Wanted to find out your opinions on the sig kadet senior arf

I have one and so does my father. Great flying plane. We are using ours to carry wireless video systems. Mine is powered by a Super Tigre .51 ringed and is over powered, my father's is powered by a Saito .56 four stroke and has plenty of power. They both fly well even carrying the transmitters, cameras and 10 cell AA nicad packs in addition to the regular flight gear. If you have broadband or DSL, check out the "KSA" videos on my movies page. There is a video there of the Kadet carrying the video system from the perspective of the ground and on board.

Great flying plane as I said.

JC- Best trainer ever; you've been doing some studying! As for the radio, your JR Quattro will be just fine, with the standard servos. Engine selection really depends on your pocketbook. On the high end, a user friendly 4-stroke like the OS 70 would be very nicely suited to this model. For a lot less money, the K&B .65 would yield very nearly the same performance with a similar prop (13 X 7 works very well for either on a plane like the Kadet). The OS 4-stroke will sound much nicer, but the sound level will be about the same, which is quite low

- about 92 dBA @ 3 meters. Good flying!

Abel

I got one for my dad for father's day. It uses hitec standard gear and has an OS 46FX which is a perfect engine for this plane. The Irvine 53 would be a good engine too. It is a great trainer because it is so big it is easy to see even when far away and it moves very slowly and almost hovers into a landing. If you have the balls for it you might want to put in a 4 stroke 70 because with a 46 or 53 2-stroke you will have to put a little lead in the cowling and move the battery forward to balance it. An OS 70 or Saito 65 might be perfect and then you can fine tune your CG by moving the battery instead of adding extra weight. For either of these engines I'd put a 12-13 inch prop with a low pitch (less than 7). It will be able to pull itself out of anything and it still won't be too hot for a beginner. If you decide to do a 2 stroke, you could put an 11 or 12 incher with low pitch.

I have a kit-built Kadet Senior, and a Kadet Senior ARF. Both are wonderful planes. If you have the time, I find the kit-built version to build lighter, is more durable, and less tail-heavy. Advantages of the ARF version are less dihedral, huge ailerons, and a nice factory covering job. My kit-built one has been a real workhorse hauling cameras (35mm film - digital sucks).

My kit-built Senior is powered with a OS 40FP and an 11X5 APC prop - plenty of power, and with a super-silencer muffler, I can take off from my side yard and fly out over the field behind my house with nary a noise complaint from the neighbors. My Senior ARF is powered with an OS 46 LA, with a super silencer muffler. Plenty of power with an

11X5 APC prop.

Seniors have plenty of lift and I find that a bushing engine with an air bleed carb keeps the weight down and require less fussing than a dual-needle bearing engine. The power's just not needed with this plane to justify the more expensive engine (go ahead flame me now).

My radio is an Airtronics RD6000. Plenty of channels to trigger camera shutters, use the ailerons on the Senior ARF as flaps, etc.

Highly recommended plane. I've had mine up for 45 minutes+ on a

12-ounce tank as OS LA's are also very fuel efficient at 1/3 throttle. The Senior will even catch thermals like a sailplane. They're big, slow, and easy to see.

Good luck...

K&B 65 Sportster? Do they still make this engine?

I flew one (non-ARF) on a K&B .65 somewhere around '95. We used it for a 2m glider tug, quite successfully except for one problem - sometimes the gliders wanted to fly faster than the tug.

I'll subdue comment on the K&B .65 other than to say I'd suggest that for a

2 cycle motor I'd lean towards the .40-.53 recommendations made here already. But I'll say that it hauled the Kadet with authority. We used an old Punctilio 14-4 prop, but something like a 13-5 APC would be a logical choice for a 60-ish size engine on that plane, which is really too much motor but quite useable if you manage throttle and like to climb aggressively once in a while for kicks.

I'll reiterate my earlier vote that a Saito .72 would be a fine motor for this aircraft, with likely a 13-6 being a good prop choice. And I'm sure all the other recommendations for sport .40's up will do a good job.

Mike D.

I flew my Kadet Senior powered with an HP.49VT four-stroke engine. It had plenty of power.

Ed Cregger

Thanks for all the great input Guys. i jsut purchased the arf version of the kadet senior. have noty gotten receiver servos of engine yet i cant seem to decided the i am thinking about the fx 45 that is what the local hobby shop recamended. with putting this arf together is there anything special you can recamend or any tips to help with putting it together??

also i have never put an arf together so any links that you might have with info about putting the plane together and balancing it would be great

thanks alot

JC

Good question, Morris. I was asking myself after I posted. I know that K&B had dropped it shortly before selling out to Randy (MECOA), but he has brought some of the old ones back. I sure hope they can be had, or will be. It's pretty unique in its ability to turn a large prop slowly, i.e., essentially in the same range as a 4-stroke of similar output. I don't know of any other .60 class 2-stroke that can turn a 13X7 or 14X5 prop at 10,000 - 10,500 without cooking itself. This is the range where the K&B 65 is in its element. If I couldn't have one for a Kadet Sr, then I wouldn't use a 2-stroke at all - I'd spring the additional bux for an OS 70 FS. The real joy of a Kadet is wrapped up in 'big and slow,' and that includes the prop.

Abel

Add some triangle stock along the bottom of the vertical fin where it meets the fuse. I used plenty of 30 minute epoxy when I assembled mine but it kept loosening. Adding the triangle stock seems to have done the trick. I think the ST .51 is overpowering the plane.

In building my Senior ARF, I threw out all the metric garbage chinese-made clevises, push rods, landing gear wire, and wheels and replaced everything with DuBro hardware. I'm a little nervous about threading a steel clevis on a poorly threaded steel pushrod as someday it will give way after the metal-on-metal vibration wears the inside of the soft metal clevis. Using nylon clevis on a threaded steel rod is better, or even better yet, solder the clevis to the rod.

Another issue with Seniors, being a trike-geared plane, is that the nose wheel tends to get the tar beat out of it with hard landings, especially if you're just learning to fly. By this I mean that you'll always be messing around adjusting the nose wheel alignment or unbending it. Ditch the single strut landing gear and buy a Fults dual-strut nose gear. Tower sells them. You'll seldom have to adjust it, they don't bend, you will never ram the nose wheel through the bottom of the fuselage by smaahing the wheel into the ground, and the first thing you'll break is the firewall and the whole front of the plane, which would mean you landed *way* too hard if that happerns :)

And finally, I've owned 3 arf's that came with a Chinese-made JDL tank. All of them leaked. When you get your Senior, measure the JDL tank and buy a Hayes tank that's the same size. Tower has Hayes tanks and all of the measurements are on the web site.

To balance, I buy lead fishing sinkers from Wal Mart (cheapest source of lead that I know of) and I melt them down into a shape appropriate for where I'm mounting them. On my Senior ARF, I hung a lead square below the engine mount. Tower sells a product called the "CG Machine" by Great Planes that makes it easy to precisely balance a big plane like this.

Sig would do well to go back to packaging arfs the way they used to when the LT-40 shipped with all DuBro hardware. It took me 3 weeks of fussing to change out all the garbage hardware to DuBro. Almost makes it worth buying a kit over an ARF. That's my political comment for today :)

The guys at the club been flying a long time "25 years on down" They use os91s and the Saito fa-100. They are good on the senior, lots of power and very docile just above an idle. I have flown them and they are very good flyers, better than my nextstar. I have only been in rc 3 months so if I can handle them the big motors must work great. :cool: :D I am not trashing the nexstar just an observation :)

I have the Senior ARF; fly it on a Tower .46. Plenty of power. Those Saito 100s and OS 91s are 'way overkill.

CR

ranger351w wrote:

I flew one carrying a wireless video system. Super Tigre .51, more than enough power. My father's carrying a similar video system, Saito .56 4 stroke. Also more than enough power. I dont know why people need to over engine these things. Would probably fly fine with my much used and abused OS .46LA engine. Very fine flying plane. Can also recommend the Sig LT 40.

While you are right, with 91's and 100's they become glider tugs...

I built a Kadet Senior for my son's 10th birthday twenty years ago, which he still has. It's powered by an OS .61 four stroke....old one .....not a Surpass, which I put on it when I built it. It will get off the ground in just a few feet and it would haul "Charlie".....a radio controlled sky diver which weighs close to 2 pounds to an altitude of 800 feet or so with no problem. More than enough power IMO.

Ken

They build pretty tail heavy, and it's fun to use engine displacement as nose weight..... :-)

Good flying, desmobob

It's harder to build in lightness versus throttling back....

ROFLOL!

No, it is more fun NOT to throttle back...

Besides, if you are good the Sig Senior with a big 4 stroke CAN be backed down for a landing if the wind is slightly cooperative. Now THAT is FUN. Back it down to touch and throttle up for a vertical maneuver.