Hangar 9 Piper Cub with Power 46+
After about 2 months of screwing around with this Hangar 9 Piper Cub I have completed it and am happy to say had a successful maiden flight as well as about 5 more afterwards. 
There are a couple of things about the ARF that I was disapointed with. I guess I had higher or maybe too high of expectations from Horizon/Hangar 9.
1) The fit/alingment of the leading edge of the rudder and dorsal fin/vertical stabilizer did not line up. The top portion of the rudder is about 1/8" of an inch behind the leading edge of the vertical stabilizer.
The hinge gap was very close and I used the pin technique to set the hinge line gap as described in the instructions.
2) The moving elevator halves are not equal! One half is about 1/8" longer than the other.....Yeah!
I didn't notice this until I was installing the control horns and locating them equal distant from the centerline of the fuselage.
3) I had to elongate one of the aluminum anchor blocks that attaches the struts to the underside of the wings. Apparently at the factory the holes and blind nuts in the plate on the wing were too close together.
The trusty old Dremel came to the rescue on this one! LOL
4) One of the threaded cable ends was missing the hole that you thread the cable thru! WTH!
I called Horizon on it about 2 weeks ago and they said they would send out a new cable assembly package. It never came 
I ended up using a cable end from a Dubro 2-56 Pull-Pull cable system to finish the job......Continue Reading
There are a couple of things about the ARF that I was disapointed with. I guess I had higher or maybe too high of expectations from Horizon/Hangar 9.
1) The fit/alingment of the leading edge of the rudder and dorsal fin/vertical stabilizer did not line up. The top portion of the rudder is about 1/8" of an inch behind the leading edge of the vertical stabilizer.
The hinge gap was very close and I used the pin technique to set the hinge line gap as described in the instructions.2) The moving elevator halves are not equal! One half is about 1/8" longer than the other.....Yeah!
I didn't notice this until I was installing the control horns and locating them equal distant from the centerline of the fuselage. 3) I had to elongate one of the aluminum anchor blocks that attaches the struts to the underside of the wings. Apparently at the factory the holes and blind nuts in the plate on the wing were too close together.
The trusty old Dremel came to the rescue on this one! LOL4) One of the threaded cable ends was missing the hole that you thread the cable thru! WTH!
I called Horizon on it about 2 weeks ago and they said they would send out a new cable assembly package. It never came I ended up using a cable end from a Dubro 2-56 Pull-Pull cable system to finish the job......Continue Reading
Some pics of the club's field
Here are some pictures I took today of the Watertown Aeromodelers flying field. Our runway runs north/south and is adjacent to a full size private grass runway....Continue Reading
Carnage Photos of Park Zone P-51 RIP Frankie!
Here are some carnage pics of the Park Zone P-51 I did in last September.
What happened you may ask! Well I was in a loop and while completing the inverted portion of it at about 60 feet above the ground I made a stupid decision and tried to push out of it (using down elevator) instead of just completing a normal inside loop. I must have lost enough air speed (as well as height) that the elevator became almost inefective. POW! Straight into the ground nose first.
If I could find parts cheap enough I might consider another go at it. However I would install a brushless motor for more power/vertical performance
and not use the stock electronics. The reason being is this comes with the ESC and RX integrated together. Thats ok for a brushed motor however the PZ P-51 uses 5 wire (read: non-standard) servos. While they can be purchased new from any Horizon Hobby dealer they will become harder to find as time goes on.
Another down side IMO is the lack of rudder control. You only get Aileron, Elevator and Throttle stock. It may be possible to add rudder but then you would have to go with another radio system as the stocker is 3 channel only.
One other thing to add is that when I switched from the stock NiMh battery to Lipo the difference was like night and day. A lot more power, performance and flight time with the Lipo. This plane comes ready for Lipo. All you have to do is supply/buy the battery(and charger etc.), battery connector adaptor if not...Continue Reading
What happened you may ask! Well I was in a loop and while completing the inverted portion of it at about 60 feet above the ground I made a stupid decision and tried to push out of it (using down elevator) instead of just completing a normal inside loop. I must have lost enough air speed (as well as height) that the elevator became almost inefective. POW! Straight into the ground nose first.
If I could find parts cheap enough I might consider another go at it. However I would install a brushless motor for more power/vertical performance
and not use the stock electronics. The reason being is this comes with the ESC and RX integrated together. Thats ok for a brushed motor however the PZ P-51 uses 5 wire (read: non-standard) servos. While they can be purchased new from any Horizon Hobby dealer they will become harder to find as time goes on. Another down side IMO is the lack of rudder control.
You only get Aileron, Elevator and Throttle stock. It may be possible to add rudder but then you would have to go with another radio system as the stocker is 3 channel only.One other thing to add is that when I switched from the stock NiMh battery to Lipo the difference was like night and day. A lot more power, performance and flight time with the Lipo. This plane comes ready for Lipo. All you have to do is supply/buy the battery(and charger etc.), battery connector adaptor if not...Continue Reading
What happens when bug/mosquito repellant spray gets on your transmitter!
Actually a better title would be:
Why you should use screen protectors on your transmitter display!
One late afternoon/early evening last fall (October 2007) I was out flying my Hobby Lobby Firebird EDF with a couple of other fellow RC enthusiasts. It was just before sundown when I made my last flight. Up until this time the weather was beautiful for the time of year. Because of this the mosquitos and nats were still abundant thanks to this warm, humid weather and lack of a killing frost (I'm in southeastern Wisconsin) While I was flying a swarm of mosquitos surounded me and were flying all around my face, head and neck. I had applied repellant by hand earlier so they weren't bitting too bad. In an effort to give me some relief one of the guys came up behind me and sprayed my neck and back. I was unaware some of the airborn spray landed on the Spektrum DX7 transmitter I was using. I flew for a couple of more minutes then decided to call it a night. It was dusk now and the lighting was getting poor. After landing I disconnected the ESC from the battery in the 'bird and looked at the voltage on the tx screen just prior to turning it off and putting it back into its protective case. At the time I didn't notice anything on the tx screen. Went home and left the tx in the case for a couple of days after which I decided to pull it out and put it on the charger to get ready for the next flying session. Upon opening the case I freaked There were all these spots on...Continue Reading
Why you should use screen protectors on your transmitter display!
One late afternoon/early evening last fall (October 2007) I was out flying my Hobby Lobby Firebird EDF with a couple of other fellow RC enthusiasts. It was just before sundown when I made my last flight. Up until this time the weather was beautiful for the time of year. Because of this the mosquitos and nats were still abundant thanks to this warm, humid weather and lack of a killing frost (I'm in southeastern Wisconsin) While I was flying a swarm of mosquitos surounded me and were flying all around my face, head and neck. I had applied repellant by hand earlier so they weren't bitting too bad. In an effort to give me some relief one of the guys came up behind me and sprayed my neck and back. I was unaware some of the airborn spray landed on the Spektrum DX7 transmitter I was using. I flew for a couple of more minutes then decided to call it a night. It was dusk now and the lighting was getting poor. After landing I disconnected the ESC from the battery in the 'bird and looked at the voltage on the tx screen just prior to turning it off and putting it back into its protective case. At the time I didn't notice anything on the tx screen. Went home and left the tx in the case for a couple of days after which I decided to pull it out and put it on the charger to get ready for the next flying session. Upon opening the case I freaked
There were all these spots on...Continue Reading
