I finally had a chance to maiden my A-10! It flew great. I didn't really open it up, but it should have plenty of speed. Rolls were very scale looking, and it didn't lose as much altitude as I thought. I noticed that the nose drops a lot when you throttle down, but that is easy to compensate for. It floats pretty well for a 26 oz. plane.

The grass was too high to ROG, so I tried a hand launch. Seemed to have plenty of thrust, but I couldn't keep the nose up. I did quite a bit of reinforcement on the fuse, but of course, did nothing to the nose It shattered, but I was able to find all of the pieces. It's back together, and the nose is now packed with foam. I moved the CoG back a little, and plan to try again in a place where I can ROG.

This one is all ready to fly.

ELE EBM900 4600Kv motors
Dynam 18A ESCs
TP 3S 2100
26oz AUW
AR6100 rx

I'm getting about 22oz of thrust. I had to do some mods to get my battery in there. I got the idea from this thread: https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=787006

I added a bunch of fuse reinforcements in the rear, the nacelle pylons, and just behind the battery bay. I just used bamboo kabob skewers. I didn't want to risk using carbon fiber with my 2.4GHz rx.

Unfortunately, a dead transmitter battery ended the life of my GWS Corsair, but I enjoyed that plane so much, that I had to replace it with another one. I made my first one look really nice, but paid a huge price for it in weight (22oz.) That made belly landings pretty difficult. This new one weighs in at 19 oz, due mostly to the fact that I'm still using a big fat NiMH battery. I'll put a Lipo in when this one dies.

Under the hood is an Ultrafly D13/32 outrunner with a 3:1 gear ratio. Its swinging a APC 9x6 slowflier prop, powered by a 7 cell 1100 Mah NiMH. Even with the NiMH and the 22oz, the old one had pretty descent performance. With a Lipo, this new one should scream! According to the power system calculator I use, a 3S 1320 Lipo and a lower pitch APC E prop will give me over 20 oz of thrust. I'll definitely be trying that!

I finally finished the paint. It took about 5 ounces of spackle, primer, and paint.

Time to sand off the factory paint and fill the mold marks with spackle. Almost ready for primer.

Today I decided to try my 8060 prop. It was noticeably faster, but I don't think it had the same power as the 9070. I would prefer thrust over speed. The flight went great until I brought it in toward me low for a picture. I forgot about the tree that I was standing behind I smashed right into it Amazingly, all I did was break the prop and put a one inch gash in the wing. I cut a square out of the leading edge of one of my dads broken Wing Dragon wings, and put it in the gash. A perfect fit! I could have put her back in the air, but figured it was a good time to prep her for paint. I'll post pics of that as I go.

Just wrapping this one up. I'm going to hold off painting it until after the maiden. Its built stock with rudder, single aileron servo, no landing gear, and GWS350 motor (B gear).
Its essentially ready to fly. I have the CG set at 55mm from the leading edge of the wing. It turned out to be very nose heavy, probably because I am using a 7 cell 1100mah nimh battery.
Its a good thing that I planned on painting this from the beginning because, i taped the fuse halves together with duct tape when I glued them together, and it pulled the paint off.

Update:

Finally the weather cooperated and I was able to maiden the Corsair. My first launch attempt nearly ended in disaster. As my dad tossed it into the air, I went to give her a little left aileron to level her off and she banked right! Uh oh, my aileron channel is reversed, so I went to bring her down and discovered that the elevator was reversed too! She landed inverted, but did no damage! I reversed them, (double checked all of my controls) and had my dad toss her in the air again. She flies like a dream! A little nose heavy, but continued to fly the rest of the duration of my battery. I went in the house, charged the battery, moved the CG back a little, and went out for another flight. Perfectly balanced now. Flying inverted is surprisingly easy too! This plane is going to be a blast!

I wanted to keep flying right on through the winter, so I bought a set of GWS floats to use on the snow. I put them on, and couldn't get it off the ground, so I modded my battery box and added a cell (we're up to 8 now). What a HUGE difference! Now she will take off in about 20ft. Still working on the float setup though. She now has a tendency to dive. It needs full throttle to stay in the air, but it doesn't feel to me like a weight issue. I just think I need to raise my float tips up a bit (they are pointed down a little). She seems to have plenty of power and lift though.

This was my first plane, but I wouldn't recommend it as a first. Thanks to lots of simulator time and probably a little luck, I was able to learn to fly without too much damage. I did have to replace the fuse, but that crash was due to a faulty speed controller . Replaced it with a GP 25 amp esc. Now it flies great! Also, as I found out, the battery needs to pretty much be hot off the charger in order for it to stay in the air.