Keep your plane in one piece

[Intrepidation]

Maybe this has been done before, but I'll throw it out there anyway. When my firned got his first Super Cub, which got me into teh hobby, the plane suffered a lot of breakages.

First landing resulted in the fuselage just forward of the tail breaking off. His ran the plane into a poll and upon landing it broke the wing in half. By the time it was stolen half the plane was glued together.

However we did learn of a great way to help prevent the foam parts from easily breaking: Packaging tape. Not some tape on the wing tips and stuff, I mean the whole plane (besides the tail).

I'm sure this adds a chunk of weight to the plane, but it's so worth it. When I first got my plane we wrapped the wings and fuselage in tape, and up until yesterday neither one broke. Even yesterday, the fracture didn't go all the way through and it occurred where there wasn't much tape.

This stuff does a remarkable job at absorbing and dispersing energy. It's strong yet flexible.

The key is to use good tape. Not the crappy off brand Made in China stuff, I mean the Made in USA 3M "High Performance" packaging tape.



Like I said, it adds some weight, and it probably slows our stock motored SCs down a bit, but the piece of mind and not having to fix broken foam parts every time we have mildly rough landing (which is often where we fly) is a more than worthy tradeoff.

I'll post some close-up photos of mine

[flydiver]

That is a great idea but often way too late. Like you folks discover the need to reinforce their Cub against their creative learning experiences AFTER they have bashed them throroughly.

I've got a buddy going on his 3rd Easy Star. It's tougher than the Cub. You'd think after the first one he'd maybe figure out where & how he destroyed it and do some proactive reinforcement....nope. I guess hope springs eternal in the face of harsh reality. Probably a good thing or no one would ever have learned to fly anything.

[Intrepidation]

Thanks! I put this on before I took for its first flight...so I've been doing good so far

I also decided that it was time to replace the original cowl, because it was beat to hell after plenty of hard nose landings.

I decided to apply this idea to the cowl and so far so good (it's only been a day so far, but it only takes one hard landing to crack these flimsy things).

[Intrepidation]

Here's some close ups of the tape if anyone wants to see:









It's done a pretty darn good job of keeping it in one piece!

[gagallagher04401]

I agree I did similar when I first got my cub, and my fathers cub is like flying tape rather then a flying plane, LOL but still going strong!

I taped my fathers cowl with the packing tape with the thread in it (crazy strong) the cowls are an aweful brittel plastic, but taping it up some really makes it much more stronger, survives longer

Have fun!!
George

[Intrepidation]

Yep...over the last 2 days it has managed to survive hitting a light pole and crashing to the ground, and a mid air collision (today), and the fuselage and wings remain intact. The cowl is too amazingly. I just pulled the scuffed up tape off and put on a new layer.

[gws003]

[/img]Tape and glue is great to get back in the air,,,but once you've mastered the SC,,rebuild to stock and you'll be amazed how great it flies without all that extra wieght,,, ;D ;D

[cokebuck]

But once you get used to extra weight and power of brushless & lipo, the clean stock cub is booooring. But Yeah, throwing one in the air gives you that sense of 'Wow, this is how it all started' and then 10 minutes later, it's like Ok enough of that.

[coreykoepsel]

ive been going through alot of props ,so i started putting packing tape on them as well.
iwe dont have alot of smooth surfaces to land and take off from..so it makes them last a little longer

[Dillzio]

have you tried using a propsaver?

[flydiver]

I agree with dillzio. I did have a prop saver on mine (4mm shaft). You should minimally double band it as you are pushing the upper limits of a prop saver on a tractor setup-about 100W. On single bands mine would throw the prop on some aggressive maneuvers- terrible racket as it thrashed the cowl.

[coupe1942]

Any pics of what a prop saver looks like? I have not seen such in the local hobby store here. Perhaps I missed it though, as there is just so much to see and learn about....

[coupe1942]

Ahhh, never mind the pics, as I found the item. Question though, are these prop savers universal for the Cub or should I be looking for a specific brand as an E-Flite | Product Number EFLM1914 $2.99? I probably overlooked this item when I was at the hobby store yesterday, but as a newb, I really hadn't heard of such. It gives me a reason to return to the store though. :-)