I have a Brodak Electric ARF Ringmaster S-1.  So, I already have the heresy of 1) an ARF rather than a kit or scratch-built, and 2) powered by electrons.  So I might as well complete my descent into devil worship by modifying the elevator.

I don’t plan to ever fly OTS with this thing, I just got it to fly at a park where people might not object since it’s quiet(er) than a glow model, and at the Fly-A-Thon.  I really didn’t like the control horn that came with the kit, too sensitive.  I’ve made a new horn that’s at 1 inch from the hinge line.  Still too sensitive, I have to be careful because I still stall it out on my loops.  I have the handle spacing at the minimum that I want to go, so now it’s time for blasphemy.  If I were to glue the elevator to the stab, and then cut the hinge line back farther aft to decrease the size of the elevator, does anyone have an idea, or better yet, any experience on how far back to put the hinge line for a nice sport model?

   That will have a lot less effect than you want. Make the horn longer.

     Brett

That is what I came up with on my Ringmasters, all of them.  Use the hole closest to pivot point on the bell crank when building.   Also a taller control horn.

I've got to think the push rod is on the wrong hole in the bellcrank. Anyway you can check?

He can cut up the wing.  Somehow, getting an ARF and then doing more work to modify it to what you want than you would have taken to just build it seems counter-productive.

Mark: my non-ARF Ringmaster ended up with a long SIG nylon horn that just barely cleared the pavement when I was flying it off a hard surface, and often had dirt and grass on it when I was flying from grass.  It flew just fine.  The received wisdom (which I received after I built the plane) is that you want to locate the hole in the bellcrank about 5/8" out from the pivot on a 3" bellcrank, which means drilling a new hole in a Sig nylon bellcrank.  I didn't do that, which is why I had such a long elevator horn.

If you do want to cut it up, you probably want the elevator area to be about 20-25% of the total horizontal tail area.  The fact that the thing has an eliptical tail makes life difficult; I'm going to guess that if you make the elevator chord about 25-30% of the total at the root then you'll have enough.

No matter what, if it has a true Ringmaster airfoil it'll stall in maneuvers unless you're really gentle on the handle.  Nothing does jumpy, octagonal loops quite like a Ringmaster.

  Mark, one of the things that I read here on S/Hanger was to limit the throw of the push rod so that all the elevator travel is limited to 15-18 degrees of total travel.

 I did this on my R/Master and it flies MUCH better that when it stalled out, you might give this a try..

  All of my Ringmasters have a control horn that is at least 1 1/" tall, including one that is a genuine, kit built in the sixties or seventies version with who knows what for a bell crank. All of the current fixes and adjustments recommended for Ringmasters have worked wonders for this thing. It was a Craig's List rescue that I go for 20 bucks including the Fox .35 stunt and .36X combat engine that was in the box with some other goodies.
  Type at you later,
  Dan McEntee