I have been working on my 3D skills and like many I decided I would go the foam route for practice and save the balsa planes. well after a few go arounds I came up with something that works for me.

my requirements:

1. big enough to handle outside flying.
2. control surfaces and wing area big enough for stable flight but small enough to mimic "Real" models.

what started out as a 31inch yak54 design has been modded to a 46inch custom design. It has a 3inch longer fuse length 30% reduction in wing area and 25% overall reduction in tail surface area. Wing design is more tapered than a Yak or Extra and is more like a pattern plane. Rudder almost 50/50 in regards to area above and below the wing and the elevator design is also more tapered than most plane designs.

what that translates to is something that acts more like a balsa plane than a foamie. you will get wing rock at slow, slow speeds and you don't have giant control surfaces to help doing 3D moves. It rolls like a dart, has minimal tail lag and slightly couples to the gear when doing a knife edge. It may take a few more iterations to get it perfect but for now it gets way more flight time than anything I have.

Specs:

2.3lbs - 2.4lbs
46.61 Wing span
43.25 overall length
.5 inch FFF (doubled up FFF sheets or you can use depron)
HS81's all the way around
45A ESC
12 X 6 or 13 x 3.8 APC
3S 2100 lipo 15C continuous 25C burst

it's not the lightest ship, but it flys for 6-7min

I post up the design in a full scale .PDF as well a packed up in a zip file with a .dxf file. as well as pics when I dump the camera.

gene

Sounds interesting. Can't wait to see your pics and the plans.