The Cub Story

Four or five years ago I brought home a PZ Cub.  Nice little Electric RTF with a 27 Mhz radio.  I had been out of RC for awhile and wanted something to play with in a nearby school yard.  It flew pretty well.  I could get a good five minute flight.  I got interference one day on the 27 band and it nosed straight in.  I purchased a new body, motor mount, gear box and prop and rebuilt it.  Had to really watch where to fly because of local interference.  It sit on a shelf for a several years and I thought that technology was getting better so I did an upgrade.  HK 2.4 Ghz radio, 9 gram micro servos, 18 Amp ESC and LiPo battery pack.  Well it flew really well again and I could get 10 min flights on a 1200 mah 2S battery.  Somewhere along the way I put on bigger wheels for landing in the grass.  Still have to hand launch.

The brushed motor didn't last long before it overheated and quit.  Gears were getting pretty worn by then as well.  Dropped in a 300 size brushless outrunner motor and went to a 8x6 electric prop. Wow, now it's a rocket.  I fly mostly at 1/3 to 1/2 throttle.  WOT it can go vertical.  I notice the new PZ Cub is available with the brushless motor.

I decided that with all this new speed I really needed ailerons.  I set about cutting the wing and making ailerons using a couple of 5 gram micro servos on each wing.

That seemed like a great idea. However in practice the ailerons are ether too small or the servos are not quite right.  It could even be that I am disturbing too much air flow under the wings or even added too much weight, but the ailerons seem quite ineffective.  I still had to use rudder to get turns.  Lucky I had a spare wing and with the stock wing back on it is flying great.  A good park flyer for school yard flyer.  Looks great in the air and will slow down for a gentle landing.  Hand launches are easy since it will practically pull straight up. Launches are even easy with half throttle.  I still keep looking at that other wing thinking there has to be some way to make the ailerons work.  I think next try will be to replace the servos with 9 gram micros to get more throw and faster response.  It will be an interesting experiment.  I will post the results from the test flight.