Well this is my first post and I thought I could share it with someone else that may be interested In this Plane. Im flying a Newsed ( 8 years old but refinsished) Lanier Laser 200 33%. It has a zdz 80 engine. and all Hitec gear. The aftermatket stuff is the balsa covered turtle deck instead of the plastic one that comes with kit and a 2 piece cowl. I have played around with the CG and my favorite position is pretty much right on the center of the aluminum wing tube. The bad characteristic of this plane is when to much elevator is applied she will try and snap on you. It really flys on the edge and is not for the begginer pilot thats for sure. Other than that and needing a little more surface on the tail it flys great. The plane has about 1 degree right thrust and about the same down. Im fixing to take out the down becaue on uplines it seems to pull to the gear. So i will try that first b4 adjusting ailerons. As far as IMAC flying it does great. Its like on rails!!! You dont have to muscle the rudder around much in the wind and the upline is straight up. And witht he zdz 80 it does just that. It will hover at a little below half throttle. It really doesnt like to 3D much but it can do the basic stuff. I tryed a wall but that snappy elevator doesnt allow it to do it really well. It torque rolls great. Blenders are nice, and it does a nice slow flat spin. Im flying a big prop on the zdz engine and it pulls the crap out of it. The prop I am using is a Bambula 26x10. I want to try a 26x8 next. I cant say much about what size is best becaue i have only used this one and it does good. Nice and slow with no prop noise..Well thats about it. I flew it in the IMAC South Central Regionals and it got me 4th in basic. Oh yeah. its a tough bird too. I had a mishap on take off when the motor died and it took a hard enough landing to bend the pigsnot out of the landing gear and it just loosened the firewall. A little work and it was fine.
Well there you have it.. Great plane for the price. Lanier RC has this in a kit form or ARF. Excellent plane for Basic, Sportsman class.

Hi, this is one of my first post here too
Have you tried to do hight alpha KEs with your laser?? Mine has an enlarged rudder surface but still does not hold a KE like I want too.
I know my plane is a little bit heavy on the nose but still torque rolls very easily and does one of the most beautiful flat spins I know.
This morning I was torque rolling at about 2 or 3 feet over the runway when the accelerator cable broke due to the engine vibration and the plane came slowly on it's back because the engine didn't cut out, it just lost power as I couldn't control it [:'(]
Nothing bad happened, maybe I'll take this chance to enlarge a little bit more my broken tail surfaces, but I'm sure that's going to take me at least a month to fly this plane again.

My Laser will hold a decent hover with the stock tail but if you lose it in one direction or the other its hard to get it back. I ussually power straight out of it and not chance trying to recover from it. I am also of enlarging the surfaces a bit. Let me know how it turns out. I think I will build the rudder with about 1 1/2 inches more than stock and the elevator about 1 inch more. Also, i wonder how it would be to put extensions on the elevaotrs tips? You think it may cause flutter? Anyways, good to hear from another Laser pilot. What engine are you using?

Scott

I started fixing it last night and I'm having some ideas. What if I reduce some area from the fixed part of the elevator? Maybe I won't even need to change the moving surface, just make some of the fixed part become movable. What do You think?
My Laser is a copy of the lanier laser but the fuselage is all in composite so it's weighting now 18.7lbs with the ZDZ 80.
Sorry about my english, I think I got lost trying to explain everything. I'll try to post some pictures to show you my idea.

Cool..Yeah i think acually taking part of the stabilizer and making it movable is a great idea. You can get the elevtaor extensions (tips) doing that. Cool..I would like to see some pics of your laser. Ill try and post some of mine also. Wow. Where did u find a composite fuselage? I might be interested myself in one. I just ordered a new canopy, landing gear cuffs, and wheel pants. I know. More weight but it sure looks good. the laser is weighting in at 20 lbs and a few ounces now. But with that zdz80 it doesnt matter much. It still floats in real nice and flys like a dream.

I have been flying my laser for about 3 months now with the same setup as you (ZDZ 80 and Hitec servos, Futaba radio)

It has been a fantastic flying plane. I have competed in IMAC Intermediate and Advanced with it this year, and I would definitally say that it is capable of flying the Unlimited sequence if your thumbs work well enough!

I built mine completely stock.
I am not a huge 3D flier, but I am working on that, and have recently started bringing things like torque rolls and harriers closer to the ground. I have no problem with the authourity of the tail section, and find it is actually hard to hover the plane with high rate rudder/elevator because they are so sensitive.

Texo - you might try running a 26x10 Menz prop, mine does not rip, but definitely does work a lot better than a Bambula would (my 2 cents at least).

I especially love doing rolling circles with this airplane as it is so smooth with very little control being added.

-- kevod

I've flown a lanier laser for about 10yrs. Im on my second one now. You can get the weight down to about 16-17lbs with a zdz80. My first laser was stock. My second one has the Godfrey (sheeted foam) turtle deck and hatch cover. The fuse was built with light ply rather than door skin. The wing cores were drilled and cut out with carbon mat and contest balsa fully sheeted. By doing this and "slightly" larger tail surfaces makes it pretty competitive. Godfrey has the next version of this plane out just never have forked over the money for it.

Way to cool...I think I am going to get me a menz 26x10..I have heard that that is a great prop for the Motor/plane..I got my wheel pants on today. Im interested in seeing if it effects it much in flight performance. They sure look good. On the stock tail..Hmmmmm..I think I might try giving it more throw if your having that good of results with it. It seems to want to hover nicely once its locked in. But when and if you lose it its hard to get it back especcially with the rudder. So I will do some more playing around with it. Its good to know that it can hold good though in 3D.. Im kinda running into an interesting problem with it though. On my upline's the plane tracks straight up with fullpower. Doesnt want to lean to the wheels or canopy. But.....On the downline it wants to pull out (toward canopy) Im going to try and play with the ailerons and see if i can get it out but at the same time I am afraid that will change the way it tracks going up. I think I would rather fight it going down than up..Anybody have any Ideas what could cause this?[]

you may try tweaking the thrustline ever so slightly. The only thing I can think of if its only doing it under full power.

Are the foam replacement parts still available for this plane. Turtle deck, center hatch, TIA.

Heres a pic of my lanier laser.. It's been around a while, but still solid... Has a g-62 up front, and will go vertical off the runway....

[Nice Laser taildragger...I like that red scheme!!
Hey no glo. Have you called Lanier to ask them about the replacement parts. I actually called them and they found a 2 piece fiberglass cowl in the back for mine. Its worth a shot.

I have a fiberglass cowl on mine... Its worth the time to get one.. Those abs cowls don't hold up....

www.bobflies.com

He is the original designer of the airplane and actually offers an updated version. PLUS he offers the sheeted foam turtle deck wich is lighter and stronger along with other stuff. The framed up wood wings he offers are half the weight of the lanier ones even if you did the cut outs.

Dirtnaper -

Actually, I believe Wayne Ulrey was the original designer - less Leo Loudenslager and Jim Roberts that is.

I have had a Lanier 1/3 scale Laser 200 for years and always loved the way they fly. I also have a copy of the original Ulrey plans which they used a geard .90 for at the time. BIG gassers did not exist then. Also, the original plans had foam cut ribs instead of sheeted cores or built up wings. First 1/3 scale Lasers came in around 15lbs. with the geared .90's.

It is very good to see you folks enjoying these airplanes. I am planing some new modifications this winter and a set of planes for IMAC competition again. I am going to be crunching some numbers and making two piece (removable) airfoiled stab for this plane, along with an airfoil shaped fin/rudder. The objective is to get removable stab - for transportation purposes - with elevator servos in the stab instead of the fuse. This shortens and tightens linkages even further, moves weight slightly farther back, and allows stabs to be removed without taking apart linkages. Airfoiled stab/fin will also make control surfaces more effective on same area planform, but I may play with increase in elevator/rudder area to see what additional 3D capabilities can be achieved. While the fullscale plane had flat tail surfaces, IMAC rules specify appearance of fullscale aerobatic plane - which is why we can get away with slightly different locations for wings and stab (along with incidence) from their fullscale brothers. One of the advantages of the Laser design over others of that time - or even now - is that they had literally no coupling issues. Extremely axial rolls - which is why the rolling crcle inputs mentioned above are so much easier. I want to make sure that changes in the tail do not change this aspect of the airplane. If all goes well, you may see me at some North Central events. Long term goal is to scale this airplane up to 40-42%. I have competed with both Extra's and Edge's - IAC and IMAC - and flown a number of the latest and greatest YAK models of the past year or two. They still don't 'groove' like the Laser 200 can.

Oh - and for the person who cannot hold KE flight - move the CG back. While this will make the plane more pitch sensitive it also changes the balance point and therefore movement arm in KE. Don't slam the elevator around and it will work fine. However, if you ham-fist the elevator surface, be prepared for a wild ride. SNAP !! doesn't even begin to describe it.

My first Giant Scale gas plane was the Lanier Laser 200 - with a G62. Shortly after finishing and starting to fly the plane, I discovered IMAC - my club at the time had about 6 IMAC flyers (1995) - so I competed with the Laser in Basic, and then Sportsman. Did VERY well with the plane. But the G62 power limited it (IMO) beyond the Sportsman class, and I had, by that time a new (3W80) Extra.

I still have the Laser - nearly 400 flights on it now - 10 years old. It was, before my current 33% Edge, the best flying plane I had ever flown (35 years in this now) - I resisted the temptation to upgrade the power plant because it was so perfect before - and although vertical was limited, anything (!) involving rolls, snaps, spins - was incredibly (well, still IS)..

In my case - I learned so much that I used to have a reasonably popular web page - "200 flights on a Laser 200" - about 8 years ago - sharing the stuff I learned over the first 200 flights with the airframe - I finally removed the web page as I stopped flying the Laser back when I went to dedicated servers for my other web sites. But basically, everything that could, has at one time or another fallen off due to vibration, and I learned A LOT about IMAC trimming (about 100 flights to get that dialed in) - I still love the plane, but it doesn't get used all that much anymore..

Cheers,
Bob

texomalaser -

I read that you are having a pull to the canopy issue on down lines. While changing thrust line will definitely address this issue, doing so will also effect every other trim aspect of the aircraft (up lines, level, inverted, etc.). So, you will have to go through another trim cycle if you want everything to fly right. However, have you thought about mixing throttle to elevator - if you have a computer radio that is? If you have the ability to apply a mix - try about a 1% down elevator at throttle idle. No need for a curve here - just down ele at idle. As the down line is established and at idle the down elevator is effective regardless of speed change. It is this increase in vertical velocity that is causing the wing to generate more lift and pull to canopy. That very small amount of down is also impacted by increased velocity and keeps things tracking straight. It has the added advantage of conditioning throttle management - something a number of sport flyer's overlook when they scream down from on high or toward the bottom of full throttle loops and rip the wings off.

I have never really seen this mix require anything more than 1 or 2% - Well, I know a guy that required 5% but that was because he had incidences going every which way (the airplane just wasn't built straight).

As stated earlier, the thrust line change will CHANGE A LOT - on down line you are at or around idle where engine thrust line has minimal impact. The thrust line change requires extensive trim flights because the change impact is across the entire range of throttle settings and aircraft speed. That thrust line is a vector related to flight path, speed, and angle off.

Off topic, but I hope this help some folks out and maybe even invites a new topic thread in another forum.

My WH 28% Edge was doing this also. Just by chance I ended up changing mufflers, moving batteries around, and ended up being a bit more tail heavy than I was before. Well that solved my problem! No more pulling out towards the canopy on the down lines, and the up lines are still dead on. It holds a 45 degree climb hands off, but it does seem like I have to push just a tad on the elevator stick when landing.

I tried this method with my Edge and found that it messed me up when doing 3D. Every time I woul chop the throttle to do a Wall, the plane would start to drop. I believe I only had 1 or 2% of down elevator dialed in at idle. I finally took it out and just gave it a little down elevator on my down lines, until I stumbled across moving my CG just a tad more rearward.

Erggg! So many awesome responses. I tried the mixing throttle thing and it worked great. Until I started to land. So then i enabled a swithch for landing. But it was like and extra thing to half to remember to do. You know what I mean. So i have decided to fly the airplane like it is. I half to force it down just a little. No problem. I think i have already programmed my thumbs in doing so. LOL. Thanks so much for all the advise. I have now got aabout 30 flighs on the Laser and it really seems to be doing well. What an aerobat! I have gotten wheel pants on it now and a new canopy. I ordered the Lanier 2 piece cowl and am modifying it to have a small hood for Carb. and engine access. If not I will have to take prop, spinner, and muffler off to do a carb. adjustment if ever needed. It really is great to see these old school planes still making headway in the sport. I look forward to hearing about all the ones yall have in the forums and tricks and techs to keep them flying.

Good information on this thread. I've been flying a scratch built Godfrey 33%Laser I built in 1994. It has the foam rib wings and removable tail and with a G-62 she weighs in at just over 18lbs and will hover at just under half throttle with a Mejzlik 23-10 prop. She was the best flying airplane I had ever flown until my new 34% Extra ( It's hard to believe how stable the new designs are )but I still take the laser to the field just about every weekend. Here are a few picts of the removable tail assembly.

Thanks ' Mod' - that is exactly what I needed. Appreciate the help.

FYI,
I have been building a Laser for years now, just can't seem to get it done. I have it almost ready to cover, but a few mods I did that you may find interesting is I used the ABS plastic cowl and hatch as a mold and pulled out some pretty nice light weight fiberglass parts. Hopefully one of these days I will finally get it done.

Hi I have a laser 200 zdz 80, anybody knows the CG for 3D in this bird, mine is little nose heavy

I know it's been a while since the last post, but I'm jumping in anyway. Just started building from Lanier's kit last night by gluing tubes into cores. I'm goign to look for other possible threads on this kit, but if anyone has sage advice, now woudl be a great time for me to hear it.

Planning on building stock and keeping it light as poss. I am not, as of yet, the most accomplished pilot. Hopefully the laser will help me there. Have built and flown several kits from 3D funflyers to warbirds. Started out with a sratch built Telemaster 40. I like to build! I'm practicing now with an 300L ARF from Graupner.