What are some of your favorite motor,gear, and battery set-ups for the Sporty?

thanks,

rod

I have a sporty that I almost crashed for the fun of it. It was such a pain in the behind and I could not get it to work. I went to the hobby shop and the guy there kept on telling me that the plane flies fine the way it is. Well I stripped the thing. Now I have a direct drive speed 400 with a 5x5 graupner prop and a 7 cenn 500 battery. I cut the landing gear and it flies like a chmp. It even whistles in a dive. Its also very aerobatic.

Thanks, I might try the direct drive. My first "flight" the thing acted like a lawn dart and bent the gear box, so now I'm waiting for the replacement box....shipping is a little slow in the US these days.

You are correct about the stock motor/prop combination. I built
my first one as light as I could and the thing just drags itself
through the sky. I'm building another now with the upgrade
motor (380) and the matching gearbox. We'll see what happens.
Meanwhile I can offer some suggestions: The front half of the gear bow is the weak link, buy extras. Add CA hardened fillet
plates to the prop bushing/gear housing joint and it will tolerate
mild impact. Save all of your parts after a bonk because they
are easy to swap. Good luck!

Mine snapped right at the base of the output shaft. I ordered the upgraded motor and box, along with a replacement for the stock setup, but the direct drive option sounds tempting. How do you mount the motor for direct drive?

I gave up on the s280 class motors and those terrible gearboxes, and went to s400 direct drive with no landing gear like eran. Since the change, the plane finally flies great. I'm using a Graupner 6X3 folder and 7X600AE Nicads. I get duration in the five minute neighborhood.

BTW, jf ryan, the Wattage upgrade is to a "370", not a "380." The names for these motors is very confusing, but Wattage uses the Mabuchi numbers: a 380 is actually another name for a speed 400. A 370 is a s280 class motor, I think the same as what others call a speed 300.

Neil

Neil, how did you mount the 400 motor?

It is easy to mount the speed 400. Believe me I suck at building. All you have to do is remove the fromt of the great box. Leave the back portion of the gear box attaced to the fire wall. The use your dremmel tool to drill through the fire wall. I then used two pieces of spruce wood, placed it through the fire wall back as far as they would go and glued the in with 5 min epoxy. I thn placed the motor on the spruce and fastend it with sinch ties. Thats all folks. It really is easy. You will notice a great difference with the new motor.

My method is very similar to eran's. I dispensed with the gear drive altogether, and just drilled two 1/4" holes in the plastic firewall and epoxied in two lengths of hardwood dowel. I then used nylon tie wraps like eran to attach the motor to the dowels. Tape the cowl back in place and your set to go. An added dividend of using the Graupner 6X3 folder is that the spinner fits the cowl perfectly and you don't need to worry about catching a prop blade on landing.

Have fun,

Neil

IT WORKED! I installed the 370 (thanks neil) and the 3.67 gear
reduction. Using 350mAh batteries with the stock prop and now
Sporty flies. Climb rate is good and the speed is markedly higher.

What kind of flight times are you getting with the 400 in the Sporty? I'm running the 370 motor with 3.67:1 gearbox and 8x720 mah NiMh's and I'm getting around 9 minutes.

Have upgraded to the 370 and new gear box - now that's more like it! ROG's quickly, nice tight loops, rolls better because its flying faster and even does outside loops from level flight. With a 8x600 NiMH I get 6 minutes but its full bore all the time - speed kills, but I love it! I've pranged it a number of times but worst thing that happened was cracking the fuse in front of the canopy. Alittle 5-minute epoxy and clear packing tape across the top from canopy to motor mount and that fixes that.

I was going to put in a 400 but not now - its just right. Now if I could only find a 2000 mah AAA pack!!! Joe

I'm glad I never bothered with the stock motor. I ordered the 370 motor from the start. Mine doesn't do tight loops. It snaps if I pull all the way back on the stick and I'm using the low rate settings. Where do you have your CG set at? Did you break in your 370 motor? I didn't originally, but I did a water break in last night and I'm curious to see if it made any difference.

How about lithium batteries? Do they have them in 2000 mah? I olny know of one or two places that sell lithiums. Any suggestions on where to get them? The 720 mah AAA NiMh's are nice. $27 from Radical RC I ordered another one. 2 batteries, no waiting I also ordered a Lil Hornet and a Radical Edge 540 . I'm into this electric flight! Also got some new spectacles. I've been flying all 70 to 100 inch glow/gas... The Sporty ain't real big, but it sure is small

I have difficulty landing the Sporty on pavement for some reason. I smacked it down real hard once and broke off a chunk of foan that the tail skid is attached to, but a little 5 minutes epoxy and she's good to go. I noticed that someone mentioned that they fly with low elevator rates and land with high rates, and I may give that a try.

I'm now looking for a 010 motor for the Sporty. ANy suggestions on where to get one? Should I run it geared?

Well I was kidding (really dreaming) about the 2000 mah pack. But I have eliminated the snap tendency. I just set all the control throws exactly to the instructions limits and favor a "slightly" forward CG. You know I'm not exactly sure any more were the CG is from flight to flight. Because I've put it in to the ground hard enough (not my fault of course) acouple of times, the foam at the leading edge of the fuse is crunched enough so that the wing sometimes is aliitle forward, sometimes alittle aft. I know its a sign of lazyness - I just put it together and have fun - it just doesn't seem critical now that the control throws are at spec.

Well I'm just sorry I had to abuse the thing before I got it setup right, and then put in the stronger motor/gearbox. Oh and of course when I say stronger GB I don't mean the contruction of the box. Like I think on the 3rd flight, when CG was back and throws beyond max, I snapped it on an approach at about 8 feet and stuck in the grass like a javelin. When I pulled it out it had about 20 degrees of downtrust. I pulled the housing back and CA'd it but a couple of flights later I kinda did it again - and so I was forced to put in the 370.

Which reminds me of something. I was able to use Mr. Batterys 7.2 lithium pack with the 280 motor. Got lots of flying time - actually never found out how long it would run. But it DOES NOT work with the 380. Apparently the amp draw is more than 2 amps, so as soon as you go to full power the internal circuitry shuts down the whole system - not a good thing if you're in the air. So no more lithium for the Sporty. Joe

What gear box and 370 combo are you using? Also what battery pac did you settle on. I am on my second Sporty. The first one Flew well in the standard configuration using the 7 cell 270 ma nicad. I had to be real carful in slow flight because of the stock Sporty being underpowered. My mistak was a downwind turn, slow flight and changing mix on the transmitter all at the same time. My second Sporty I used Testors spray paint on with the Testors grey primer under yellow paint. This was a real mistake as it made the Sporty just a little to heavy for the stock configuration. Just is not fun to fly.
Jerry