Plane weight

[Pat]

Well I weighed my Cobra and my Olympic. This is the first time I ever weighed a plane, and after seeing so many folks on here discussing it, I figured it might be pretty important to know. The Cobra comes in at 48 Oz, and the Olympic at 46. Are these decent weights for these planes? Both will be using Evo .36's

Pat

[Dave_Trible]

You are in very good shape.  I'm sure they will fly well for you.

Dave

[Richard Koehler]

Sounds good to me too, the EVO-36 is one strong motor!

[john e. holliday]

Those weights sound great to me.   Now if I could only match them.

[Pat]

John,

This is not advice, as I don't know enough about what I am doing when it comes to building these planes to offer advice, just information. The Cobra is an Umland kit, and the Olympic is from a Brodak kit. Both planes were built exactly per the instructions(I don't have any of my own "tricks" yet). So the only place I can see where I could have added much weight was in the finish. The finish was the standard 3 coats of dope on raw wood, and sanded smooth, Silkspan, three more coats of dope (thinned slightly less) and sanded, two coats of duplicolor primer(sanded almost completely off) then color(duplicolor) wetsanded with 1500 grit, and then clear coat(which has not been wet sanded or polished yet)

Pat

[john e. holliday]

And where are the pictures?    I think my Olympic was in the 50 ounce range.   Was a great flyer until wind got it coming out of the clover.

[Pat]

John,

 Here is my current flying stable(Olympic and Cobra), to be added is a Colossus and a Sig Magnum...

Pat

[john e. holliday]

Hey I like both of them.  They look great.

[Pat]

Thank you Doc!

[Bill Little]

Hi Pat,

Those should really look good in the air!  We'll see if we can't keep the Colossus on light side of the equation.

BIG Bear
RNMM/AMM

[Balsa Butcher]

First the good news: Olympic looks great! Nice paint scheme and 46 ounces is definitely in the ballpark as far as weight goes. Now the bad news: Vertical stabs are on upside down. They should angle rearward from the top and be higher over the stab than under. Doncha' hate it when that happens? Now the good news again: It probably will not make a difference in the way the plane flies.  

[john e. holliday]

First the good news: Olympic looks great! Nice paint scheme and 46 ounces is definitely in the ballpark as far as weight goes. Now the bad news: Vertical stabs are on upside down. They should angle rearward from the top and be higher over the stab than under. Doncha' hate it when that happens? Now the good news again: It probably will not make a difference in the way the plane flies.  

What an eye.   Even after having built and competed with one I didn't notice the rudders.    To me it looks better with the rudders sitting lower.   Wish I had thought of that.

[Pat]

Ugggggghhhhhhhh!!!!

 I have been sitting and looking at the Olympic trying to figure out what didn't look right! Oh well, I am going to leave it as is and see how it flys. Not gonna rip things apart now.. Thanks for pointing out my short falls Butcher! Lol!!!

Y'all have a good day.

Pat

[Balsa Butcher]

One thing I forgot to mention: If you sanded the vertical stabilizers to an airfoil make sure they are shaped to generate lift toward the inside of the circle. This will cause the nose to yaw the nose to the outside. Reversed it may cause line tension problems. 

[Pat]

Thanks for the heads up. I sanded them as per the plans, and double checked the air foil on them before mounting, I just neglected to check the side profile... Grrrr!!


Pat