cap102

Hey ,
i have a brand new Magic 60 kit lying in my workshop.Can anybody tell anything about the flying characteristics?
Its glas/foam and i don´t know if i really want all that work for a plane flying not as good as a Curare does...
Thanks a lot for help.
Achim

cllaurit

Its been a long time since I had both but if I remember correctly they both flew very similar. The Magic was faster and I think it had a bit more roll couple with the rudder. Other then that I don't remember any difference. The Magic is a bit more complicated to set up with the inverted engine and "S" header. I had a Super Tiger X-61 in mine and the plane defined the term ballistic.

caio

Dear Sir, if you are not sure you´d like to build the Magic please know that I´d be very interested in buying it from you. I´ve always wanted to build a kit like this.

Bootalini

I always liked the looks of the Magic, more so that the Curare actually. Based on the known coupling issues with the Magic, can anyone suggest a subtle fix to the basic design that might correct or help eliminate some of it's bad habits? Ex: moving the position of the stb WRT the thrust line? Just thinking out loud, I'm not an aerodynamic expert.....maybe someone out there has a tested fix to the problem.

Jeff

doxilia

My Feedback: (3)

Jeff,

Dean Pappas (same RCU handle) might be the person to ask - he seems to be quite familiar with the Magic's tendencies and might have some good insight as to how to "improve" its flight behavior. Perhaps Chip Hyde will bring back the Hobby Barn Magic for the rest of us.

Just a thought,

David.

cap102

Hello,can anybody tell something about the `known coupling issues`...?
I´ve never been flying a Magic so I really don´t know.
Regards
Achim

TonyF

My Feedback: (92)

The one I built from a Hobby Barn kit would pitch down badly in knife edge. It would do about a 250' circle without corrections. I changed the incidence of the wings a lot and moved the CG and it got better, but I never flew the model in a contest.

I think their were Magics, and then there were Magics. I have heard the ones built from the MK kit were good fliers. But I never saw one from a Hobby Barn kit fly well.

doxilia

My Feedback: (3)

Tony,

do you believe the planforms, moments and/or incidences and dihedrals were different between the two kits (MK and HB)?

David.

flywilly

My Feedback: (121)

Hi David,
the best way to determine would be to compare the MK kit with the Hobby Barn kit (and yes, I have both). I have to believe that something happened when the mold for the glass Magic was created. Certainly, I can't believe the original had issues since Hanno won with it. I have never seen an MK Magic fly, and only one Hobby Barn Magic which flew well, as I recall. It belonged to Willie Macek (he built a pair of them) and was powered by a YS 60FR - they were heavy, I think Willie told me about 10lbs, but he had a lot of success flying them.
It is a very cool looking design and with the mixing capabilities of current radios I'm sure even the 'Tragic' could be made to fly quite nicely.
-Will

by the way, MK also kitted a glass fuselage version of the Magic - I have a photo from an old MK catalog. Since MK is now out of business, maybe Chip can contact them about purchasing their mold (if it still exists).

doxilia

My Feedback: (3)

Hi Will,

thanks for your thoughts. Some further comments inline below.

I see, that's certainly possible. Question is whether the HB mold was made from an MK fuse or whether it was a scratched fuse which had some issues. As far as memory serves, the Magic is pretty straight forward as far as the fuse is concerned - a rectangular box with a fin and a mini turtle deck. Topping that is the long glass deck that enclosed the pipe and optional pipe extension. Of course that is overly simplistic and all sorts of things could have gone wrong to result in a Tragic. It would be pretty hard to compare a HB fuse to an MK fuse unless they were both built and side by side. However, perhaps you could drop your fuse on the MK plan and see if there are any gross discrepancies... if the plans and fuse are readily available of course.

Yea, that's my thinking too. But then again, he probably would have won with just about anything, provided he had the time to trim it out.

Whoa, that is heavy for a Magic. Then again, he had monster power so perhaps it didn't suffer too much. We could probably build glass/foam ones today around 8 lbs I would think.

It is a shame as I have more of a fondness for the Magic than the Curare. I guess I was just seduced by Tipo's as a kid and then, right around the time when Hanno came to Mexico to fly the Magic, I was living there and busy flying mi own stuff! Funny thing is, the summer of '83 I think I went to Europe during the world's... too bad.

It was a sad day when I heard MK went out of business. Great parts and accessories too. It would be amazing to recover any IP from MK. Buying an MK mold for the Tragic might just be Magic...!

David.

countilaw

Back when the MK Magic became available in the glass kit a friend of mine had one. I got to fly it a few times and fell in love with it. You could do three rolls and just barely touch the elevator. The plane was very fast with the gear retracted and a tuned pipe buried within the fuselage. With the inverted engine and the added chin area, bury the engine inside the fuselage which gave it a very clean look.

The Pico 60 re engine had an inflight mixture control so you could tweek the mixture with the radio. That made it very nice to start and adjust the needle if needed without having to get to the needle valve.

I had to have one.

Frank

dhal22

Does it get any better than this?

Steve25

Well, here my two cents.
The teacher that learned me to fly did had a lot of airplanes, including a Curare 40 , 60 , and a..Magic, all being MK. He simply loved the 40, which was his training plane, and survived a lot of crashes, hence the installation of a .50Fsr.

Every flying day, he normally flew the Magic as well, and the thing flew as good as the curare, but being a little more 'agressive'. One time, I had to take over in flight the Curare or Magic, I was to nervous and excited to notice, anyway, that made me a fan of these airplanes.

Then came a time that he started to crash an airplane each flying day. That was also the fate of the Magic, that plewed from very high, full gas right down, in the -10°C soil, burrying it at least 60 cm deep.... Detail ? the engine survived...

Glas/Foam kits tend to be heavier...

flywilly

My Feedback: (121)

hopefully here is the MK catalog with photos of the glass Magic fuselage

doxilia

My Feedback: (3)

Will,

just love it - back then you could contact MK via "cable" - that probably means via telegram! Something like:

"Send glass Magic fuse - stop. Address in header - stop. Anxiously waiting - stop, send."...

Were you able to gleam any differences/issues between the HB fuse and the MK plan?

David.

countilaw

The main difference I remember is that the HK had the chin cowl formed seperately, where as the Hobby Barn, the chin was moulded into the fuselage, and if you wanted to enclose the engine, you had to cut the chin from the glass fuselage, fabricate a plywood frame to attach the chin cowl to the fuselage The HK was far superior kit than the HB, (sorry HB, but my honest opinion).

Frank

flywilly

My Feedback: (121)

Hi David and anybody else who is interested,
After extricating my Hobby Barn Magic from my workshop and comparing it to the MK plans I made some very interesting 'discoveries'. First, after looking at the fuselage and the plans, I decided to align the Hobby Barn Magic (henceforth referred to as the 'Tragic') in the following manner: the front of the fuselage aligned with the MK plans; the trailing edge of the wing then matched the MK plans. Here is where the Tragic differs from the Magic:
1) Tragic fuse 3/8" shorter
2) Tragic wing root at fuselage side is 1/4" longer
3) Tragic stab root at fuselage is 3/8" longer
4) Tragic stab LE is 3/4" ahead of the Magic location - the result of #1 and #3
5) MK calls for the wing and stab to be set at + 0.75 degrees
6) The Tragic stab incidence matches the Magic
7) The Tragic wing LE is 3/16" higher (more positive incidence) than the MK Magic. This computes to an additional 0.75 degrees meaning the Tragic wing is actually +1.5 degrees.
I did not bother to compare wing/stab size and planform or control surface size.
It seems a rather remarkable coincidence that the wing incidence on the Tragic is exactly double the recommended amount. My guess is that somebody screwed up when making the original plug. The other inconsistencies are ... inconsistencies[&o].
I'd love to hear thoughts about 'fixing' the Tragic from Dean and Tony. My feeling is that correcting the wing incidence should help significantly.
I hope Chip reads this before churning out a bunch of 'Tragic' kits. Unfortunately, a new plug would probably be the best solution, though fixing the wing incidence may prove adequate.
-Will

Bootalini

Will, thanks for making the comparison. Perhaps there's hope for the Magic after all.

Jeff

TonyF

My Feedback: (92)

Will is right. The incidences were way wrong with the HB Magic. To make mine fly even close to right I had to shim the wing LE down a bunch. I also think it had roll couple issues but that can be fixed with dihedral changes. And todays radios would help a bunch. For me, I would pass on a Magic from the current HB molds. Might really want to try one from an MK kit!

flywilly

My Feedback: (121)

Thanks Tony. I'll have to check the dihedral called for in the Hobby Barn kit versus the MK kit. I know mistakes get made when putting kits into production: The Bridi Deception plans called for 1.5" of dihedral, but the original plans only called for 1" (which is what all of mine were built at).
-Will

flywilly

My Feedback: (121)

The MK kit shows the stab anhedral as 110mm (4 5/16") under one tip and the wing dihedral as 70mm (2 3/4") under one tip. I do not have any information on the Hobby Barn Magic because (I just discovered) I do not have any instructions with the kit [X(] - I assumed they were somewhere under the mass of foam 'peanuts' - WRONG!
Anybody have the Hobby Barn recommended anhedral and dihedral figures?
Thanks!