1/3 Scale Sopwith Pup

I obtained this beautiful plane from our beloved Dave Zagwyn. I installed a Zenoah G62 and did some minor repairs. then off to the field I went.

To my visible horror, she did a three point lift off in only a few feet and proceeded to go straight up. Frantically pushing down elevator to tempt this pup to fly level she porpoised about, almost to destruction. Easing the power tamed her down to a managable power glide and she came in to a safe landing. It seemed that she was tail heavy, but I knew that I had checked that. Work needed to be done.

I called the good folks st BalsaUSA who were extremely helpful. The said to set down thrust on the engine and some side thrust. I know these are important, but apparently they are extremely important on this plane.

I also reset the elevator throws from about 2 inches up and 2 inches down to half that. And finally I changed the prop from a 22x10 to a 24x6-10. Then off to the field I went, again. You can imagine how nervous I was.

After a few "high speed" runs on the runway I lifted her off to about 4 feet altitude and checked the authority of the controls. I dialed in some rudder slaved off the ailerons and added about -40% expo. After three or four low altitude runs I felt we were ready. I knew the plane was. It was me I was worried about.

Slowly increasing the throttle I kept the mains on the ground and watched the tail wheel lift off. Some right rudder helped keep her "on the rails" and then just a hint of up elevator and she performed a near perfect scale takeoff. The left hand departure turn went well as did the remainder of the flight. I did some low flybys for our intrepid camera man - Bob Caras. And then in for a pretty darn good landing on the mains.

I'm a happy boy. Click here to see the pictures.