lflf

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I just finished building my new/old Sig Hummer. Cute little plane. Now time for covering and all that stuff. I wish Sig well, I like their kits. The Hummer I just built came without plans. I'm guessing the balance point is 25% of the chord, since it looks like a Quickee. Anyone have info on that?

FlyerInOKC

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Drop SIG a line I'll bet they can tell you.

lflf

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OK, the Sig Hummer is done and had its test flight. Flew very well with the guessed at center of gravity at 25 percent of the wing chord. It is not fast as some have experienced, more like a sport type plane. As usual I made many changes to the plane as you can see. Turned the fuselage upside down to make it a shoulder wing, glued the wing on and put the gear in through the front hatch, exposed the elevator and aileron servos on the top of the wing, used a brushless motor, 1000 mah 3 cell lipo, and 20 amp esc for power, and put great big but very light wheels from a 40 sized trainer on the landing gear. I also glued the ailerons to the wing to give it more wing area, and then attached new 1 inch ailerons to the back of the wing. I felt the original wing was a bit puny for all the gear I was putting in it. The receiver was a great big old futaba 7 channel receiver. I expect many fun flights out of this bird.

FlyerInOKC

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If you think that receiver is big you should see some of the old Kraft receives I had! Not to mention the old KPS-9 servos!

lflf

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Reminds me of the early gear I had back in the mid 60's-a single channel heathkit transmitter that must have weighed 5 pounds with the battery in it, a receiver the size of a pack of king size cigarettes,and two royal servos, huge also. Super regen frequency 26,995., you considered it a good flight if it didn't take off on its own and fly away, you chasing it on the ground for 5 miles. (Plane was a single channel midwest esquire with an OS .15)

stevegauth30

must have been quite interesting to fly rc back then. wish I was around for it

FlyerInOKC

My Feedback: (6)

My first radio was a Heathkit also. I got it in 1973 after they discontinued the two stick 3 channel and 4 channel radios in favor of single stick radios. It was a 3 channel 2 stick transmitter and receiver on 7s MHz with KPS-9 servos. It was designed for Heathkit by Kraft. The only differences were the color and you assembled it yourself. See picture below.

stevegauth30

You had to assemble it? Wow, the hobby has come a LONG way.

SushiHunter

Wow, that's a really "old school" piece of equipment right there. Reminds me of old Boss guitar peddles for some reason.

FlyerInOKC

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It's old school all right. It had a heck of a heavy steel case on it too. I dropped once or twice without so much as a dinged corner!

lflf

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Mine was a red crackle finish type of thing with one button, if I recall. Its been a long time. I got it for $5 from a ham radio nut that built it from a kit, and then had to go to a special radio store in town for a great big square battery. This was in the mid 60's and I don't know how long he had it around, he was getting into 10 channel reeds, whatever that is. I was a kid of 15. You really had to work in those days to get one good flight with that old gear, pushing that one button once for right, twice for left, and 3 time to advance or back off on the throttle. In a hairy situation you might push the button too slow, and get two rights, and a death spiral, and to recover you had to get the sequence timing correct to get that left, pretty hard when your knees are shaking and you see all that work heading for the ground. Really had to "fly by the seat of your pants". It was all worth it, though, and certainly exciting and an accomplishment to get some good flights in.

acdii

Ah the days where you could build your own electronics. I still remember the reverb box I built from a radio shack "kit". It was a case and instructions that included a list of parts you had to find.

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

It's funny that you say a list of parts you had to "find". Nothing to "find". Most all of the parts were right there on hand at Radio Shack!!! Makes laugh at the current Radio Shack commercial going on where they guy working at Radio Shack hangs up the phone and says, "That was the 80's, they want their store back". Well yes, I do want my freaking store back!!!!!!" I remember the days when you could actually walk into Radio Shack and buy parts for a project you were working on. Now you're reduced to just 3 bins of drawers and more than likely they aren't going to have the parts you are going to need for your project and you're going to wind up having to order them online!!!!

Ok, I'll get off my soapbox now!!!!

Ken

JPMacG

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Digikey, Mouser, Jameco, etc.

SushiHunter

Interesting what you say about Radio Shack. Back in the very early 90's when I was in my very early 20's, my land lord was a lady in her late 60's. Her son who was roughly 20 years older than me had worked during his entire high school years at Radio Shack, which was starting in the early 70's. he used to talk about how much he loved working there and how much it had changed from the 70's compared to the 90's. He said some of the same things you guys have said. Now 20 years even further from the 70's, it's changed even more. There is a somewhat of an old school electronics shop in my area in Belmateo Ca which is probably close to what you guys are saying Radio Shack was before. I'm lucky to have such a store.

Sessholvlaru

Well their new ARFs are good (I have the T-Clips and Sbach) but they are all made by Seagull. So I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not.

dreadnaut

My Feedback: (5)

I saw this old thread on the feed. I've pretty much dropped out of Model plane hobbies after being off and on passionate about it since I was eight years old in the 1960's I grew up an easy bike ride from Kraft's plant. I was a bit of a "Kit connoisseur", and Sig was one of my favorites. Later I would discover the Renaud made Airtronics kits and the Rolls Royce of them all, MK of Japan.

My first was a Guillows. I didn't care for the Sterling and Comet stuff; they usually didn't have very good wood. Midwest and TopFlite were OK, but Sig had the most consistently high quality wood and die cutting. Goldberg was pretty good too.

The hobby has changed, and I don't care for the changes it has taken. I'm OK with the advancements in electronics, but the "WalMart-ification of the rest of it has driven me back onto the bicycle as my primary hobby (that, and trying to prevent another heart attack)

stevegauth30

I like that, walmart-ification. That's good.

lflf

My Feedback: (1)

I, too, don't like the Walmartification of the hobby, as you say, but then discovered that with the new small brushless motors and batteries, you can revisit those planes of your youth, build them from scratch, make your own small vintage type designs, etc, and pop in this cheap light weight gear and fly them once again. There are plans all over the internet for things like the the jr. falcon, lil esquire, etc, perfect for speed 400 size brushless motors and lipos. Any plane with a 36 inch wingspan and around 300 squares will work, and there were many of them, I know, cause I built them in the 60's. The advantage of this stuff is you can build those little vintage models or your own designs for practically nothing. That sig hummer-so few parts- I'll bet i could build it scratch, or something like it for $10. I also find its really great to make these planes, but slap monocote or whatever on them, without tissue, silkspan, dope, etc-and fly them with power that starts when you hit the throttle, rather than those balky engines of yesteryear, and the planes last because they are not covered in oil after every flight. Not that glo doesn't have its place, but its nice to have something start when you want it too, and not need all this stuff to do it. Kind of like an electric lawnmower, it's reliable. I do still like glo too at times, but this way is great too. Still, I find as I age that sometimes these "fussing' hobbies start to get a bit much, so I can relate to the ease of getting on a bike and riding, as opposed to all this fussing about to get a plane in the air. There also doesn't seem to be much "cardio" to the hobby, if you need that kind of exercise.

WacoOne

My Feedback: (3)

To bring this thread back to Sig rather than Radio Shack... i've built many Sig kits and a couple of their ARFs in my 40 years of RCing. Loved them all! In fact, I dumb thumbed my King Kobra last year and am ordering another one. Too good a plane not to have one on hand. I used an O.S. .61FX and mechanical retracts. Super airplane!

Planeguy77

I too have had 3 Sig Airplanes all kits and their laser cutting is great. I have had two Four Star 40's and one Somethin Extra all were great flying planes and even better kits when it came to the building to me nothing assembles as easy as a Sig Kit. Still have the Extra and one 4 star. Hopefully Sig will continue to hang around.

dreadnaut

My Feedback: (5)

I currently have a U-control Sig Zlin Acrobat and a Kadet Seniorita I got off Ebay. I may get around to it, but a wife and 6-8 hrs a week on the bike make that hard. I've had the Kadet for about eight years and got it when the Lithium/electric revolution was first taking off. I may tackle it next. The Ukie is more of a problem since I may have trouble finding someplace to fly it, and want to build it for nitro.

yellowextra

I had a Somethin' Extra for a few years, sold it and it is still flying now on second engine and covering job. That was a fun plane. My current Sig plane is an old kit built Sig Zlin 526as. I am its third owner, it was flown to death by the builder, sold to a friend who started to convert it to retracts. I acquired it and finished the conversion, but it never handled nicely on the ground as the gear was very near the CG. This past summer I dug it out again, modified the retracts to fix the ground handling issues and now it handles great. The retracts are not scale (they fold into the belly not the wing), but it looks so good in the air all cleaned up. It has also been rebuilt once from a crash that totally destroyed the stick built fuselage. All in all this plane has been through the wringer and back again. A testament to a unique design and uncommon model to see at the flying field. Some day I might treat it to a new engine, maybe a four stroke. Here's to Sig, hoping it is around for a long time to come as well.

GerKonig

The hobby is what you make of it. Do not blame the hobby, blame yourself. Each of us enjoy different aspects of it. Heck, you can go from free flight to jets. From ridiculous complex to simple. You will be affected by the walmartification only if you allow it to happen. I started in this hobby 40 yeas ago, and I still find something that attracts me.

You want cardio? Get a glider, an high start, and a big field where to fly. And do not spot land next to you, land one block away from the high start:-) I also bike, for the same reason you do...

Gerry

stevegauth30

Your right, everything in life is what you make of it. I don't knock the guy who is just as happy to fly his little 20 inch electric foamie as I am to fly a giant scale something or other. I prefer to build, but you prefer to buy and fly. Were both just as happy, aren't we? But I do still get a kick out of the term walmart-ification. Lol.