Been thinking of this one to try as my frist low wing trainer. Qustion is can this be set up with a streeable nose wheel. Has anyone try this or would it be best to spend the money and get the Goldberg Tiger 2 which has the nose wheel set up.

Although possible to set a Four Star as a nose dragger, I would vote for the Tiger 2.

Both planes are great flyers. The 4 Star would need alot of work to change it over to a nose wheel plane. It is a very smoothe plane on the ground and take offs are not a problem. It would be a great next plane for you. Good Luck, Dave

Go for the 4-star and learn tail dragger. This plane will make a novice look like a pro!

Don't be intimidated by a taildragger. The four star was my first taildragger and I had no difficulties making the transition.

i'm just wondering why you would want to convert it to a trike gear??? i hated the trike gear on my trainer and the first little ding i had with it, the trike gear was the first thing to go...converted over to taildragger and haven't flown anything since (except for other new pilots' planes that are trike gear.......but that's only when i've got one of them on a trainer cord.)

I have flown both 4 star 40 and 60, also PT 60 and soon the PT 40 will be done. They both have similar flight characteristics as they will float in. Now the four stars won't self correct as quickly as a regular trainer would but they are very easy to fly and very fun at the same time. The trainers are simply a trainer and fly like trainers unless you build them yourself and mod a few things along the way. They will do loops and rolls but aren't very good at much more. Here's a link of my 4 star 60's maiden recently and it is an absolute blast to fly, was going to sell it RTF but now I may keep it. [link]http://www.colorado-rc.com/rcu/fourstarmaiden.mpg[/link]

Now you could put nose gear on the 4 star using a motor mount that supports nose gear and move the main gear back some to compinsate, I love building and modding because at times you will be the first to do a certain thing and you never know for sure unless you try it. But i do think you'd like the 4 star as is. My recommendation would be to set it up for first flight with min. throws and the expo. on your radio way down as they are very responsive to input when you first fly them, after a few flights you'll love it.

Now I do like trainers as well, particularly the PT's becuase they are a very strong plane and easy to mod. On the 40 we are finishing now we made the wing flat and changed all the gear, will still float in but won't fly like a trainer, more like a sport plane. Here are a few pics of it.


Shane

Why nose gear?
You wont find an easier plane to learn tail-wheel handling on than the 4star.
If you can afford it go for the 4star60. Easier to see and a little more stable in the air.
I have a 4star40 for club competitions, will build a 60 this winter for next years competitions.
(They are not that expensive to crash chasing balloons...[>:])

Her is a pic of mine...Wing clipped one bay and some aother mods.

Patrick,
How does it fly with the bay clipped? I was thinking of doing that on my 60 size as well. I am looking for a little faster roll rates and to lose a little weight and figured that was the best way to go. You are right about the 60 being less twitchy and more stable than the 40. Once you're comfortable with the 60 though the 40 is a blast to fly. We had an OS 50 FX on the 40 an it was a screamer and floated like a butterfly when landing.

He is right about the 60 being a better platform to learn on than the 40 though for the above reasons and the kit is "easy" to build. There is no specail knowledge needed to build it at all. You can save yourself $100 over the ARF and have the comfort of knowing it was built right, not that the ARF is bad at all.


Shane

boy, that would have opened a MAJOR can of worm over in the "ARFs why not KITS" forum....

I've had both and neither is bad, I've owned ARF's up until now. This was my first full build, and now I can't blame no-one but myself if anything comes apart. [sm=tongue_smile.gif]


Shane

I echo what others have said:
Keep it as a tail dragger.

There is nothing difficult about handling the 4 star as a tail dragger.

I would kep it as a Tail dragger. IT is how you will learn. I know I have been learning. My 4 Star was super squilly on the ground on take off. So we took more Rudder out and it got worse. It needed all of it to be as built and planned. Now it is great..

Jeff

Here are a few pics of my plane this week!

I like that cowl. It looks like you took alittle dihedral out of it. Di you or does it just look that way in the picture?

Thanks Chuck.. Yes I did take the dihedral down to about 1 inch over all. Here are some shots of the Cowl

THanks


JEff

Jeff,

When you did the cowl, did you leave the original nose piece on and build off it or did you remove it back to the firewall and start from scratch? Been wanting to do that to my 4* 60 but wasn't sure how you did it.


Thanks Shane

I built it up.. I have had a couple PM about this.. Let me see if I can dig up the pics and show how I did it...

THanks

Jeff

Going to the original question, I would get the Tiger 2 and when I got used to its flying caracteristics then i'd convert it to a taildragger.

In my opinion, it's a lot easier to get a Tiger converted to tail dragger than the other way around with the 4 Star

Just my 0.20 Mexican Cents

Thats pretty good 2 cents..

J

Ohhh I remember my transition from my first low wing ([link=http://ecsvr.com/abm/shopexd.asp?id=60]World Models T-34 mentor with tricycle gear[/link]) to a [link=http://www.horizonhobby.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=SEA2025]Seagull Extra 60 taildragger[/link]...

... it was hell [&:]

........ but pucker factor FUN!!!

How does the difference in dihedral affect it? I'm going to start building a 4-star soon. I plan on doing a cowl and clipping the wing and adding some sort of wing tip. I'd like to take a little dihedral out but I'm a little nervous about making it unstable.

As everyone else has sais, keep it a tail-dragger. When I moved up from my trainer a couple years ago, I was also nervous about the tail-dragger thing because I'd heard that it was more difficult. Once I actually flew the tail dragger though, I didn't want anything with tricycle gear ever again.

I don't think It will be "unstable", I'd say it just won't be "self-correcting" anymore

Dihedral makes the center of gravity of the plane "hang" from the wing tips, correcting the plane attitude when you let go of the sticks. Obviously the ammount of self-correction is directly proportional to the dihedral ammount. So taking the dihedral out would make it non self-correcting... as long as you don't set it up with negative dihedral (wings pointing down)

Hey Chuck,
It won't make it unstable. I did leave some in.. 1/2 inch each side. You will also want to take off one bay from each end of the wing. This will allow the plane to Roll better. Everyone who flys my plane says it flys great and at times it has been hard to get the radio back!
Come out to Livermore and you can see how it is.. However I am sure there are alot of them around there.

Where do you fly out of?

Jeff