any good advice on putting ailerons on a sig kadet senior.and how much better do they fly?

Anywhere from really no real advantage at all to nice indeed. The Senior has substancial dihedral and the simple act of adding ailerons will result in rather unresponsive roll control which work just OK. Now if you choose to reduce the dihedral down to about two or three degrees say about one third of stock then you will have a delightful improvement and an airplane of an entirely different character.

Ailerons can be done in two basic ways. The first is fairly simple and involves sawing off the trailing edge till you have about a quarter inch blunt edges then hinge on say one and a half inch aileron stock the full span of the wing. This will result in strip ailerons that protrude behind the original trailing edge about an inch so they must stop short of the fuselage. Torque rods just as in most trainers is inlaid to the center of the wing bottom and a servo added forward with short pushrods.

If you choose to use barndoor ailerons it involves more work but is nicer looking and quite responsive. A false spar is added to have something to hinge to. These ailerons can be of much wider chord. Two servos and mounts are added one for each aileron.

I,ve done a number of both methods and the barndoor type is my favorite. Here is a picture of mine that you can see the structure that was added and servo arrangement:

John

Hey John,

That is an impressive bash on the Kadet Senior. Any chance of sharing more pictures of it? Very nice work...

Cheers,

John, your Kadet looks grossly underpowered, any chance you could squeeze another couple of engines on the wing? That's very impressive. Can you give us some details on engine type, etc. and more pics. I've seen a lot of Kadet Sr bashes, but not a 4 engined one til now.

john,thanks for the info.i think your kadet just may fall under the category of insanely custom.very impressive

Insanely cool John. What size and type of engines are you using?

Sorry guys for not getting back right away, I,am dealing with some medical stuff. The Quad is about five years old and is #2. The first one was lost to a mid-air on flight number 26 the first year. I could not let it die as the airplane was such a pleasure to fly and very popular every where it went.

The Span was increased to 85 inchs and dihedral was reduced to about 2 degrees. Leading edge 'D' tube sheeting was run to the wingtips. The fuselage outside of the nose is virtually stock. Powered by Magnum .28 two strokes power is in abundance and the I,ve been down to two engines in various combinations maintaining controlled flight.

After almost 140 flights these engines are fantastic and the airplane is still a delight to fly on wheels or water. Its equiped with internal glow lights to show through the yellow covering and color coded wingtip/tail orientation lights for night flight. Night flight with this airplane has proven to be an euphoric experiance for all present.

Its getting harder for me to fly on the beach anymore with the wheelchair and all but my good buds keep me going.

Here are some random pics and I really did not mean to hijack the thread.

The Kaydet's are probably the most kit bashed airplanes ever.

John[8D]

I can't tell you how it flies with ailerons, but I can tell you how it flies without. FANTASTIC! I had so much fun with mine it should have been illegal. It's not a pattern airplane, wasn't designed for that. However, if you want to practice your hovering landings in a light headwind this is the plane for you. Inverted flight all day long - no problem. I flew mine for years with a ST.29 - flew great. This airplane would do the prettiest hammerhead stall you ever saw on 3 channels. I would go through a tank of gas just chasing my flying partner around the pattern doing touch and go's. I accidently went IFR with it one day in the foggy California winter - let the sticks go until it popped out of the fog (wings level of course!). Ah, the good old days!

john,with custom s*** like that,hijack all you want,we all appreciate man hours and smarts

That plane is awesome John!

I built a new wing with ailerons for my Senior after about a year of flying. I reduced the dihedral to 1 & 1/2 inch total. Barn door style five bays wide and ~ 2 & 1/2 inch wide. Flew great that way.

I started moving the cg back just to see what that would do. That was the ticket, much more responsive and landings were a bit slower and easier. I balanced so inverted flight took light up elevator to fly level.

We had a fellow at our club with the arf version and his specialty was doing loww inverted flybys. It was awesome. Thanks Bill, RIP.

Have fun, MikeB

I have a Senior Kadet ARF with ailerons. Love it. It came with reduced dihedral...which you have done. We were surprised how little adverse yaw the Kadet ARF has in the ailerons. It turns quit nicely with just a little rudder. I have mixed some into the radio now, but initially had not. Mine has a Saito 72 4 stroke. It lumbers alont at 1/4 to 1/3 throttle. Hardly ever use full throttle except for show-off climbs. Landings are so slooooo wwwwww and soft!

You just jogged my old memory.
With the ailerons on the new wing, it was possible to fly the circuit on rudder only. Great plane to learn rudder usage with. Does everything sloww.
MikeB

Thanks guys for the encouragement. I,ve always loved the Kaydets and there has sure been more radical kit bash's then my Quad.

Here is my other one and it acturally is quite a bit more radical than the quad although at first glance it looks like just another twin engine kit bash. This one is the smaller Seniorita Kaydet which is the smaller stick built just like the Senior. I call it the Oxy-Moron because well, what else would you call a twin engine glider.

The idea was a dual purpose airplane that was a very benign twin for training some of my buddys that could adjust its single engine flight characteristics by an infinite easy adjustment of the out thrust on both sides. Its powered by two Magnum .30FS's and weights in this configuration five pound and two ounces. I built the structure much lighter than even the stock single engine plans with lighter and smaller dimensional lumber.

Now for the good part, The other purpose is to quickly changeover from the twin in under five minutes to a pure glider for aerotowing by another airplane on typically an eighty foot towline. In this configuration it weighs two pounds and four ounces and has a tow release next to the nosewheel. The nacelles are bolted by two quarter inch nylon bolts and the throttle servo is just unplugged.

The real challange was the CG when the engines are dropped off. This is a toughy and of course its neccessary for the airplane to balance at the same spot with or without the engines. This worked out perfectly by a nose compartment in the very tip of the long nose with an access hatch on the bottom and this is where the battery resides when in the glider configuration. With the engines the battery is installed under the stabilizer agine in a bottom hatch. The battery is connected to either end of a long Y to feed the Rx.

The ailerons are full span and fairly deep chord, set up as flaperons on a rotary Tx pot the neutral position is flaps in trail. Then about thirty degrees down flap are avaliable for a very low sink rate. Here is the biggie though the flaps also reflex up above the wing about thirty degrees. This is absolutely invaluable when under tow as most tow planes tend to tow two fast and whipping can develop but this setup makes it a piece of cake. Use a Lazy Ace and a Senior Telemaster for tow. I can fly around a bit as the twin and it does nice basic aerobatics then land and quickly be airborne agine in under four minutes under tow.

John

Four, two, and zero engines. Who'd a thunk it!!! How does it thermal?

HighPlains it does not have the penetration of a a low drag sailplane of course but minimum sink is pretty good for this thing. The local ships like the Bird of Time and others are better but in strong conditions I can stay up fine.

The main goal was really for the airplane to serve as a practice trainer for aerotow which is a much bigger challange than piggyback launchs. Hopefully I can someday tow the Oxy with the Quad this involves getting just the right crew and pilot.

John