RC to CL conversion for Topflite p-63 stand off kit

[Chuck Feldman]

Well I have never done this before so I think it is a good idea to put this on SH. It has probably been done and I am hoping for lots of good advice and comments.

Chuck Feldman

[wwwarbird]

 I saw one of the Top Flite P-39's done for C/L at the Milwaukee contest a few years ago. It looked pretty good, but if you do it do your absolute best to keep it as light as possible. A lot of scale attempts end up way heavy and as a result, fly like bricks. It is very possible to have a good flying scale model though if you use your head a bit.

 A C/L conversion on most R/C designs is really pretty easy. Just use common sense and standard C/L guidelines in placing things like your leadout positions and horizontal and vertical C/G points. Making these things adjustable is always a wise choice too. Make your bellcrank mount(s) good and sturdy as well. Do these few little things, keep it light, and go have fun with it.

 Oh yeah, and show us some pictures!

[clscale7]

I have converted lots of RC kits over to CL for scale purposes. If it has wings and weighs less than 20 lbs it can be done. I have converted the 1/4 scale Sig Morrisey Bravo to CL scale, and I have seen Grant Hiestand's 1/3 scale spacewalker converted to CL scale with electric power.

To convert a RC kit to CL I do the following items:

1) Add a bellcrank in the normal position, the bellcrank location is not critical, the leadout location is critical
2) add an adjustable leadout guide, the adjustable part is important so that you can adjust the line guide to reduce the line tension especially on the larger models.
3) Add some wing tip weight in the right wing, some of my models don't even have tip weight
4) On the P-39 make sure you can adjust the alignment of the nose gear otherwise it will pull funny during taxi. I have my tailwheels and nose wheels adjustable so that I can get it to taxi correctly
5) I lock off the rudder and ailerons to zero
6) Some RC designs have positive incidence in the elevator, I take that out and put it at zero degrees, it flies better....

it will work great, I think the entire Top Flite gold edition kits have been converted at some point over to CL scale.