tlcdennis

Has anyone put a better battery in this plane.It is a fun plane but needs to fly a lot longer.Do you know anything about some mods for it as well?
thank you

Mike Taylor

My Feedback: (1)

Which one do you mean? There are three of them (that I know about, anyway); A 'Staggerwing' (Red), a sorta-'Cessna' (green) and a Zero (yellow).

The Staggerwing biplane converts to conventional micro gear pretty easily and it flys pretty well. I did one up with a CIrrus MRX, 2 x 6.2 gram Cirrus servos, a 3x250 mah LiPoly battery pack and a AstroFLight Firefly motor with 125 x 110 Gunther 'Zagi' prop. AUW was 4 3/8 ounces. Flies good, but needs very little rudder throw, and only moderate elevator throw.

I haven't tried the other two monoplanes, but someone tried one with a surplus motor and said it was underpowered.

tlcdennis

I'm sorry ,I ment the zero.I am planing to paint it and make it look like a warbird.

Mike Taylor

My Feedback: (1)

Bob,

The secret to converting these is keep it light. That's why I used the LiPolys (20 grams for a 250 mah, 12 volt battery). The AF Firefly is on a par with M100 motors (like the IPS power plants, I believe), but only weighs 1/2 ounce. Other people have used GWS EDP50 motors with the orange GWS 3x2 or 3x3 props.

The radio RX and servos I used were pretty light but also relatively inexpensive (all were about $18 each, plus $5 for the RX crystal).

I set mine up with Rudder / Elevator / and Throttle, but you could go with ailerons / elevator if you wanted. I crash-tested the bipe by flying out of range, and it stood up to the crash pretty well, so they seem pretty durable. Forget the landing gear and hand-launch and bell it in on grass...

You will need to replace the motor and the radio if you want more performance and/or longer flights. I gave a stock one to a nephew, and it really lacked much power or rudder authority and range was horrible...

One more hint; if you open it up to convert it, the seam along the side is glued together with a soft, rubbery glue like RC-56 canopy glue (hint), and it slices open easily along that seam. Use a new, sharp blade, and you can seal it back up again without a trace...

JanetC

Bob, I saw a buzz about this on rc microflight. The best conclusion for me was charging the plane for 3 minutes instead of 60-75 seconds. Supposedly estes didnt want the plane flying out of range, and it will if you charge a 3 minutes and let it out too far. But the good thing is the motor runs full thrust for about 25 seconds instead of the crummy10 seconds, and settles into cruise speed for about a minute. Be sure and turn it within range and you should have a 3-4 minute flight. Have Fun with it. Can we see the paint scheme if you still have it? after you have enjoyed some flight time of course.

and of course you can rework it as Mike said if your good at that stuff.......I am not!

Not yet anyway.....

Small Fry

How much does one of these cost?

Mike Taylor

My Feedback: (1)

Cost is ~$30 at the big Walmat or toy chain stores, ~$36 at a hobby shop. If you are goint to convert on to your own radio gear, the FF versions are ~$20 or less.

azfrench

Wow, I bought the cessna looking sky ranger for 10.00 as my wal mart. Must have been on clearence. I was happy with the way it flew but, I needed more power and time. So I took the whole thing apart and am adding elevator control and a better rudder control. I am going to use the stock motor till it burns out but am building a cd rom brushless to put in it. I am using 2 micro servos that weigh about 9gr each. The speed control is a GWS 100. All in all it will weigh about 20grams more than the stock plane due to the new batter. The extra power should compensate for the extra weight. Should be done in about a week. Still waiting on the servos. The battery I am using is a Thunder lipoly 860 mAh. This battery really makes the stock motor sing. BTW, I did go and buy the low wing plane but it did not fly as well. The store only had the two planes each 10.00. Not bad for a 10.00 plane that Im going to turn into a 55.00 plane.

Rick

john 8750

Thats how you do it Rick! Let us know how it flies.
I have the Zero but never tried to fly it because of the short motor run.
Keep the fun in it,
John Smith.

azfrench

Well John, All did not go so well. I think that it was due to many changes while converting the plane. Like I said I was going to stick with the stock motor til it blew. It did. I tried to ROG but the darn thing just kept on spinning out. So then I went to the park to try a hand launch and when the plane left my brothers hand the enging died right there and then. The plane went to the ground. I expected this but I wanted at least one flight out of it before it happened. The good news was that he said that he didn't really have to toss it because it just leaped from his hand. So Back to the shop it went and I replaced the stock motor with a size 280. I had thought that this was going to be too big for the plane but we did it anyway. It was too big. Every time we went to launch the plane it would do noting that even comes close to flight. Just down to the ground hard every time. As it stands now the plane is gutted and I am going to wait on building my brushless for it. This will be a motor that is very close to the original weight of the stock motor but much more power. What I did do is go back to walmart and picked up a Cox Viper. Others had success with this plane as a remote. Look up viper in the search and watch some videos, cool stuff.

Rick.

azfrench

Found this thread and thought that I should say that the viper was awesome. It flew so good and is now one of my favorite planes. If anyone is interested in it let me know and I will post pics and specs.

Rick.