Also bought one on fathers day.I plan to install a zenoah 20cc ei . Would love to hear from someone installing a gas engine in one of these.

If the weight is about 3 lbs the weight is ok. My 1.8 turns a 16x8 prop 9700 rpm and this gives excellent performance. So if you have the weight and rpm you should be ok. I am sure 8000 rpm would fly it well. NOTE though the large cows with a 16" prop only has about 2 3/4 " of prop extending out side the cowl.

Thought maybe one of you folks that bought one might have updates.

I now have many flights on mine and finally learned to make 3 point landings and sometimes slow enough to be tail wheel first.

Flying vertical I have to hold down elev for straight up flight. The nose wants to pull up and over.

Landing I come in fast, hot low power and only add flare over the runway. Timing is everything as the large round cowl adds lots of drag and it slows fast. Keep idle just a couple clicks up from full idle.

I increased the wheel size on mine 1/2 " more than factory wheels for a little more shock / less bounce on the grass.

Flat spins are possible. Haven't been able to do inverted.

Flat spin is about 60 degrees up power off full up and left aileron until it begins to spin then in the spin hold full up but slowly move aileron to full right. Add a touch of power if the flat spin is entered.

Recovery from the flat spin. I give a touch of right rudder and center elev / ail. Power is back and I add a bit of power in the pull up.

WARNING RECOVER FROM THE FLAT SPIN HIGH.

Almost lost it this week due to color on the wing. Pattern is the same top and bottom. Plane was slow and under gray cloud. It snapped in a turn and I could not tell after the snap which side I was seeing. Fortunately the wheels are on the bottom and I recovered.

As they would say way down south, How ya'll doin?

What causes the plane to snap in a turn? Too tight a turn and and too little airspeed?
Also could you explain how you modified the wings to bolt to the inside of the fuselage vs the stock way the small screws were originally designed to hold the wings in place. You mentioned almost losing a wing this way, so I assume that you have modified this.

Are you still using the control throws you mentioned earlier, ie, 1/2 the recommended deflection in the manual for initial flights for your low rate, and the recommended initial throws for your high rate?

Enjoy your comments on assemblying and flying this plane.

Sorry for the delay in answering I was out of town.

Snap is too slow AND too much elevator. Keep the speed UP until you are comfortable. Too little elevator is better than too much.

I am flying at 1/2 recommended throws listed in the manual. You are correct.

To put bolts inside the fuse you will have to cut a piece of plywood and put it inside the inner most wing rib in a location where you will be able to drill through the fuselage. (I reco 1/4 " ply so you can thread it with a tap.). Then you can put a nylon bolt from inside the fuse into the wing. I havent done this yet due to being out of town.

CAUTION KEEP up the speed on landing. Fly it in on about 1/4 throttle until over the runway then cut the power.

I use expo also on the elevator. More to come later tired from driving 500 miles today.

Thanks for the info...... I bought a nearly new OS 160 off RCU marketplace for the plane. May be overkill, this is one large engine!

You might consider one of the light weight electronic ignition gas engines in the 23 cc or so range. If I didn't have the saito 1.8 I would have gone gas in the 23 range.

Well after it's been sitting in the box for about 3 months I finally started building the plane. I must say, it's a pretty quick build. I'm hoping to maiden it next Saturday. I'll post how it does with the 1.20.

Mine flies with a 1.8 saito.

What is painted on this plane? Just the cowl or the whole plane?

I wonder what this plane would be like with a new DLE-30 on it?

Thanks!

The cowl is painted. Keep the weight low on the engine and you should be ok. I believe it will fly well. with a 26cc gasser.

Jimcork1....... Did you use the supplied hinges on your control surfaces? I just read a review of this plane on the Hobby People site where the plane was lost on it's maiden flight due to an aileron coming off because some of the hinges broke in flight. The review said there was no flutter, and plane was at ~ half throttle when the hinges broke.
How many flights do you have on your plane now?

Sir,

do you have any other pictures to post?

I love your SU !

Interesting you ask this question. I found the included hinges too tight and binding. I didn't want to put that much stress on the servo so I switched to Robart horny hinges of the same size. I also seated them with epoxy and have had no issues.

Oh man....I wish I would have know this before I built mine. Well, it is what it is I guess. I'll just have to keep an eye them. Mine's hopefully ready for a maiden this weekend if the weather will cooperate. She's all built, just need to balance it and glue in the pilot.

For landing KEEP a little power on as the large radial cowl will make it slow very quickly and drop in.

Gotcha....I usually land a little hot anyway. I have an Extra that makes me nervous when she's slow....so I usually come in hot, chop it, and let the grass slow it down. We have a fiarly long runway so as long as I toch down before the halfway point, I'm good.

Don't set too much elevator, , it is very sensitive,, set expo also.

Great pictures jim, i bought one of these for 145 GBP and have a 26cc gasser for it, one of my clubmembers has one with a zdz45 i think but ive never seen it flying yet.

By all accounts it is a great kit for the money, i would love to see a video of one before i build mine, i'm in Scotland so it probably wont see fresh air till next spring summer, do you have any video of the ASM su26m flying? or do you know of any?

Cheers

STORMERSTU.

JimCork1, is that a Kraft radio?

The radio is an ACE micropro updated to 2.4 and using 4.25 sofware updates. Great radio and kept up to all standards. Guess I just like flying American radios.

One feature that is really nice is the auto trim. If you are flying a new bird and it is out of trim, fly straight and level and tap the auto trim. This puts an exact offset on the system to have trims centered and sticks. Then on landing you can save these settings. Worked great on my C130 with lots of mixing.

Hi Jim.

I just ordered one of these myself. Still waiting for the package to arrive.
I plan to install a 40cc gas engine. I think it'll be ok, since it's supposed to accept gas engines in the 25cc-36cc range.
I could use the extra power since I want to submit this baby to some 3D thrashing (hope it's up to the job ).
The engine weighs 1300g plus ignition (which places it just below the 3 pound ballpark).

Now... I'm shopping for an appropriate prop for this engine.
I'd like to install something in the order of 21"-22" (the bigger the better).
But I'm having serious doubts regarding the available clearance.

Jim, do you think I can use a 22" prop in this plane?
Or would I risk doing some serious lawn mowing on the airfield?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers.

I maidened mine last weekend. Once she was trimmer out she flew great. Had WAY to much on the ailerons. At full deflect the sucker barrel rolled and was almost a blur. She took it though!! All was well until the engine died...I have an O.S. 1.20 2 Stroke in it. Plenty of power, when it was running After the engine died, it dropped like a brick!! I was able to flatten it out at the last minute....it landed about 10 feet from a swamp and 3 feet from a tree.....only damage was the gear bent a little cracking the wood block where the gear bolts up...no biggie. easy fix. Another thing during crash was the whole rear elevator stabilizer came unglued. Like Jim said, you gotta get in there with some glue. I already ordered some syringes to get it in there.....the way the instructions have you do it obviously there was not near enough in there. Live and learn I guess.
In response to the above post with the 22 inch prop....sorry to say I don't see that working. I just measured my clearance for you. I have a 15" prop on it. With the tail level there was roughly about 3 1/2 inches from the tip of the prop to the table it was sitting on. With the 22" as soon as the tail came up slightly, it would become one with the earth

Sorry to know about your slight mishap... []
Glad it wasn't that serious and it's easily fixable.

Thanks for the info on the prop clearance.
I'm a bit disappointed... [sm=disappointed.gif]
Well... guess I'll have to settle for something smaller.
This will be detrimental for the performance I was aiming for.

You mentioned having 3 1/2 inches of clearance with a 15".
I'd love to go with a 20"... but it would leave me with just 1" between blade tip and ground.
Guess I'll have to opt for a 18x10.
This would give me a couple of inches clearance.

Do you think a 18" is feasible?
Would it be possible to "straighten out" the gear in order to increase the nose height?

Thanks again.

I tried a 22" prop on my saito 1.8 and it was too much prop, lugged the engine and way down on torque. The plane flew like a truck vs a hot rod.

Warning,, it slows very fast with power off due to the large radial cowl. If you have engine failure don't do a wide pattern expecting to float. It will drop much like

a high drag bipe. I went back to 18x6 on the saito and it is turning about 9700 rpm and flies great.

What I have not been able to do is a spin. Has anyone been able to do a spin and if so what is your cg, and control throws. Have a great day.