You might try a computer radio and mix the aileron and rudder on the Sr. that way you can steer it on the ground with the left stick and in the air with the right stick like it had ailerons.

The Sr was my first kit.

I learned how to fly on my Kadet Senior as a three channel. When it came to moving into a four channel plane, an Avistar, I had no trouble making the transition. On the Kadet Senior I put the rudder on the right stick, same as one would have the ailerons. I think it flew great and taught me a lot. That Magnum would be great on the LT-40, but would also be sufficient on the Kadet Senior. I flew my Kadet Senior with a Thunder Tiger GP 42. Slightly underpowered, but once in the air it was fine. What the GP 42 has going for it is reliability and user friendliness. One of the best I've ever had. Another good match would be the OS 55AX, but I don't think you need to spend that much and still have the same amount of fun. You can get a Magnum 61 for $100. Thats not bad. One general thought of wisdom I've learned. You don't have to spend the most to get very good results. It's really more what you put into something as far as learning how something works. I've got a couple of those Magnum XLS 46, I've only test run them, but I think they run pretty good. Just a suggestion, you might want to add another servo for the nose wheel, put it on the rudder left stick channel. Would make it easier than having just a single servo for the rudder. Also easier to install. The "S" curve braided cable is a little tricky for getting it right without any binding. You could mount it lower and have a straight run to the nose wheel. Maybe even just use a rod.

<span style="font-size: larger">Hey you might want to reconsider using the PAW 35 instead of the 29 !! I have an all ball bearing PAW 35 that I mix up my own fuel. You will need the nose weight and the 35 will even run at a much lower RPM and still have alot of fun flying your Senior Kadet!! Progress Aero Works in England are pretty good at supplying replacement parts. I broke a needle valve assy. They sent one pronto. Have used Klotz oil and castor to mix up my home made fuel. John Deere starting fluid has alot of high grade either and makes good fuel. Also consider using fabric on your Kadetand spraying it with thinned epoxy. The kerosene will eat plastic covering right off your airframe. I love the smell of the diesel fuel!!! And you don't need an electric starter! Just prime it up and hand prop the PAW's. Have a little Russian .15 diesel that I converted to rc by adapting an Enya .09 carb. Works good on a motor glider. Again, a fiberglass fuse and fabric covered wings with an epoxy coating to ward off the kerosene residue.

Best regards,
Rockin' Daddy</span>

You know this seems to really be getting silly you have a LT-40 you have a 46 its time to get on with your life and start flying, good grief for heavens sakes put the engine in the airplane get a radio and start flying with a mentor at the club of course.

You know you really need to talk to that mentor at the club who will be working with you, He is the one who needs to have some imput with you on all these sweeping decisions not a bunch of us strangers on some board.

I am always amazed at the fact that that one person who is going to contribute the most to the new flyers success and in many cases pick up the pieces of failed attempts is almost always left in the dark and expected to deal with all the bad decisions.

Its no big deal learning with or without ailerons. Get the airplane going and get on with it.

John

John is right, get hooked up with your mentor/ trainer.

Was there really any need to get nasty here? YES, I HAVE a LT-40 AND a Kadet Mark II, thats true. But you seem to have forgotten what this thread is about. This thread was advice on MY BROTHER getting his first plane, NOT ME getting another one, and me getting him one for christmas so that he could join me in learning.

How this thread turned from a christmas gift advice to something mean is beyond me. What are we trying to do get my brother off flying before it starts?

It is too late this year to get the club and insurance memberships but what I will be doing this winter is hook up my two planes for myself, and getting HIM the Senior so he has something he can call his own, built by HIS own hands. That is what this thread was about, simply a christmas gift for someone who wanted to get into RC which is what I thought this site was about, helping others get into it.

Chill. Buy the Kadet Senior for your brother. Put any 45-61 into it, you'll be good. Cover it with a film of your choice, like MonoKote. And get one of these http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/NWSL_..._p/53-57-4.htm It will make getting the miter cuts close to perfect. I cut my longer pieces first just in case I screwed up, I could use a botched piece for a shorter one. Also I added diagonals top and bottom on the rear of the fuselage.

Hello again

Can you give us a rough idea of your ages? My suggestions will vary depending on age.

That said -

You seem to be keen on the Kadet Senior. I can understand that. I like them too. A lot. I do have four at the moment.

So I would be very pleased if my brother bought me a Kadet Senior Kit. You brother should be too and I am sure he will be.

The Magnum 46 will fly the Kadet. It would not be my first choice but it will work fine. I recently set one up for a kid with an old Magnum 46. It flew fine. Not great but quite usable and no serious issues.

Almost any covering will work. Film is light and cheap, cloth is dearer, heavier and lasts longer. Your choice.

The Kadet is an excellent trainer but some teachers hate them. But it is your choice. After all, it is you or your brother that ha
s to fly it not the teacher. You can always buy a second wing kit and build an aileron version later if you want. Initially I would build it as per plan BUT with a little extra strength in the firewall where the front wheel mounts.

When you come to servos etc, almost any standard servo will be ok. Hitec 422 would be my choice.

The real downside of the Kadet is your ability to build it. The stick structure does need to be cut fairly accurately but if you use aliphatic resin (yellow waterbased glue) it will cover a multitude of sins and fill gaps though gaps are best avoided. If you think you can build it, then go for it. Just take your time and measure before cutting. Cut long and sand to size if you are not sure.

The picture shows my quarter scale Cub with one of the Kadet Seniors and a Sig four Star 60. As you can see, the Kadet is a pretty big beast but very light compared to the Cub.

I am 45 and brother is 32

Have you included the club mentor in your decision as to what to get for your brother?

I have a SIG kadet Senior Red which I am shortly going to recover in Neon Pink and white underneath, so it is easier to see for trainees. I set it up as a tail dragger because I have trained about two dozen people on it. I don't like the mess of nose gears, or students wanging them up on landings. Eight of the students were under 14 years old so it works for kids. The elevator configuration makes the tail dragger assembly require a little thought about how it is installed. Power is an O.S. .61. Prop APC 12x6.

Here's a pic of my grandsons Kadet Senior. As you can see i juat relocated the main landing gear foreward, as this helps tremendously when trying to taxi on windy days. We have as OS 40 LA in it right now. It takes about 15-20 yards to get airborn, but once in the air it floats around at 1/4 idle for almost half an hour! It will loop & roll with high rate controls.......Gene

Here's a better pic of the landing gear placement, & my grandsons first landing...Gene

I would opt for an LT40 myself. Still plenty big enough to see and can be hauled around with a .40 size engine. The build is faster and much stronger with ply sides instead of the criss crossing sticks. Also has ailerons as a standard.

Beautiful Senior Gene. Is that an ARF or kit built? Is the tailwheel loose or steerable. If it is steerable is it possible to see a closeup of it and the radio compartment to see how its connected. You and your grandson should be proud.

I just called my local hobby shop and he is ordering the Kadet Senior kit and putting it aside for me til after the 3rd of Oct. He is also putting aside a Futaba 4-channel radio system and a used Thunder Tiger .40 and a .45 (I believe he said it was a Evolution) for me, as well as 3 rolls of Ultracote.

The .40 will go into my Kadet Mark II, the .45 will go into my Kadet LT-40, and the .46 I have now will go into my brother's Kadet Senior. I just love those Kadets, get as many as I can in case they go under.

Yes the tailwheel is steerable. I epoxied a 1/8" ply plate to the bottom of the fuse, then attached the tailwheel to it with screws. It has a spring on it that attaches to the moveable rudder. It takes less than 1/2 hour to install it. To answer your other question, Yes this is an ARF. I wanted to get my grandson flying asap, thus the ARF. He is an accomplished builder though & can silk & dope an airframe allready!! During one of our club fun flies i put a dozen people on the Kadet w the buddy box, nobody looked dangerous flying with it on low rates! Thank you for your positive comments.....Gene


PS Even though i used the aftermarket tailwheel that comes with a spring, I only used the portion of the tailwheel that mounts to the plane. I made a longer wire piece that goes thru the bottom of the fuse & up thru the stabilizer, then it is bent over 90 degrees & was inserted into a hole i drilled into the rudder. As the rudder swings left or right the tail wheel follows. Sorry for any confusion. I read my original post & confused myself! I hope your not confused....Gene[&:]

Final questions:
1) Who recommends it kept standard with tricycle gear and who believes tailwheel assembly is better?
2) Does the kit come standard bolt-on wing or rubberband?

G'day

45 and 32 eh? Well, that makes you about the same age I was when I was learning to fly. I was 40 and my son was 12 at the time (that was back in 1989 so you can work out the rest).

That is important. At 45 you do not quite have the reflexes of a 16 year old. My son leaned to fly on a Great Planes PT 40 which I built for him. It had a Magnum GP40 for noise generation. It was a good trainer. Big enough, slow but rather untidy in its flight because of all the dihedral. Rather like the Kadet. He was taking off and landing within three months. I took a lot longer though if the PT 40 had survived (I crashed it in some unsupervised practice) then I may have gotten there more quickly.

At 32 your brother has some advantages in learning. He should be able to learn a little quicker but what is really going to matter is just how much "stick time" you are able to get. The more the better. I did not start to really improve until I started flying more than once a week. And I did not become confident until I bought my first Kadet Senior.

If you had said you were 20 or so then I would probably have suggested smaller, faster trainers and the younger folk seem to become quickly bored with large slow models. The preferred trainer at my club is the Phoenix Classic but it is my least favourite as it is so small and because most people overpower it with an OS 46AX. My preferred ARF trainer is the World Models Skyraider Mach 1 with an OS LA46 in it (mine has a Saito 62). For older newbies I recommend the Boomerang 60 which is quite large and like the Kadet but it has ailerons and is a lot heavier than a Kadet and so must fly faster. They fly well with a 60 two stroke and even better with a 70 four stroke and are great fun with a 90 four stroke. I suspect they are sold in the US under a different name though.

So do you have to wait for "Santa" to deliver the Kadet at Christmas? Or is it going to be an early Christmas present? I am looking forward to seeing some photos as it is built.

I did convert my original "Old Number One" Kadet to a tail dragger. I used a separate servo to drive the rudder with a Goldberg "Golden Rod" system. It worked fine until it dropped the wheel in flight and from then on I just used the wheel bracket as a skid which worked just as well so long as I did not want to taxi for miles. Initially I would stick with the trike arrangement. It is easier to build, and easier to take off but it is weaker. As I have said before, I would reinforce the bottom of the firewall with some more ply where the wheel mounts.

The photos attached are of the wing panel I have been building over the last few days. Note the close up of the way I pin the spars. You can't really pin through them so two long pins does the trick.

My vote is for the Tail dragger for someone learning to fly....less tip over problems.

That said, i like the traditional trike gear look....Gene

I am picking it up around the 3rd of Oct and I am going to try to hold onto it until christmas, but temptation may get my brother to start it sooner. But even if we start it as an early christmas present the build should still last through the winter right? As we want it as a winter project. I am also picking up some Ultracote medium blue and yellow while I am there, that should be a good color scheme I think.

Also: What size wheels, tank, propellor, etc etc?

I instruct at my club and a member came in with one. I had never used one for instructing we mostly use Avistars. Well it worked out great. I have to say it's very impressive as a trainer. It will handle a lot more wind than you would imagine. This one had just rudder and it flew just fine. It had a super Tiger 40 on it and as I remember it took a lot of weight to get the balance right. We also ended up with a 12/4 prop which kept it slow but with plenty of thrust. We had tricycle gear and the only problem with that was when it got windy it wanted to tip over in a cross wind.Got hard to taxie. This student was quit old and it took a long time to train him,but hes doing just fine now and I believe he still has his Kadet. PS. In all the training ( over 3 gallons of fuel) the kadet was never damaged. Good plane !

Build it stock first.

Do modifications when you do repairs.

Resist the temptation to over power it at first. An old OS FP 40 will hall a Sr. around. You can always upgrade later.

Don't let the stick framing scare you off. A razor saw and a sanding block and you will be cutting cross braces and stringers like a prow.

On the down side the Sr has rubber bands. They suck to put on but they do minimize damage in case of a mishap. This is one of the things you can modify later.

The great thing about a Sr is it renders it self to upgrades as you learn. If you think that a tail drager or floats might in its future you might put in extra hard wood blocks.

I have both a senior and a seniorita and both are not only great trainers for new pilots but great planes for builders to learn on.They are also fun for laid back sunday flying.The senior has ailerons and should have but I built the seniorita 3 channel having the rudder on the right stick.I believe its one of the best trainers available.The senior has an old .61 k&b and the seniorita an os .46 both are more than adequate and easy for a beginner to learn to tune.The senior has such great lift it easily carries a camcorder for some fun photo ops.Both are tricyle gear.The only thing I would do different is fastening the wings with nylon bolts instead of the conventional rubber banding method(although this adds to forgiveness if someone makes a cartwheel landing)rubberbands are just a pain for me.I think this is one of the best first planes anyone good own and even though I have moved on to much more aerobatic planes everyone still loves to see a kadet!

G'day

According to the plan - front wheel - 3 1/4 inch and rear pair - 3 3/4 inch. Tank looks to be about 8 oz but 10 would be OK too. I generally use Dubro tanks as they are shallow and they fit the Kadet well. The plan does not give detailed instructions on mounting the tank so I usually make a platform for the tank to sit on with a couple of 1/4 x 1/4 supports along the sides and a sheet of 1/8 for the tank to sit on (grain across). You will need some foam to pack around the tank too and some fuel tubing. I use pink or red for the muffler pressure and blue for the fuel line so they don't get mixed up.

I usually put my battery under the fuel tank wrapped in foam. This helps with the CG.

When you start construction, you will need a few tools - in particular sharp modeling knives and a razor saw to cut all those sticks accurately. Also, some sanding blocks are very important and a razor plane makes shaping the nose and the leading edge (which should be quite blunt).

I have used Zap green (medium I think) on my wing so far but later I will go over the more important joins with aliphatic resin. You will need some 30 minute epoxy for the firewall area and the wing joiners.

To protect the wing when you are transporting it, head off to your local K Mart or similar and buy a cheap sleeping bag. They only cost about $20 here and they make excellent wing bags.

A very important thing that I used to ignore is to fuel proof inside the front of the model. These days I use modeling dope plus a coat of spray clear lacquer or similar. Topflight makes some good spray lacquer which dries really fast and is fuel proof. I usually coat the engine bay with epoxy or paint it with oil based enamel paint. All my Kadets have the bottom of the engine bay left open so that any oil or gunk can leak away easily and so I can get at the nuts and bolts to mount the engine. It also makes cleaning easier.

You will almost certainly need to add lead to the front to get it to balance with a two stroke. My ARF had a Saito 65 (which is one of Saito's older designs and is very heavy) and it did not need any additional weight. The Laser engine too is quite heavy and did not need extra but all the others have needed some weight added. I cut sheets of lead and glue them inside the cowl cheeks to get things basically right and then add small amounts to the engine mount to do any fine trimming if needed.

I am sure you will like your Kadet and you will get a great deal of satisfaction from building it. You will also experience a certain amount of frustration too. Be careful to note the type of timber before you cut things. The kit uses a mixture of spruce and balsa. If you look carefully at the plan, you will see that the two wood types are drawn differently. Laying out all the parts into groups will help you to not mix up the different materials but you do need some space to do this.

Cheers - and enjoy your Kadet Senior. I love mine.

Mike in Oz