This was the first time I have taken A maiden flight and only had to do one little thing, I needed three beeps of down in the elevator. The Sukhoi takes itself off and has no pull to the left at all, just point and go. When I checked the stall it hasn't any?? Just rocks the wings and decends. The only thing I see I will have to work on is it wants to pull towards the gear when in knife edge so I will have to do A little mixing. Wish all maidens were this uneventful, my hands and knees didn't even shake, I did sweat, it was 108 at the field today.

I had a Sukhoi ARF from Phoenix Models that I hated. I like the looks of the plane though and wouldn;t mind having one that flew well. What kit did you build from?

I have one too still in the box. what problems did you have with it? I would like to know before I put it together, what engine did you have in her? I heard that before with the Phoenix Models had problems but no one elaborated.

roltech

Well,

Initially, I was impressed by the overall quality and looks of the plane, especially considering the low price. I used an OS .70 4-stroke. It was alittle tricky getting the mount centered since the instructions were poor. Luckily, I'd built enough planes to figure it out on my own. The hardware was also pretty bad in mine, I replaced everything with Du-Bro. The wing wasn't centered due to misaligned dowels (These came already installed). I'm not sure if the wing is intended to be offset but I doubt it. I also recomend adding some hardwood blocks for the cowl mounting screws. Even with the few flaws, this was still a nice plane for the money.

When it came to flying, it was a little more of a handful than I was ready for. It liked to snap with even small amounts of elevator. The plane stalls very easy, at least mine did. Dead sticks were scary, the plane didn't like to glide at all. It may have glided better if I set up flaperons. Some people may not see these things as a problem but it took some of the fun out of flying for me. I've read other reviews of the plane and people loved it. I guess it all comes down to flying skills and personal preference. I'd rather have a blast with my Somthin Extra or Hangar 9 Twist though.

I still like the looks of a Sukhoi though and I'll probably end up with one again.

Chuck, my Suk was built from plans that I bought from MAN and redrew and designed so I could go with A gas engine. It is an 80 incher with A Brison 2.4 40cc engine. The reason I posted here was I always make up my own kit first then build the plane, it's very easy and nothing more then kit building, just making up ribs and formers is all, A short kit if you will.
Carl Goldberg makes A great Sukhoi 26 kit and around four pages back you will find A thread posted by Huges500E that ran for A long time. A big bunch of the guys built the kit at the same time and I followed there builds and made any changes that I saw them doing that sounded good, Huges {I think} even sent me A copy of the kits dash board that I have in mine.
Most the guys have maidened there planes now and it looks like they were all good flying planes, in my case it went beyond good and was A great surprise for me.
When speaking of an ARF and A kit it can sometimes be apples and oranges. If all the incidences were correct and the plane is ballanced then the Suk. shouldn't be A snapping machine like A lot of the CAPs I have seen, if it snaps your going too slow, mine just rocks the wings like my Extra and lets me know I'm too slow.
Talk to John L-W at your club and he can help you with getting it to fly right. The Fresberg club has some of the better pilots and they can be A great help getting A plane set up.

Graybeard:

Beautiful plane, and it sounds like you pay attention to detail. I will be watching for more of your posts for helpful
information. I am building my first kit, a "Contender." I have an AT-6, and a Super Decathalon waiting.

I am presently learning to fly via instructor. I love the building part.

By the way, you all certrainly have nice facilities. Wow, is all I can say.

Jim
AMA 821369

Thanks for the info. I've looked at the Goldberg Sukhoi kit and may consider it. Right now I am in the middle of building a Profile Hots and I just bought a Somthin Extra kit to replace my old one that has been flown a few too many times. Once I get my new garage set up I am going to take a shot at scratch building. I have a bunch of plans already.

I was told that it was tail heavy? and had to add wieght to the nose even after relocating just about anything that would fit foward.

roltech

Tail heavy is what it sounds like. In all kits and plans they show the CG with the +or- but I have never had an ARF but I would bet they showed you. Well, I do have an ARF but I'm the third owner and never saw any plans or instructions but figured out the CG.
Tower has A nice CG machine and it's good for most models. If you don't have one you should buy one or make one yourself.
In my case by adding the 40cc gas engine I knew I was going to be nose heavy. While still in the bones I put the plane on the machine and moved my gear around until I got the CG as close as I could. I had to install everything as far back as I could. When complete I put the plane back on the machine and found I was three ounces nose heavy. For A 15 pound plane that wasn't too far off. A good flying plane is all in the set up and having A straight plane.
Good luck

I had no real balance problems that I recall. With the OS .70 4-stroke, I think I ended up add 1/4 oz. to the tail to get it in the center of the specified range. The way it flew, the CG probably could have been forward some. I've really only had one ARF that I am completely happy with; that's my Hangar 9 Twist. The others have all had bad covering jobs, and other issues. A friend of mine bought the Phoenix Funstar 3D. It was a great looking plane and flew nice at slow speeds. If the throttle was above half though, the elevator and/or rudder would flutter, causing the plane to shimmy bad. He's a pretty experienced flyer and found no easily fixable cause for the problem. I know there are probably plenty of good ARF's out there but kits just give you more control over the finished product in my opinion. Plus, if something isn't straight when I build it, it's my own fault. As for the Sukhoi, I'm probably going to go for a Goldberg kit once I get my other projects done.

I was thinking of putting a OS .70 4-stroke, too, looks like it would fit in with the specs. I have not started to assemble this ARF yet, I'm just trying to get as much info as I can before starting.
Thanks guys

roltech

Graybeard, I've got one of these that I bought already framed up. It was built with contest grade balsa with the intention of having a light setup with a 90 fourstroke on it. I put a an MDS 1.48 on and it balanced perfect and weighed just a hair over 11 lbs. Best flying plane ever.
After a few wrecks and some mods (fiberglass cowl, rear mounted elevator servos, antivibration mount) its at around 13 lbs and although still flies nice it could use more power.

Yours looks GREAT!

Thank you much!! The plans were from MAN and designed by Mark Sirianni. It was designed to come in at 10 pounds. My first thought was my YS 110 but due to the size I decided to just redraw everything and stuff A gas engine on it. Even the way I did things it was A light plane until I installed the engine and two batteries. I used the LG from A Wild Hare 27% Extra. It had enough ground clearence for the 20 inch prop if the pilot knew how to land smoother. After the first landing I changed over to an 18 incher and all is now well. I could go back to the 20 after A couple of tries, took no time at all to get used to this plane.
My cowl is all one piece built onto the fuse but the top half comes off for engine work. I liked the way Mark designed it so I made no changes except how to mount the top part of the cowl.
This was A very easy build and came out looking good with the round fuse. Looking back there are A couple of little things I would do different but not much. If anyone wants to go bigger and try building from plans this is one of the good ones.