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(More customer reviews)A flurry of Super Cub's have hit the market, it's an embarrassment of riches. Flyzone's entry, their Select Scale Super Cub is one of the best looking Cubs on the shelf, and it comes in a PNP and RTF version. How much more could one ask for?
Well.... a lot, as it turns out.
This Cub looks so good and is so reasonably priced, I guess something had to give. Flyzone has managed to embed all sorts of nasty vices in a simple Cub, and that's really hard to do. They must have people who specialize in complicating the handling of simple planes. I know, know, every review of this plane is 100% raves. Well, the plane isn't a great flier; it flies rather poorly. Get off the websites that are trying to steal your money and step into reality, right here.
The good news is that Flyzone's many screw-ups are, for the most part, fixable. It is a basic Cub underneath, after all. Here how to fix Flyzones long list of rookie mistakes:
First, a list of the largest flaws:
1. There is essentially no dihedral. Perhaps this is true to scale, but the scale Cub is designed to be strong and cheap, first and for most. Their is no reason to duplicate a straight wing in an RC trainer, when you can have massively improved handling by sneaking in a little wing angle--unless--your engineers don't understand basic aerodynamic trades, and Flyzone's clearly don not. There is slight negative stability, meaning, if you set the Cub out of level, it will slowly increase, not decrease both pitch and roll until it hits the ground. This holds true through out the entire flight envelope.
2. There is not enough geometric or aerodynamic washout, impairing slow flight handling. See #8 for a related vice.
3. Empennage construction is too weak; the alignment of the horizontal stabilizer "floats" in flight, inducing slight, unpredictable roll with solid pitch changes.The Cub's width is too wide for it's length, and/or, the size of the vertical stabilizer is ineffective. Adverse yaw is excessive.
4. There is erroneous reverse-differential aileron movement baked into the internal hardware mechanism, exacerbating the adverse yaw problem.
5. The gear suspension is excellent in function, but the top spring wires are too weak to handle a medium bounce.
6. The Cub is significantly underpowered with a full battery charge, and be comes severely underpowered at half battery life. The plane struggles to get over-the-top with a fresh battery, falling off to one side unless the entry is down-hill. Takeoff is tricky unless your extended runway center-line is free of obstacles.
7. Traffic pattern stall tenancy is to snap into a tight, 90 degree nose-low, rapid spin. The worst stall handling I've ever seen. Fixes so far:
1. Insert a nut between the metal wing strut and wing surface to increase dihedral. The increased static stress on the strut seems reasonable, and will likely disappear in the air.
2. Insert both a nut and a washer between the rear struts and wings.
3. Add carbon fiber bracing to the tail section (shown).
4. Mix approx. 10% rudder in the direction of aileron movement.
5. Add carbon fiber bracing (shown).
6. Change to a 9x3.8 prop for a little more pull. Use higher C rate batteries. Switch to a 400 or .10 size motor. The Super Tigre 400 ($20) is a drop-in replacement using the included plastic mount. The Super Tigre .10 ($23) also drops in with 1/4 inch tube spacers (since you can't use the included plastic mount adapter) but the bottom two mounts must be zip tied (this is a much stronger mount than the foam nose). The ST 400 saves weight and adds about 50% more power. The ST .10 is the same weight as the stock motor and adds about 300% more power. If you keep the cheap, low gauge ESC, make sure you don't pro-up the upgraded motors beyond 18 Amps. The ST .10 only pulls 14 Amps max with a 9x3.8 (compare to 54 Amps with the Bf 109 3-blade), and with less than 50% throttle required for spirited flight, and battery life is as good as stock (about 15 minutes from a 1250 mAh 3-cell). With a .10 motor and the small 9x3.8 prop, Thrust-to-Weight ratio is only slightly greater then 1:1. To handle the increased thrust without excessive climb and yaw under power use 2 washers under the top right engine mount (model's pilot perspective) to angle the trust vector down, and use 3 washers on the left mount to create a slight right thrust vector.
7. Fix #2 helps.
The Cub is easy to retrofit with ultra-bright Radio Shack 4-pin square LEDs. These LEDs operate on 2.3V to 5V. They are almost too bright to view at night with one LED wired in series for each Lipo battery cell, and they run hot enough to harden the Cub's "aerocell" foam after a few minutes of stationary use, so consider running 4 in series (12.6V/4 = 3.15V; falling to about 2.5V per LED when the battery is empty).
My Super Cub (shown) has 6 LEDs, 3 wired in series on each side of the plane (the colored Navigation Lights are double-LEDs). The Nav Lights face inward the fuselage, lighting the Cub up like a billboard at night, and reducing the blinding effect when the plane is viewed from the side. You can see the LED on/off micro toggle (also Radio Shack) in the photo, above.
Overall: C-. Great looks, good price, no power (easily fixable +$20), aerodynamic design incompetence (mostly fixable). Pls see my blog for more pictures at [...]
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Hobbico FlyZone Select Piper Super Cub RTF Airplane w/2.4GHz Radio - A2527With its distinctive high-wing design and yellow trim scheme, the Piper Cub is one of the most recognizable airplanes in the world. Flyzone's Select Scale Ready-To-Fly Super Cub model boasts impressive quality, performance and scale detail. It's equipped with the finest technology R/C has to offer. Flyzone offers both an RTF and Receiver-Ready (Rx-R) version to meet any modeler's needs, from a beginner to a seasoned veteran. The RTF includes everything needed to fly, including a 4-channel 2.4GHz radio and LiPo battery, and the Rx-R gives modelers the flexibility to equip the Super Cub with their receiver and battery. Both versions will turn heads at the flying field with their excellent flight characteristics, commanding 4' wingspan and styling. This Piper Cub Select Scale includes a 4-channel Tactic 2.4GHz TTX404 radio system, Flyzone 1300mAh LiPo battery, ElectriFly LiPo charger with AC and DC adapters, 1144kV brushless motor, 18A brushless ESC, 3 micro servos, and 4 "AA" transmitter batteries. What are you waiting for!.. Get Flying!
Click here for more information about Hobbico FlyZone Select Piper Super Cub RTF Airplane w/2.4GHz Radio - A2527
