Kyosho Aurum Sports 30 ARF

Model Airplane News, Aug 1998 by Yarrish, Gerry

BEING A MODELER means different things to different people. To some, it means being a pilot; to others, it means being a sawdust-covered basement dweller who creates wondrous things simply by rubbing two balsa sticks together. I fall into the balsa-cutting, glueand-paint-on-the-shirt builder category, and my flying skills are average. While at the flying field, I work on improving my skills and try to have fun.

Improving your skills requires a good airplane designed for the type of flying you want to learn. For my needs, a fastbuilding pattern ship (without retracts) was the answer. Enter the Aurum Sports 30 from Kyosho*.

WHAT'S IN THE BOX?

I've reviewed several ARF models, but I was particularly impressed with the Aurum Sports 30. From the start, it was obvious that the Aurum is not your run-of-the-mill ARF. It is a well-built, beautifully covered .30-size version of the 1.20-size FAI pattern ship, the Aurum Z, designed by FAI champion Giichi Naruke of Japan. With its long, slender fuselage and fully sheeted, double-tapered, built-up wing, there's no question that the Aurum is a miniature pattern ship. The Aurum is a taildragger, but it has fixed aluminum main gear in place of the wing-mounted retracts of its big brother.

The kit is very complete and includes well-illustrated instructions, a painted fiberglass engine cowl, clear plastic canopy, decals, wheel pants and wheels, hardware, aluminum main landing gear and steerable tailwheel. I added a Sullivan" 8-ounce fuel tank, Du-Brow vibrationreducing engine mounts and fueling valve.

Construction (or should I say assembly?) is very straightforward and takes only a few hours. The model comes with all control surfaces hinged, but you do have to glue the hinges into place. I started the project by joining the two wing panels with 30-minute epoxy. While the epoxy sets, it is a simple matter to install the tail feathers in their slots in the fuselage. Parts fit is very good, and I used thin CA to attach the parts.

When the wing panels had been assembled, I placed the wing in the wing saddle (a very precise fit) and glued the wood belly fairing onto the underside of the wing. I had to sand only a small amount of the fairing s aft edge for a perfect fit with the fuselage. I replaced the smallish, metric wing hold-down bolts with 10-32 nylon bolts and blind nuts. The main landing gear is simply held in place with wood screws, and at first I was a bit concerned. But now, after several flights, I have had no problems with the gear becoming loose or being knocked off on hard landings.

ENGINE AND RADIO INSTALLATION

The box art shows the Aurum powered with a 4-stroke engine, and I have heard that a Saito* .56 or an O.S.* .52 are ideal choices for it. I chose a Webra* .32 2-stroke engine for mine and am very pleased with the model's performance. I know of one brave soul who installed an O.S. .46 in the nose, but this is just overkill. It is good to know, however, that the lightweight Aurum can handle such horsepower bolted to the firewall. The firewall has some right thrust built in, and the instructions indicate that the engine should be offset slightly to the left to bring the prop shaft closer to the centerline. Properly set up with 3 degrees of right thrust, the Aurum tracks beautifully.

The most time-consuming task during construction was fitting the engine cowl into place over the engine. I took my time and made all the openings as small as possible. I drilled a couple of holes in the side of the cowl so that I would be able to get to the muffler-mounting screws with an Allen wrench. The cowl has to be installed before the muffler can be attached to the engine, but the clean look of the finished model is well worth the extra effort. I also left the spinner off for easier field maintenance and increased engine cooling.

I installed a JR* 8103 radio and standard-size servos for control. The elevator pushrod is a "Y" configuration with separate pushrod wires going to each elevator half. The ailerons are controlled with