One for you pros

[Richard Hutlet]

Hi fellas,

Last plane I built was maybe 25 years or so back. Got a Topflite
 Elder 40 for Christmas. Did a not too bad job on it if I must say.
Can this model be converted to C/L? just curious. Never flown as RC but
it's not a huge plane. Thinking it would not be a hard retro to CL but
would like some input. I covered with some sort of iron on fabric that
was paintable back then. Thinking it could be removed and redone to
access the wings.


Thanks

[Dan McEntee]

  Of course it can be converted, even just using "LAR" (Looks About Right) type of engineering. This is a sorta antique, vintage looking R/C sport model with a largely open rear fuselage. Kinda sorta Bleriot looking or Fokker Eindecker. Lou Woolard had a similar model published in the mags back in the 70's I think. I don't have any experience building an Elder 40, but if it has a removable wing, you canmake it real easy and just mount the bell crank in the fuselage, and run the lead outs below the wing through some sort of add on guides at the wing tip. Tape off the ailerons and rudder, set the throttle and lock it down and almost an instant sport model! It's been done with R/C models before, and has even gon the other way, with replica airplanes of control line models but tweaked a bit for optimum R/C performace. I think I have even seen an article while flipping through mags recently of some one doing an R/C Junar. About half of the SIG Fazer fun fly models were built as C/L stunt models and they eventually added conversion instructions to the kit booklet.
  Good luck and have fun,
    Dan McEntee

[Richard Hutlet]

Thanks Dan. I expected so but I'm not an engineer when it comes to models. I'll post a few pics from
time to time to make sure I'm on the straight and narrow.

[Clancy Arnold]

Richard
One Warning!   Most RC models are balanced at or near 30 % of the Wing Cord.  A CL model is balanced at no more than 20 % of Cord.  The farther forward the balance the more stable the CL model is in the air.
Clancy

[Larry Fernandez]

One thing to keep in mind, the Elder has a flat bottom wing, so it will not stunt very well.
It is a cool looking plane though. I had a couple of them in my R/C days.

Larry, Buttafucco Stunt Team