First kit, actually first plane.

one more

Welcome to our wacky hobby/sport! Your first kit effort is very well done!

It looks a lot like a Goldberg 'Tiger 2' I built and flew several years ago. Engine was a K&B .40. If flew very well, with many, many flights over six years. It easily performed basic aerobatics and was a kitten during landings, handling wind and crosswinds rather well. Unfortunately, due to my error, met its demise on the vertical down portion of a Split Ess in early 2002.

IF you plan on this being your 'trainer' plane, you may find it will be a little more to handle than the usual trainer, but very well behaved. It is an excellent 'second' plane and, while seldom recommended, it has been the first plane (trainer) for many people. With a good instructor and a 'buddy' box. you should be able to reach solo status in a reasonable amount of time...depending on your rate of learning more that on flight characteristics of the plane.

Pick your covering scheme to provide a big difference between top and bottom of the wind. Finish it out, get with an instructor and go have fun!!

First, the good news...

That looks beautiful! Congratulations, you have entered the realm of kitbuilding!

And the Tiger II is an EXCELLENT flier, you'll love it!

Now the bad news...

You're NOT almost done

Now you will learn one of the bad things about kit building - Which is that the construction goes quickly. Frame it up, do some sanding, and it really starts to look like an airplane... Really gets the juices flowing.

But now comes the tedious part. Installing the radio, tank, hinges, switch, etc.

All of these things are time-consuming, and worse yet, after you've done them, the plane still looks the same!

You see what I mean? In other words, when you start to build the wing, you start with a clean bench, and when you're done, you have a wing to show for your efforts. But spend an few hours putting in servos, pushrods, control horns, etc, and your airplane doesn't look any different.

It can get a little discouraging sometimes, but just remember that each step brings you a little closer to the field.

And we haven't even touched on covering!

Looks great, keep up the good work!

I have not bothered to build kits but used to a long time ago ... I think the best part is when it flies and does it nice ... the satisfaction of knowing all that hard work was worth it. For me an ARF is just put it together and fly it, if it crashes then go get another!

speaking of push rods, the wire and plastic tubes that came with the kit do seem so great. should i replace them with something better? they move smoothly but they are a little tight, i am concerned about putting an extre load on the servos, which i imagine work rather hard to begin with fighting the air flow

sean - working hard on a CG Tiger? I don't think it will be that hard at all. Your standard servo will have about 4 kgs, for genaral easy flying even 2.5-3 kgs will suffice. You should see some of the old servos, I got some from the 80's, called MINI Servos ... its about 70% larger than your standard ones and they are so slow but they worked fine on my EZ Laser 200 (40).

Sean,

Just curious.
Did you have your camera set to SHQ or HQ when you took the pictures? And how many megapixels is your camera?
I see a lot of digital pictures posted that have great color, like yours, but also have jagged edges on the wings and tail sections.
Its funny that, most of the time, I use HQ on my 3 megapixel camera when taking pictures of lets say my yard or pets, etc.
But, when it comes to an object that has very straight edges, it seems that you need to go for the highest picture quality you can get or else you get those jaggies.
I never really noticed this so much until I started cruising the RC Universe forums.
Some really great planes look kinda messed up.
I doubt that anybody builds their leading and trailing edges with a chainsaw, so I have to attribute the distortion to low pixel setting.

It's not low picture quality. Open your browser window with the picture to full size, hover your mouse over the picture, then click the 'zoom' button on the lower left of the pic. Clears it right up. And BTW, 'Megapixel' is a loosely thrown around term used to sell cameras. It has no real meaning in the real world.

On another note, great looking Tiger2, you have there seanb. Nothing beats the feeling of seeing something you built take to the sky!

i just looked at the picture again and it seemed fine, perhaps its your screen resolution. its not perfect yet, i still have some sanding to do but my leading and trailing edges are smooth

yes it will be nice to see something i built take to the sky but i still need to learn how to fly! i am going to build a trainer next and perhaps a 4* before the spring. i have been having alot of fun just building this one, i already cant wait to start the next one!

sean,
Yes, the kit included push rods will work, but you will generally get much smoother movement and less binding (which means better flight and more battery time) out of something like the sullivan gold-n-rods... They really aren't expensive at all, and will make a big difference in your install... Couple of other things to consider... Depending where your flying you might want to upgrade with wheels... If your in grass, you'll probably want some foamies with a larger diameter... If your flying off asphault you'll want some rubber tires... MinnFlyer is right about it sometimes getting tedious doing the install of radio, engine, etc.. and not seeing much progress, but DON'T rush it... Those steps are some of the most important.. Make sure you get the engine mount set up correctly with the proper amount of downward and sideward thrust... Be sure to take your time getting the control linkages square (so control horn is parallel to servo arm and push rod is 90 degrees to each in neutral settings...)... These steps won't make your model fly or not fly... but it will make the difference of rather or not you WANT to fly it. Take your time with the covering too... You've put a lot of hard work into building the kit. When it comes to covering it's easy to get into a rush because it's the last step. You want to get that bird in the air.. Resist the temptation!!! Take your time and do it right... An ugly model will fly just as well as a pretty one, but after spending all that time and work on the internals, you want the outside to reflect the time and effort you put into it... Sometimes monokote can be a little tricky, but it'll come out just fine if you don't rush it. Good luck with her maiden voyage! Make sure it's the instructor putting the first flight on her!

one other thing to make the radio instalation "funner", put it in before u cover it.... you dont ding the covering up by flipping it over and all that fun stuff. and then it will look the same until you cover it, more too look forward too!