine. I think there are some threads on this plane already. Most are needing to add nose weight, but I found that the nose weight can be eliminated by removing most of the internal wood structure inside the fuse, aft of the wing. The fuse is plenty strong without extra structure and removal of it makes installing the push-rod for the elevator greatly easier. All that I left from the original structure were the longerons that are glued to the inside of the fuse, and the structure used to align the tail surfaces. After installing the tail-surface push-rods, I added some balsa stick in strategic places to stabilise them.

I am using the retract mechanisms that came with the arf but installed VQ struts on them and larger, scale sized, 3-1/4" wheels. The heavier weight associated with the struts and larger wheels required using two standard servos instead of one to operate the gear. I haven't ever flown the plane with the stock wire gear and wheels, but they seemed to be of high quality and shouldn't give you a problem if you choose to use them.

When I read that people were putting 11-13 oz in the nose to balance this plane, I decided to take drastic action to lighten the tail. Besides removing the unneeded structure in the tail, I scratch-built a new horizontal stabilizer and saved about an ounce of weight there. This mod turned out not to be necessary from a weight savings standpoint, but my scratch-built h-stab is a bit closer to proper scale proportions anyway.

I also went nuts with the weight savings because I wanted to shorten the nose of the Zero to be closer to scale dimensions. I shortened the cowl by about an inch and mounted the G-90 as close to the firewall as possible. Final weight with all the weight savings mods and the heavier gear components and extra gear servo came out to 7lb 5oz. If you don't remove the excess structure from the tail, the WM Zero 60 could easily weigh a pound more than this. Still a very nice flying model at that heavier weight from what I have read.

Also, I cut a 1/4" off of the bottom of the canopy because I thought it looked too big. I plan to add gear doors and the pilot this winter. The flaps work great on this model too. I didn't modify them at all. <<<<Edit, one more pic>>>>>>>>>

I moved the elevator and rudder sevos forward to ether side of the tank and the throttle servo is mounted in the cowl. I made my own muffler mainly for fun but pitts mufflers for this engine cost about 50 bucks.

I bought this airframe used and now putting engine and radio equip. in. Could someone post CG and ele,rudd,aileron throws. THANKS

The c.g. is at 100mm/3.94" back from the leading edge where the wing meets the fuse. I can confirm that this is a good C.G. to fly with. Aileron throw is shown as 12mm up and 12mm down. Recommended elevator and rudder throws are 40 and 85mm each way respectively but this must be a typo because the surfaces won't even bend that far. Half the value of those throws is more reasonable (20mm up and 20mm down elevator; 42mm left and 42mm right rudder) because this is about 30-40 degrees throw which is normal for most aircraft that I've setup and flown. Good luck with your Zero RACJ.

Craig-RCU, Just saw this post(busy at Christmas). Thank You for these stats. I hope to finish over holidays but don't know when weather will be good enough for maiden. RACJ

You're welcome. It's a very nice flying plane with no bad habits. It stalls straight ahead without even a wing drop and does very nice snap rolls too. I think you'll like it very much.