Top Flite Kittiwake

[Sport Flyer]

I've currently got a Kittiwake sitting on my building board. For those who don't know, its a 25 sized kaos-like airframe designed by Ken Willard. It features a monofloat and a pair of tip floats. The kit is from '86, the year I started into the hobby, so lets just say its taken me a while to get around to this one. I've heard good and bad about these kits, most specific they fly well, but the supplied aluminum for holding the main float is weak, and for a variety of reasons it can be tricky to take off water.

My impressions so far.... wood isn't as good as what's supplied with a Sig kit. Looks like its actually going to be short on the 1/16th sheeting. Building techniques are quite 'old school', even for '86, with lots of carving required. As an example, the ailerons have to be cut out of the assembled wing, then the cut outs sheeted for hinging. A lot of extra work when it could have just been designed different with strip ailerons or whatever else. The wing itself assembles from three pieces, which I just finished joining together. Despite taking a lot of care during assembling the pieces there were significant gaps in the fit which I filled with epoxy/microballoons. Regardless, the wing seems strong and straight, so it should be decent enough.

The plans call for a single aileron servo with the ailerons being joined by a braided cable and the cable exiting underneath to the aileron horns . I've spent the last week looking at that, and have decided to go with something different. I have a pair of Hitec 225 mighty minis that will fit in the wings, so I'm thinking of installing them from Sig Four Star style, except from the top, with the push rods exiting from the top to minimize and water getting into the wing.

Suggestions or other ideas?

[bjaffee]

I picked one up almost 10 years ago. Had never even heard of it, and saw it sitting all alone in the LHS.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to fly it off water very, but it worked very well from what I recall. It taxis good (especially on step), and I don't remember any issues at all as far as take offs go. You do need to keep the wings very level on landing, else you may catch a float. I did that once, and it resulted in a pretty ugly landing. No damage, but I did have to straighten out the soft aluminum main struts.

In the air it's quite fast (I used an OS .28), and fun to fly.

As for mods, here's what I did:
1. I wanted to fly it from land , so I made the tip floats removable, using small brass sleeves.
2. Added a tailwheel.
3. I made a fiberglass cowl to give it more of a racy look.

As for the ailerons, I think the tip ailerons look cool, and their quite effective, so I wouldn't change that. However, the aileron linkage with the cables is very stiff, as you probably have guessed.

The 2 aileron idea is probably a good one, but if you go with strip ailerons another way you can always use a single servo with conventional torque rods. Note, you can also you 2 servos mounted flat in this way, only have them near the wing root, rather then in the middle of the wings. That way they are still protected in the fuselage. I did it like this on my other seaplane and it worked very well.

[Sport Flyer]

I see a tailwheel on yours. Is your tailwheel interchangeable with the water rudder? Or did you make the water rudder removeable? The cowl you made looks very nice btw.

I too would like to make mine convertible for water or land but didn't like their suggested method. Initially I was thinking of just installing some wheels just foreward of the step and at the back of the float that could be rotated down when needed, but then I read of the problems with the weak aluminum mounts. Now I'm thinking I will just substitute the monofloat for a small dural lg.

I'm planning on using an Enya 30SS BB to power mine.

[bjaffee]

Yeah, I just removed all the floats and attached an off the shelf aluminum lg in the forward float location. I think the water rudder is designed to be removable...don't think I did anything special there. Its held on with two bolts. It's totally seperate from the tailwheel, which I just kept on there all the time (see pic).

One issue with mounting the gear at such a forward location is that the thing is pretty squirrelly on takeoff. I recall that I had to hold some up elevator when taking off to keep the tailwheel on the ground. Once I got the hang of it, it wasn't too bad, though.

[aaronredbaron]

I have built two, and my own design small electric version. the plane is awesome! however, the plane came out about a pound heavy box stock. it flies very fast and does not like to slow down. I built the second one much lighter with a 10% bigger foam wing and foam float. keep it light, fly it fast, and you will love it!

[JimCasey]

I built mine from plans initially and never was happy with the cable aileron linkage. Due to an unfortunate incident, I replaced the wing with a foam one from Wing Mfg Co. (who shut down several years ago). But with the foam wing I used strip ailerons. Better. Dual servos also would be better yet, freeing up some valuable interior volume. As I recall it was really hard to clear the aileron horns inside the fuselage. Dual servos will avoid that problem. DO NOT try to use the ailerons for flaperons because that will cause adverse yaw, tip-stall, and the commencement of a recovery expedition.
Also balance it carefully..I tried nose-heavy (sluggish) and tail-heavy( insane) but it was a little pattern ship when balanced appropriately.

The Al struts supplied were a soft alloy, not the good stuff called "Duralumin" You could do better with 1/8 aircraft ply (Not lite-ply) if you waterproof the plywood. If you don't have the float built yet I think it would benefit from a shallow V bottom on the front part.

If you want to have the wheel option, it would be prudent to put LG Blocks in the wings at assembly and to be able to pop in wire LG legs. If you try to bolt aluminum gear legs to the fuse, the wheels are too far forward and the ground handling becomes squirrelly.

It is a sweet flying plane.