Crazy aerobatics!

Model Airplane News, Jul 2002 by Raskin, Jef

BACKYARD FLYER

RC aerobatics: it's ballet in the air, painting lines in three dimensions, a sport, a hobby and an art form. It's also the most exhilarating kind of flying I know. For me, the combination of being the pilot and being able to watch the results is an unbeatable high. Now, high-performance aerobatic aircraft that you can fly in a small park have become available, even in almost-ready-to-fly (ARF) versions. Park flyers, with their silent operation and ability to fly in small fields in populated areas, are opening up our hobby to more people every day. Most of these airplanes are pretty tame, with their undercambered or flat-bottom wings and rudder/elevator/motor controls, but quite a few adrenaline-pumping aircraft have recently hit the scene. I've been doing a lot of flying with a WattAge Crazy Max. What can it do? I could fill this whole article with the names of maneuvers: axial rolls, inverted circles, point rolls, loops inside and outside starting from the top or starting from the bottom, avalanches, snap rolls, hammerheads, Immelmans, Cuban-8s, split-Ss, humpty-bumps, spins, inverted spins ...

And flight times aren't limited to a minute or two. Depending on your battery selection and flying style, you'll get at least 5 minutes of action-you could even go a solid 10 minutes! The Crazy Max is an outstanding aerobatic value at about $50. It comes complete with motor, gearbox, prop, and all the goodies except the RC system; you even get a great manual as a bonus. WattAge deserves kudos for a fine job.

Perhaps to make the plane fly more like a trainer, it comes with some incidence in the wing, i.e., the leading edge is higher than the trailing edge. It flies fine this way, and it can do a lot of aerobatics. But to get to the next level of precision, I glued tapered balsa pieces to the bottom of the wing saddle, where it rests on the fuselage, so that the wing is parallel to the top of the fuselage. This also makes the wing parallel to the stabilizer. Called a zero-zero setup, this is standard for precision aerobatics. By setting the model at zero-zero, and by stiffening the pushrods by gluing h4-inch-square balsa sticks along their lengths, you can make the Max do any maneuver. The only exceptions are maneuvers that require gobs of power, such as unlimited vertical climbs, hovering maneuvers and knife-edge flight. My slightly modified Crazy Max is fun to fly. It's sturdy and inexpensive, so I'm not afraid to fly it aggressively. A few times I was sure that I had bent the wing on a tight pull-up from an all-out dive; however, it never showed the least crinkle. That wing is strong! Unfortunately, the wheels are not strong, and I switched to 1.5inch Hobby Lobby LYT wheels. I also saved myself some time and made adjustments easier by using Du-Bro miniature pushrod connectors. They are a snap fit into the Hitec HS-50 servos that I used on Max.

IN THE AIR

Takeoff is straightforward on a smooth surface, requiring little or no rudder to get into the air. Rudder control is positive. The Max is small, and takeoff from grass is not practical. A hand-launch does not require an athletic arm. Landings are also easy; the model's power-off glide slope is steep enough to make it easy to land wherever you wish, yet there is enough glide energy to make a pretty flare and light-as-a-feather touchdowns. If you do need to go around, a sudden application of power won't cause a snap into the ground. Because of the forward location of the landing gear, it sometimes does a mild ground loop on landing.

The low aspect ratio and nearly rectangular planform of the Max make slow-speed flight easy and safe. Stalls are very mild and can be quickly recovered from. When you pour on the coals and put the nose down, the Max will zip from one side of a soccer field to the other in a few seconds. Because it can move quickly, it can be flown in winds that would defeat slower park flyers.

With full-house control and a symmetrical airfoil, there is little that the Max can't do in the air. I fitted mine with four servos (an option covered in the manual) and used a computer radio to droop both ailerons when the elevator goes up, and vice versa. This makes loops tighter.

Aerobatics is what this model is all about, and it delivers! Du-Bro Products (800) 848-9411; dubro.com.

Global Hobby Distributors (714) 963-0133; globalhobby.com.

Hitec RCD Inc. (858) 748-8440; hitecrcd.com.

Hobby Lobby Intl. (615) 373-1444; hobby-lobby.com.

WattAge distributed by Global Hobby Distributors.

SPECIFICATIONS

MODEL: Crazy Max

MANUFACTURER: WattAge

DISTRIBUTOR: Global Hobby

TYPE: aerobatic park flyer

WINGSPAN: 35 In.

WING AREA: 284 sq. in.

LENGTH: 26 In.

WEIGHT: 15 oz.

WING LOADING: 7.6 oz./sq. ft.

NO. OF CHANNELS: 4 (elevator, rudder, ailerons, motor)

DRIVE SYSTEM: Speed 370 brushed motor geared 3.67:1 and a 7.5x5 prop (supplied)

BATTERY USED: 680mAh

NIMH

PRICE: $50