Has anyone built one of these new ARFs and then gone back and completely surveyed the completed model for areas to lose weight? I.e., trimming excess plastic, cutting out wasteful ply on formers etc. AND if so, how much weight were you actually able to save?

1 pound of weight = 1 pound of effective thrust gain for that model right? Or am I wrong here?

When I was backpacking years ago there was this guy named Collin Fletcher who wrote a book about hiking around the Grand Canyon. This guy was a weight finatic. He would even trim the excess paper off his maps.

I bet there is a significant amount of weight that can be removed from these ARF jets (screws that are too long, door hinges, excess glue...etc ..etc... (you scratch builders probably already practic this right??)

Thanks,
Andy

on one of my TamJet A-4s i shaved over 1.5lbs by trimming formers and opening up lightening holes further.

Well, I am a sort of clumsy builder who OVER does almost everything during the build, so I can't address weight reduction. But I think that from a purely theoretical standpoint that losing a pound of weight will equal a pound of thrust when purely vertical, becoming exponentially less noticable as you transition to level where the top end speed will be limited by the cumulative components of the various flavors of drag. The extra drag caused by incrimental weight is a tiny fraction of the total drag at high speeds.

It's also worth noting that completely independent of thrust, one pound saved is the same as FOUR pounds during a 4G pull, reducing the induced drag a lot and helping the model retain energy. In full scale aerobatic competition, I've seen folks in the upper classes sweat about 10 pounds of extra fuel (!) onboard a 1600 pound airplane cus they don't want to lug it around during the sequence.

lets not forget. more weight = more stress during maneuvers which over time shortens the lifespan of the airframe. Alot of the full scale aero guys are weight restricted for certain G ratings b/c of airframe structural constraints as well.

I'd rather look at weight as longer airframe life than better performance.. the performance increase is just a plus

Well Andy,

The first thing before trimming is to have a good reference. I use an excel sheet to record the weight of the kit elements when they arrive to me.
You can have a look here at my Me262 load sheet:
http://www.geohei.lu/olin/data/model...eet%20P-60.xls
Every single component can be listed and compared.
You will be able to see what component is dragging the plane on the heavy side...

Then it is all a matter of how much time you are ready to spend to trim the aircraft.
One very easy way to loose weight without spending much time is to choose carefully the components.
Here is a list of great weight savers:

Lipo batteries ( some are significantly lighter than others )
Weatronic receivers
Multi-fonction valves like the Air Power EV5U/ EV5U pro systems

The most significant impact of the weight reduction is the stall speed/loww speed handling of the aircraft.
A lighter aircraft will stall at a much lower speed and thus have a lower approach speed ( 1,3 Vs )

Are u sure? My calculations show that a full 10% reduction in weight (a huge savings) yeilds only approx 5% reduction in Vs. A model coming over the fence at 30 mph is not gonna seem very different from on coming over the fence at 28.5 mph..........