See the last "reply" for news.
I did it! Got my Queen Bee airborne in my back yard, 15' lines, just barely fits between the garage, 2 trees and a lilac thicket. (Not quite, as it turns out.)
GOOD NEWS: It flies, and flies well. Pretty stable, and cute in the air.
BAD NEWS: I must report it is GROSSLY OVERPOWERED with the .020...I think the PeeWee .020 could fly the 1/2A Snapper with no problem. On the tiny Queen Bee, .010 would probably even be too much. Does anyone make a .005?
The controls are GROSSLY OVERSENSITIVE...it could do with half, or less, elevator.
I used my picnic table for a takeoff deck, worried if it was long enough...HAH! I might have used 2 feet of it, probably not that much. FAST, well, you can imagine, on 15' lines. It was subjectively WAY quicker than the fastest combat wing I ever flew...maybe 1-sec. laps!
First flight only lasted about 10 sec., then engine quit (thank goodness). Second flight, I started stunting in self-defense. First loop nearly stalled it out of the air--that's when I found the controls were a bit on the sensitive side. Second loop looked much better, flew through it at full speed; next I WAS gonna do a lazy eight but when I pulled up into the inside part I clipped a tree branch at the top...the rest is history, and three distinct pieces.
This thing is more fun than oughtta be legal! I'm gluing it back together...but already planning a home-design for the .020, much larger, less fragile (weight was certainly no problem!)--with a more conventional nose and MM that will make it much easier to fuel, needle, etc.--the Queen Bee is entirely too cramped at the front for comfort.
Come to think of it, you could probably double the size of the Queen Bee and still be flyable with an .020. Hmmmmm..."King Bee"?
Also, I've been running some engines in, in my back yard. Two of my Cox production engines, in particular, seem to have some pretty severe vibration. The harmonics one of them set up made the props on the other engines (bolted to the same boardI) " blur", they shook so badly (these engines were not running). I changed props thinking that must be it; it wasn't. Anyone else experiencing this? I'm afraid this will shake a plane apart. Bummer...Before you ask, yes, I have reset the piston/rod ball joints.
--Ray