Here's my Estes Ringy, kit built years ago. It was a candidate for the cover of the premier issue of Control Line World. John decided to go a different route; I have flown it many times and still have it. I suspect nearly all kit-built Ringys fly about the same.
While none of them will ever be world-beaters, there are only two things wrong with it, stock, that make it fly poorly - the controls are *way too fast* and feeble 4-2 break engines.
The single most important thing, by far, is to *get the controls slowed down*, drastically, compared to the stock arrangement with the tiny elevator horn. With traditional engines, this might need to be as like as +- 3/8" total travel with full wrist movement. Leave it with the +-60 degree "flipper" and nothing else you do matters.
The other thing is to get a small, high-rev engine spinning a 4" pitch prop, instead of a Fox/McCoy 35 with a 10-6. Even a 15FP is plenty, and flies it drastically better than any vintage engine. The higher performance, particularly, holding the speed better in the corners allows you to improve the turns and make it much safer to fly, and lets you use a little bit more elevator travel without stalling.
The thing that doesn't matter nearly as much as everyone assumes, the *weight* doesn't make that much difference, and if you get the above two things right, it flies pretty OK at kit weights. I have flown flights that would probably get a 500 or higher with a bone-stock kit, full opaque dope finish, as low-mid 30 ounce range - with a 15FP and the controls slowed down. The "world's lightest Ringmaster" - which might be Larry's, which has the 15FP and slow controls - doesn't seem to fly nearly as well as the one David and I at 33ish ounces. The one David used to win at VSC is no featherweight, maybe 26-27 ounces (with a *completely worn out* Veco 19). You can build it to 16 ounces if you are so inclined. Get it to corner and I can almost guarantee it's going to come apart in flight, however.
None of this addresses the egregious structural design, of course, with kit parts and Ambroid, its not even safe to fly, because the bellcrank almost always fails the pull test at some point, and the nose will break off pretty easily, and will start stress-cracking while you are just choking the engine, unless you do something.
I have flown many, many Ringmasters stock and otherwise and they are all over the place depending on the state of the two things above.
Brett
Topic: Estes (Sterling) Stuntin' Ringmaster .35 Pro (Read 1643 times)
