well it finally happened... after exactly six months of no trouble (other than the motor mounts suck, the props suck, the spinner sucks and i think the stock landing gear is idiotically weak & springy).


i left my yak sitting ontop of it's foam box for a week. went to get her flight ready with a new gopro hero 2 in the cockpit & damn if three of the four servos are unresponsive. one catches on fire & the fourth is glitching...



the good news is i have an entire DRAWER full of servos. the bad news is they're all STANDARD sized mythical Airtronics 94201's. welp... out came the hobby knife & i now have:
1) The most tail-heavy yak on the forum (and keep in mind im the ONLY person that thought the 100% stock yak was NOT nose heavy lulz whiners)
2) I have the heavyest yak on the forum. as adding a whopping 7-8oz in the tail must be countered by something so out came the hobby knife again & in went a 6s2200 pack...



flight tests this weekend LoL! it oughta scream... and hey if nothing else, i guess i can fly 3D rates at WOT now. lulz

Was having a blast with my Yak (stock motor, Emax 60amp ESC and MG servos all round) yesterday when the unthinkable happened.

It was my 2nd flight for the morning and I was doing full throttle snap rolls when the right wing came away from the fuse!!

It slid down the spar and was just held on by the servo lead.

Anyway; we were all there watching this wing flopping around as it started to fall from about 30 feet or so.

Well you wouldn't believe it, but I wish I could make my elevators appear so graceful. It just flopped down for a beautiful 3 point landing on a nice spongy piece of grass! No damage at all.

Investigation revealed the wing bolt still in place, so unless it somehow pulled out of the wing retainer, I must have completely missed the hole whilst assembling??

Anyway, it's nice to have a piece of good luck for a change!!!!!!

Happy New Years to all.

ya. missed the hole. you must be careful to visually line the hole up, screw in with no effort & REALLY tug on the wings to make sure they're on good. like... not baby tug, but actually grab the thick part of the chord at the tip & pull to where you think you might crush the foam or finish a little bit with your grip.


do that and youll never have a problem.



btw. plane flew fine. was obviously heavier with 4 standard servos, a 6s2xxx pack AND a gopro hero 2 in the cockpit, but was ballistic by half throttle only went WOT a couple times & never a quick transition, just eased into the gas for a few seconds. so didn't burn anything up on the normal 12*6. control authority was very, very fast.

control authority was so much higher i snap rolled it after takeoff & cleanly broke it in half at the typical spot. couple dowels for pins & a little bit of epoxy & it'll be fine

My Yak jettisoned the battery pack AND ESC at around 300 feet coming out of a waterfall and slung them about 400 yards away from where it happened. Found the ESC but battery is still MIA. Crazy thing is the plane, once it lost power, stayed on it's back and parachuted slowly to the ground, completely flat. I guess the elevator stuck in the full down position. Damage: cracked canopy and rudder came out if it's hinge. Popped back in and ready to fly! Man, these bird can take some abuse.

Any suggestions on securing the battery better???

all you can do is remove the mount & add more straps. which then gets into the "will the new glue holding the mounting plate be less prone to fail than the OEM silicon glue+OEM straps?"
ive not had a problem on the stock ones yet.


good the canopy is cracked! perfect time to take a screwdriver & pop it's glue joint & get rid of the dumb pilot & put a camera in the plane instead!

Guys, I know a lot of you are using Hitec servos in your C-Z's including myself. I just switched out all my servos to 5085's, but I don't recall anyone mentioning the "throw distance" difference with the Hitec servos compared to the Eflite servos. ( I do recall someone running the "full size" x-long servo arms on the mini servos and just may not have put 2+2 together )

Anyway, installed all four 5085's ( totally perfect fit/finish and had to use E-flite's EFL1008023 servo extension leads ) and installed DuBro's 675 SS (Super Strength) Servo Arms. While setting up my radio I had to put the aileron servos (end points) up to the maximum 125% of throw in order to achieve 60-65mm from tip to tip which 60-70mm is recommended in the C-Z manual for "HIGH" aileron settings. After comparing the Hitec and E servos I could tell the E servos have about 15-20% more throw distance than the Hitec's. With that said I could see why someone might want to use the longer full size servo arms for more travel throw without having to set the end-points higher in the radio.

I'm just curious guys how did you guys set-up your C-Z after making the servo change? Personally I think those full size x-long servo arms look gaudy on the C-Z and not "to scale" of the plane. If theres a "long" version of the small servo arm I'd like to know who makes it? Also the option of screwing an extension to the standard small arm is something that could be done too.

you can also use a thread wrap through unused holes & epoxy to extend cut up spare arms to the existing servo arm if you're too cheap/impatient to get correctly sized servo arms

Originally Posted by Gixer Jay

Guys, I know a lot of you are using Hitec servos in your C-Z's including myself. I just switched out all my servos to 5085's, but I don't recall anyone mentioning the "throw distance" difference with the Hitec servos compared to the Eflite servos. ( I do recall someone running the "full size" x-long servo arms on the mini servos and just may not have put 2+2 together )

Anyway, installed all four 5085's ( totally perfect fit/finish and had to use E-flite's EFL1008023 servo extension leads ) and installed DuBro's 675 SS (Super Strength) Servo Arms. While setting up my radio I had to put the aileron servos (end points) up to the maximum 125% of throw in order to achieve 60-65mm from tip to tip which 60-70mm is recommended in the C-Z manual for "HIGH" aileron settings. After comparing the Hitec and E servos I could tell the E servos have about 15-20% more throw distance than the Hitec's. With that said I could see why someone might want to use the longer full size servo arms for more travel throw without having to set the end-points higher in the radio.

I'm just curious guys how did you guys set-up your C-Z after making the servo change? Personally I think those full size x-long servo arms look gaudy on the C-Z and not "to scale" of the plane. If theres a "long" version of the small servo arm I'd like to know who makes it? Also the option of screwing an extension to the standard small arm is something that could be done too.

I used the shortest arms from the Dubro 672 package on my HS-5085MG's. Set the servo travel on my DX-8 at 150% all around. Set up low and high rates on F0 and F1 according to the advanced QQ settings from the HH website. Set up F2 at maximum for when for when I'm feeling crazy and I still haven't killed this plane.

I just used the thread tools to see only the attachments in this thread. Has anyone ever noticed that most all of the pictures are of broken Yaks or broken Yak parts. Not trying to be a downer here, just saying.

Originally Posted by DarwinF

I just used the thread tools to see only the attachments in this thread. Has anyone ever noticed that most all of the pictures are of broken Yaks or broken Yak parts. Not trying to be a downer here, just saying.

Couple points to our comment (wich is true). I would like to see more vids and pictures of customized Yaks.

The planes are all the same out of the box so unless someone does a lot of work to customize the paint there is not much need for pics until you want to show damage from a flight.

Most of us are using this plane as a first 3D capable airframe to learn on. So crashes are going to happen. The crashes caused by bad equipment is the reason for most postings here. Which is good so the rest of us know what to watch out for.

I have been flying mine completely stock including the servos and prop for over a year. 134 flights and counting. I did change the motor mount thanks to the good people on this thread. I have posted one photo when I painted my cowl. I think it would be great to see more cusotizations from others.

Originally Posted by hamburgrd

......I think it would be great to see more cusotizations from others.

I made a few changes to mine. Since I fly off of deep grass, I took off the wheel pants and added larger wheels. I also painted the underside parts that were white, and painted them yellow. I was having trouble picking out the orientation and the yellow seemed to help. Also, I added some CF strips to the elevator counter-balances. They kept breaking off every time I landed. It's still a problem area, they get caught in the grass when I land.

Everything else on mine is totally stock.

Sorry, no pictures.

I have beaten up my original CZ (got xmas 2010) to where there was probably more glue and bracing than plane. It still flew, but until I decided to replace the foam, I never really knew how bad.

I have had all the foam parts (fuse, wings, elevators) sitting here for some time, even put the entire package up for sale. But I decided to fix it up.

Glad I did. I have no decals on it and actually I think it looks much nicer. I would like to change the paint on the bottom of the wings, just makes my eyes act strange, but other than that.

I use the 13x4 clone (I get a vibration from APC at top end - they balance perfectly on my dubro...no telling why).

I have put 3 carbon flats in the fuse (sides and bottom) to help with the known weak area. Since they are flats, they are pretty much hidden. I can try to get a picture of these not sure how they will turn out.

I replaced the servos with HS 82mgs but when I rebuilt everything, I had some Power HD servos that I am now using in the airleons - seem to work fine and fast enough for me. Time will tell on these.

I have gone back to the wheel pants. I was using 3" wheels but the pants, to me, look great and I believe the fairings provide just a little more help for bending the LG.

The last issue, and not sure exactly how to deal with it is the elevator counterbalance - first flight (and I knew better), harrier, ripped the left elevator end off where that little support piece is. Glued it back on and added packing tape to each side - seems to help as I have not lost another one yet....

Anyways, I still like this plane. I have no other this size to compare with or anything close, so not too much to base this on.

I do like foam though. I am pretty good at repairs..

Yeah, I was looking for customizations and I remember seeing more customizations somewhere, maybe it was another thread.

I didn't customize mine because I beat the crap out of it! One tough little bird though....

I do not remember seeing any real customizations and I think I have subscribed to all CZ threads here and on others.

Here is what I have seen - not real customizations/modifications to me, but they are changes.
- Painting the canopy
- stripped the paint and repainted the entire plane
- servo changes
- view ports on the bottom cover to see receiver
- larger wheels
- side force generators - never heard if these helped or not - they were very small
- cnc motor mount - before horizon provided the upgraded one
- hacker A30-12L - boatdoc did this said it was great - made the plane lighter - had a video - looked great
- different props (12x6 and 13x4 APC)

This is about all I have seen.