It arrived in the mail today while I was at work. It sat on my desk all day while I did my best not to play with it. Other than checking for shipping damage, I had to wait until I got home...and take my wife to dinner.

Anyway, It's advertised as .40 size but as some have noticed it has the same wingspan, cord, wing area, fuse length, and flying weight as the WM Ultimate 30! So they took the 30 size, put a nicer covering job on it, a nicer nose and sell it as a 40 size. They may have reinforced some areas but I would not know without seeing the 30 size.

This is my first ARF. My other three glow planes were kits or scratch builds. That being said, I'm not much of a critic on ARF's but from what I can tell, it looks great. Covering is superb and structure appears strong and sound. The ARF comes with a fiberglass painted cowl, abs pants, and a full hardware kit. It even has foam wheels. This is a plus for me since I hate rubber wheels (personal preference).

For those of you that that may be electron pushers I put the parts on a scale.
Cowl (w/tissue wrapping): 2.6oz
Vertical feathers: 1.2oz
Canopy (in plastic): 1oz
Pants (in plastic): 1oz
Horizontal feathers: 1.9oz
Fuse: 9.1oz
Top wing: 7oz
Bottom wing: 7.2oz
Hardware (in lots of plastic): 18.6oz
ALL UP = 49.6 oz

Take a few off for all those plastic bags and I’m guessing 46oz.
I intend to use a GMS40 with a pitts style muffler. Can't wait!!

-Rocko

More info:
Wing Span: 42 in
Wing Area: 578 sq in
Fuse Length: 39.5 in
Fying Weight: 4.5lbs

Post pics as you build and have fun doing it!

So, how is the build coming along?

(UPS left mine on the porch yesterday evening. Gotta get the .46 Sukhoi finished before jumping on this one.)

Oh...mine is still in the box. Since it's been cold and windy here in Northern Illinois (on the weekends anyway) all funds have been redirected to building a CNC router. I'll work on the Ultimate after the router. I'll fly it next spring.

-Rocko

although the original Ultimate had a "30", WM recommended a 40. so since they have a new plane with the same dimensions, they decided to just call it a 40, which i believe it is!

i flew the original with a 32sx and was fine. a 40 would be okay too. my new ultimate 40 will go with 70 fourstroke power when i get around to it!

I just maidened my WM 40S Ultimate today.

I purposely put this plane together on the cheap just to see how inexpensive I could make it.

It has

Tower Hobbies .46 ABC engine
JR R600 Receiver
3 - Tower Pro High Torque servos (9.00 EACH! from Nitroplanes)
1 - Hobbico Mini High Torque servo
Bison Pitts .46 Muffler for O.S. .46 and screws
1800mAh Hydrimax 6.0v battery
APC 11x6x2 Prop.

Everything else is stock.

This plane flies beautifly. Once I had the engine broken it, the planes first flight lasted over 10 minutes, before I brought it down (it still had plenty of fuel.)

With the .46 engine it flies at very good speed with about 40% throttle. This is probably why the fuel usage (for me) was so light...

No bad tendancies. When you pull off throttle it eventually enters a nice very gradual decent. It's hard to even tell that it's coming down at first.

The indicated throws give the plane plenty of authority and it will snap roll like a demon.

Landings are straight in with no ground yaw or movement off straight.

Takeoffs are very similiar with maybe a slight yaw/roll that is easily correctible.

Parts are easy to get a hold of from Aero-models/World Models in California.

I ordered a replacement set of carbanes and wing supports after I screwed mine up during the build.
They took less than a week to arrive.

The hardest part of the build is squaring the wings off. Even with the templates it is a bit difficult to get the wings "square" and lined up at every point, especially since the center aluminum carbanes are not bent precisely. I may make my own stronger versions using non-annealed aluminum.

My finished model has one wing less than 1/8" forward at the far right tip than the other. This did not seem to affect the plane and it is well within the movement permitted by the templates. Everything else lines up precisely.

I also added two carbon rods to support the elevator, once piece of carbon tubing cut in half and epoxy is all you need for this.
I also coated all innner wood with fuel proofing just in case.

With the pits muffler there is no need to clean up the plane as it doesn't get full of exhausted glow fuel.

I have a nice new aluminum GP spinner for it that will now go on the plane after it's maiden flight.

Nice!

ME LIKE!

I'm guessing that it's the Purple one.

And did it fly just like the sim one flies?

Actually to a large part it did.

I find that the real thing doesn't nose down as much as (wing developes more lift) what I had dialed into the sim.

I was purposely putting it through it's paces so that I could attempt the G3 version with some knowledge of how it should handle.

Tomorrow I go out with pad and paper to make notes of the flight characterstics for the simulator model.


BTW: Many thanks!

You certainly steared me in the right direction with your advice on this plane.

I really like it, especially since I can throw it into the car trunk without dissassembly for a quick set of flights.

---

Yes it is PURPLE!