A few months ago I bought a redy built Senior Telemaster and was held up on the build while I was on an all expence paid "vacation" to the middle east. Anyway I have been back and got the plane together and had a successful flight today. I am not much for taking pictres while I work so I will post them later. The kit comes complete and that is needed is engine and radio equipment, quite literally. The quality of hardware included is not that bad. I opted to use a Sulivan tailwheel, one included seemed to transfer the landing force to the rudder, I also used Great Planes fuel tubing instead of the included fuel line. I also used control horns in pictured the plans to securfe the wing struts, wich was the only hardware not included in the kit. The kit arrived in good shape except the balsa where the "windshield" is was cracked, a little CA fixed that and a Iron ran over some of the covering to fix some wrinkles, I attatched the verticle and horizonal stabs with poly glue and was working on a bolt on mod for the wings, but decided aginst it. The wing stuts were a little tricky, I attached the wing ends as per the plans but cut the stabs short and used 4-40 control rod clevises to mount the struts to the fuse. I mounted the radios with no problem, I cut the servo tray in half and mounted the throttle servo as far forward as I could and the elevator and rudder servos about half way in the tracks, or where the control rods fit , aileron servos are pretty strait forward, I mounted a Super Tigre .61 and it fit like it was made for it. The really tricky part is mounting the elevator push rod, it is a split elevator and the pushrod needs to be bent to fit right and allow full elevator movement. The controls were set as per plans, with differental ailerons and flaperons, The CG was right on and I didn't have to move anything to get the plane to balance, the 4 cell battery is mounted under the fuel tank and the reciever is under the throttle servo.

Now for the flight report, I took it out last week and it was too windy but I was there, Got it running, full throttle and it took off in under 10 feet and rolled over, broke the spinner and the bulhead behind the wing where I had the wing mounted (which is why I have decided to use rubber band mounting), anyway I took out the bulhead, glued it back together, and traced out a new one on 1/8 inch ply and glued it back in, Today was calm so I went out, seeing that this thing taxis really good at idle I lined up and throttled up, I was about 1/4 throttle when the tail took off and was off the ground and climbing at a good pace at 1/2 throttle. It flew really well, this plane floats, I lost the engine and was able to make a turn dead stick before landing, the second flight went better, I got it up to full throttle in the air and it takes the speed really well, I read that it may need more rudder but I didnt have much of a problem, I can do aileron turns pretty good, I throw in a little rudder and it turns really well. Coming in for a landing I let the flaperons down and it handled verry well and the plane comes down pretty good until it gets into ground effect and it wants to keep flying, but touch and add throttle it is off the ground in under 10 feet or so, it bounces a little but not too bad. The tailwheel I have on it has a spring that attaches the rudder to the tailwheel, and it takes a while to turn, I ended up S turning, (I guess like you would taxi a real taildragger) it may take a little getting used to but I am extremly satisfied with this plane.

I have a few plans for this plane, I cut out a 4x6 panel in the belly of the plane and make a few "modules" for it. I have a Video camera i want to build a panel for, and a air drop module. We will see what happens.

Here are some pictues of the plane "dry fitted" together, stand by for further pictures and hopefully I can get my cameraman out to take some video

Wow that thing looks huge. I would love to be in Abilene to give it a whirl. I am still working on my PNP but I have four days off to get some work done. Take some in flight pictures, maybe a picture with one of the boys holding it so we can all get a size comparison on it. How was the first flight?

congrats on the build sir! I have one NIB that I have been meaning to build but I am struggling trying to figure out whether or not I want to go glow or electric.

I would love to see the mods you did to yours, I have the same plans as you in regards to making this a camera ship. Keep up dated!

Here is the hatch I have made and the tailwheel

Here are pictures of the innards and the engine mounted, excuse the nasty paint job on the spinner, the 60 is almost too much power for this (if there is such a thing) but the engine is a perfect fit for the mounts, you would have to build an adapter of some kind to mount a smaller engine, if you go electric you would have to cut out the engine mount, wich reminds me, one thing I had to do was add some of the covering on the bottom of the rudder and in the split between the ailerons and wing, I am a little paranoid of getting fuel soaking of the balsa, in the second picture is thre wing mount, I put a piece of basswood under the rails and put pieces under it to keep the wings together then had hooks under the wings that slid under it and the wing bolts kept it slid forward, that was the thery anyway. I may try to rig up some kind of other deal to mount the wings.

I've got an ST ARF on floats. Nice flying plane but that yellow shelf paper covering sucks. After a handful of float flying, the covering is comming up all over the place. Also, be carefull of the large stabalizer, there is only balsa sheeting around its saddle. Mine managed to flip over taxing in a strong cross wind and broke all the balsa around the stabalizer. I would agree about power, I've got a Magnum .80 four stroke and even on floats, it's got plenty of power.

I figure one day I am going to have to recover the thing, hopefully it lasts that long. I plan on flying it as much as I can until then

thanks for sharing the pics. I have a Saito 91 I might put on there. I know its overkill but I intend on strapping some cameras to it

A word of caution here: My Senior Telemaster ARF is powered with a Thunder Tiger Pro 1.20 two-stroker (sounds like overkill don't it? it's a glider tug, so I need all that surplus thrust). Anyway, while towing last weekend at the Alpine Soaring Adventure (Wallowa Lake OR), my engine pulled clean off the firewall. The engine mount beams ripped free of the inside fuselage sides. They had used hot glue (yup!) to adhere the beams, and the glue joints failed.

My fix will be to strip the fuselage and plank the sides with 1/32" ply, plus I will mount the engine with a glass-filled production engine mount bolted to a new 1/4" firewall. I already beefed up the aft section of the fuselage with 1/64th ply veneer, as the tail had way to much twist and flex in it. Lesson learned: the Senior Telemaster ARF is a cheap-o Chinese product, with way-too-soft wood and poor quality glue joints (hot glue cripes!). Don't assume anything with regard to structural integrity, and if you decide to overpower it, plan on adding some more stiffness with ply sheeting like on mine.

Enjoy, the Sr Telly is a wonderful flyer.

Don.

GOT TO LOVE ARF'S. Todd nice pictures I see you are finally having some fun with balsa. What are the SPAD folks going to think huh? LOL. Looks really good I did notice the engine mount though it looks from the picture that it has a slight split in the wood. That is what I am worried about with my PNP I may mod it for a composite mount. By the way what type of wood did the build the mount with? It did not look like it was plywood. Anyway great job KEEP it flying I look forward to giving her a whirl........ More pictures more pictures. How about a video huh.

Check out this older thread with 500+ posts and mods of the ARF version of the STM

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_35...emaster/tm.htm

I have had three now, all highly modified only one is still flying.

I started with a kit then had two ARF's. If you really want to make room for stuff move the servos to the tail like I did. I can carry several water ballons or about 10 plastic easter eggs with talc power for "bombs". You can search my name and see all the threads I have posted to and mod pictures.

A big word of caution about the build quality of the ARF. It's horrible! Yes it will fly just fine stock but it's only a matter of time before the structure falls apart on you. Trust me on this. All the ribs in my wing were not glued, the tail is very weak and the major formers are glued in with some type of stuff that's not really glue. It's a great design but a horrible ARF.

The engine mount is some kind of hardwood and I saw what you were talking about, and good eyes about the crack, I guess that woking in the iso docks has ya looking pretty hard, I have the engine bolded in pretty good, it should hold.

I am seeing the quality of the build isnt too good, Those Indonisian five year olds arent doing too good, I have wondered about recovering this plane in the future but it may turn into a major rebuild, I bought it because the ARF is cheaper than the kit, when you count in covering and all, I don't count the building time, but knowing what how the plane is built says alot too

Did you get that thing fixed up yet?

I have this Arf with the Magnum 1.20. Lots of fun, but I had a few glue joint problems as well.
I see that your using quick connects all around. This is typically a nice and slow flying bird, and you probably will not run into any problems, but I cringe when I see quick connects used for elevator. One little slip and you won't have to worry about the glue joints. [X(]

I am working on repairing my Ultra Stick and I found that it uses the same type of glue/epoxy on its joints. probibly comes from the same place, anyway, I will probibly change my rudder and elevator to a z bend or quick conector and put on a bolt on wing like I origanally planned

I was putting rubber bands on the plane when they pulled out the aft dowl rod, so now I have the bolt on mod complete, I built up a plywood "hook" for the forward mount it is glued to the inboard rib and then I have 1/8 inch ply epoxied on the rib and the "hook" I built up. It mounts to a basswood beam I glued inside the fuse with blocks to keep the hooks from sliding. The aft bulkhead was doubled with another 1/8 inch piece of ply and I mounted a commercialy available wing mount I got in a lot of aircraft hardware. the bolts were weak so I drilled and taped the holes for 1/4-20 nylon bolts and I have tapered washers I can't remember where they came from, some of that old hardware you keep arround because it may come in handy one day, here are the pictures that clarify what I was saying, hopefully this holds

Have you finished all the repairs? Lets see some final pictures. Mark

Those are the repairs, I just need to get out and fly it, Hopefully Friday

I flew it yesturday and it flew great, I looped it a couple of times and it pulled one of the wingstruts out of the wing, It is an easy fix but I will glue in both sides with a decent epoxy. I figure one of these days that thing is going to have to be stripped, reglued and recovered.

I epoxied the blocks in on both wings. Then I shortened one of my struts, It never fit right, now it clips rigght in, Hopefully the weather will be good this weekend. see how this works

Lets see some darn pictures. Some video links something man. Post some today I know you got them let others enjoy.

Just giving you a hard time buddy. But post links.

Thanks Mark.