After seeing Sig's booth and watching the Rascals perform at Watts Over Owatonna, my fellow club member and I decided we needed one. Chuck bought his first and I would help build it. We visited our friends at Hobby Warehouse in Richfield, Mn. We walked out with the new Sig Rascal 72.

Upon unboxing we noticed it was packaged very neatly and securely. There was no damage to any of the contents. There were some wrinkles in the coverings but fixed easily with a heatgun at 400 degrees. The fuse and control surfaces were built beautifully. Sig has been producing kits since about the time they wrapped King Tutt so you know its tried and true. Dry fitting proved to show that it would be a hassle free build.

We decided to go with the Rimfire 32 for propulsion, powered by 4 cell lipo. We went with Great Panes medium motor mount. With the motor mount slid to its rear-most position, the clearence of the motor cowl was perfect. Of course there is leeway in the cowl mounting too. For now we will use Efltes 60 amp esc. For servos, we chose Futaba standard digitals. Hobbywarehouse had a smoking deal on them so it was a no brainer.

I noticed that Sig has built in a little bit of STOL into the wing. They have a slight dish in themfrom the trailing edge on back. The wings also bow up for a gradual and slight dehydral. I have never seen this much engineering in a wing before. How do they jig that up? Anyways, servo mounting in the wings is easy if you have built before. The standard servos are a close tolerance fit so you may need to trim the opening for the arm to move freely. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy! The servo hatches are aerodynamically sweet!

The elevator and rudder servos drop in like throwing a hotdog down a hallway. Sort of. the back screws are tricky to drill but easy with a finger drill. A tip for installing the tube in tube contril rods is install one thread rod and clevis. Install from the back and hook it up to your installed control horn. Measure the end of the tube to the clevis. Use a caliper and mark that approximate length on the inside from your centered servo arm. Pull it back out, and thread in the other rod. Re-install the plastic tube from inside the plane with the clevis end clipped to the servo arm that has been taken off the servo. This makes it very easy and slose to centered. You can fine tune it from the back.

The tail assembly was a breeze. The elevator and ailerons were already glued from the factory. The elevator and rudder assembly are prepped for glueing. The covering is trimmed away, how great is that! You only need to trim a little covering of the fuse for the leading edge of the rudder. The whole set up nearly centers itself. Only a couple pieces of tape were needed to make sure it diddn't move while the epoxy was curing. Just be sure to center the leading edge/base of the rudder.

The tailwheel was a breeze too. The holes are already there. No guesswork there. Make sure you have a little tension on each spring and that it is centered with the rudder. It is a very nice set up. Way better than a shaft glued into the rudder half and the plane is really smooth on takeoff.

I'm building the smaller version but I would hardly call it a SCALE model.

Congrats. I'm buying the 110 next. After working on this one, I'm itching to go large SCALE.

Bipe - The Rascal is a very nice bird, but Kiwi is right. It really belongs in the Sport Plane forum. There's nothing snobbish about this, it just makes more sense because when people want to browse Sport Planes, they will see it. If it's in the scale section, then it could very well be skipped over.

After getting the control surfaces adjusted and the wing together, which went together perfectly, it was time for the wheel pants and wheels. The only issue I had was one wheel pant had one of the thread inserts laid in off center. By simply drilling the gear hole a little larger, this fixed the problem. This plane is beautiful and reminds me of a piece of candy with the see through red. Total weight without the reciever was 5.115 lbs. Pretty light for a 72 inch wingspan! It should be a floater. We will see when we maiden it this weekend now that the build is done. It was the easiest build I have done. It is nice to see an arf that was well done.

What's the battery size and flight time?

Also what prop are you using? I should have all the parts to complete mine middle of next week.


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Originally Posted by RC Man

What's the battery size and flight time?

Also what prop are you using? I should have all the parts to complete mine middle of next week.


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We haven't maidened it yet. Weather permitting, we'll get it out today.
The plane can easily fit a 4s 5000 but I'm gonna go with what I have...4s 3600 to 4400mah.
Prop wise, I am starting with an APC 13x8 and will experiment from there.

We'll put a maiden video up once we get out.

Originally Posted by Seminole

We haven't maidened it yet. Weather permitting, we'll get it out today.
The plane can easily fit a 4s 5000 but I'm gonna go with what I have...4s 3600 to 4400mah.
Prop wise, I am starting with an APC 13x8 and will experiment from there.

We'll put a maiden video up once we get out.

I am working on he control linkage and noticed that the stock elevator control does not come close to lining up. Looks to me like I will need to get a longer horn. How did you solve that problem?


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Hey RC MAN, I just hooked it up the way it is. You can see in the insructions that thiers is the same way. The plastic rod gives plenty enough with the stock horns. We maidened it today and it was smooth as glass. There is a little pull to the left when taking off with the rimfire .32 but no more than say a cub. The elevator works just fine with the slight bow of the control rod. I was suprised at how much authority the elevator has and can surprise you when you land the first time. We will try to download or link the video we took today. The roll rate was similar to a cub, however thats where the similarities end. This plane handles like it is on rails and it does not need flaps. It slows down just fine and tracks very well at low speeds.