Hey all you Harbor Freight WH fans. When your hawk finally bites the big one, I've got a project for you.
I was wanting to use up some of the cheap elect. stuff I had lying around and was going to make a pod-and-boom plane from a wing and tail off the shelf at the LHS. Well, when I got there, I started looking at the Stryker body and....
I liked that the stryker is one piece, durable foam, and a proven flyer. I went home with the body ($19.99) and a hatch assembly ($7.99). I was going to make my own verts and elevons out of depron, and I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard, but later in a weak moment, I bought those off the shelf too. Verts: $7.99 and elevons: $3.49. Motor mount was $3.19 too. It was nice to have the factory hardware to be honest.

I used the WH motor, prop, ESC, and servo's. I made my own push rods from piano wire. I ended up using a cheap Futaba 4-channel rx I already had so that I could do elevon mixing with my T4EXA. I also had multiple Parkzone NiMh batteries lying around since I fly a Super Cub and a P-51. You could use the WH battery just fine, but you'd have to carve a little foam away under the hatch.
So in total I spent about $40 on the whole thing.

Maiden flight today in 15mph and gusty winds. WOW! trimmed it out and flew it on a PZ 9-cell. I don't think it compares to the few Stryker-C's I've seen, but it handled the wind very well and was a total riot to fly. I know the WH motor is smaller than the stock 480, but on 9-cell it did great and I got 10 min. of mostly high-throttle turn-and-burn action before I brought it down with power to spare. I think 15 min. is possible with throttle management and calm air. Axial rolls, barrel rolls, inside loops, outside loops, inverted flight, and anything else I could throw at it was no problem. The WH motor most likely won't last terribly long on a 9-cell, and it was used to begin with. But that just means I can replace it with a cheap stock 480 when it dies ($10).
If I had to do it all over again, I'd either make the elevons and verts myself, or just go with the replacement airframe for $60 and get a great looking bird with paint and decals. I know that you can often get the whole WH RTF for little more, but this is so much more fun to fly. Makes me wonder why I haven't seen a cheap Chinese knock-off of the stryker yet.
I'll try to throw up some pictures tomorrow.

If built light, using depron, it will fly on a small power system and float slow enough to run and catch! This ones 9.1oz, with a Esskay 400, 2 cell.

that's pretty cool, Butch. What motor and esc are you using? What kind of speed?
I have been familiar with the stryker for as long as most, but this is my first one. It really is a versatile airframe.

Here's a few pics of my WH powered Stryker as I promised:
First test flights:
http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...000_0721-1.jpg
http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...6/000_0719.jpg
Here it is after a paint job. I liked the look of the Stryker-B for the most part, so I used Testors Aircraft Grey and stock decals. I added the yellow and red wingtips to aid in orientation.


http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...6/000_0727.jpg
http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...6/000_0728.jpg