Need help with Spectrum .40
 

Has anyone built or flown this plane, its a pattern flyer, kit size is a .40, Leaning towards the ARF, any thing i should know before building it, useing .61 evolution, with retracts.


Just curious if anyone out there has this plane, or built it, any help will be appreciated.

thanks

Need help with Spectrum .40
 

I used to have one, from what I recall building was strait forward and the only thing that caused me any grief was trimming all the plastic for the wheel wells. To get the retracts control linkage to work like I wanted I had to pretty much cut the top of the wheel wells off.
As for flying, well it likes to fly fast. My Spectrum would get tippy at slow speed unless you had it strait and level, as I recall it would drop the left wing in a stall and drop like a rock.
Landings were good, but again you had to keep your airspeed up and fly it down. A shallow approach worked best for me, using the throttle to maintain altitude.

Take offs were standard tail dragger take offs, a tendance to turn left on the runway around the time it rotated. The plane will fly strait, and does what you tell it to.
There are a few thing that I should note, the finish on the plane is not very resistant to anything but mild cleaners, it will smear badly. The color scheme can make it hard to see what attitude the plane is in high up, the blue top and checker board bottom look the same from far away, and with such a low tail, and the gear up it can be difficult to see what its doing.
Lastly the wing bolts are a pain, they are un inside a plastic cowling on the bottom of the wing, I would change that if I was going to get another one. Maybe get some longer bolts, and build spacers on the bottom of the wing that extended to the bottom of the plastic cowling.
Hope this helps.

Glue the snot...
 

Glue the wing halves together with a good epoxy and fiberglass tape around the joint.

I had one that I flew in 100 degree heat down here that turned the epoxy to jelly. The wing halves just split in 2 and subsequently buried my engine 4" into the dirt (shouldn't have done that last snap). Would hate to see that happen again.

Other than that, it is a fast bird. I had a 46 FX with tuned pipe on it and it was a screamer.

Jason

Need help with Spectrum .40
 

i have a stinger with .48 MDS on it, i want the spectrum to be faster than that, so i'm going with the evolution .61

The covering on the spectrum has got to go, definatly going to recover it!

I've heard the retracts are a pain in the *****.


Appreciate all the help!!!!!!!!

Thanks